Congratulations – you turned off the email alert and scheduled yourself to clear email after 11:00 am – didn’t you?
Messages are easily lost in the Inbox. To avoid forgetting about a message, learn to use your flag alerts. If you are visually oriented, chose a different colour for different types of alerts: e.g. follow up from your VP could be blue, follow up for you subordinates could be green. Your computer will keep track of the messages that are flagged.
Meanwhile, try and delete messages as soon as possible and file those messages that you need to keep but don’t require any further action. The filing system in your email should mirror that of you paper files. That way, your brain only has to remember one system and is more likely to remember where items are located. Finally, in the worse case scenaria affectionately known as the “beer truck phenomena” (what happens if you don’t show up tomorrow because you have been hit by a beer truck?) the risk to your company that something important is lost, is reduced, as the likelihood of finding material in your computer is increased.
Archive for September 2008
It’s back to school time. If you have children in elementary school who stay at the school for lunch, you have likely had at least on lunch bag go missing.
Today’s tip is so simple and often repeated it will soon be wearing as thin as the nylon on my own favourite lunch bag. But it works:
Write your child’s name on the Outside of the lunch bag.
Even if your own son or daughter can’t remember to pick it up or doesn’t notice it got left behind, chances are pretty good someone else will and the bag will make it back to the owner.
Just like the rest of us teenagers need to be able to anticipate the next step in theirs lives if they are expected to be prepared.
Avoid changing plans too quickly without giving your teenager time to shift gears. Help them use their agenda, day planner to other organizer to keep track of their upcoming activities, obligations and events. If you have to change/make new family plans, try and give them warning and give them the courtesy of asking what impact these changes/plans will have on their existing schedule.
This approach will assist your teen in learning to anticipate, plan and be prepare for whatever is coming down the pipe.
Are you feeling hemmed in when sitting at your desk?
Take a quick inventory of what’s on it: computer CPU, printer, screen, keyboard, telephone, several “In” piles, three projects in process (at least that’s what you can see well enough to count).
Move all the hardware off your desk. Do a quick sort of your In piles into four file folders: read, call, write, decide. Put them into a vertical file holder on your desk, to the left if you are right handed, (vice versa) with the labels facing toward you. Make sure the three projects are in some form of file holder and add them to the vertical file holder.
Take a quick inventory of what’s under it at your feet: computer CPU, printer, several pairs of shoes, gym bag, handbag, assorted brief cases or other business cases, recycling box.
Move the CPU and printer. Put the shoes, gym bag and any other clothes in the closet or in a bag hanging behing the door. Put the business cases in the closet. Use the recycling box for the sorting in the second paragraph above.
Enjoy your space.
We all have dishes, pots and perhaps many other items in our homes that we used seldom if ever. In this case, the client rarely if ever served fondu and now that her children were away at university, it seemed even less likely she would ever use it. The client was not interested in a garage sale and the pot contained enough sentimental value, that she wanted to find a new home where it would be used.
Sound familiar?
A helpful approach to shedding these objects is to ask yourself a) how often do I use it? b) how easily can I replace it or borrow another one if and when I do need it.
Ask around family or friends to see if anyone else would like a fondu pot or if they have family heading off to university or setting up a home that might like one. If they already have one, ask if you could borrow it from time to time.
Overwhelmed with email? Many of us are. Many of us are also concerned with the amount of time it can consume. Have you ever found yourself still clearing email several hours after you started, not having realized the time that was eaten up?
To begin taking back control, turn off the email alert on your screen. Very few of us really need to know when emails are coming in unless we have a time-sensitive message for which we are waiting.
Avoid clearing email first thing in the morning. Having planned your list of things to do the night before, you know what your top priorities are: let those have your best hours first thing in the day. Schedule time to clear email towards the middle of the day and again later in the day. Allocate a certain amount of time and stick to it.
This question came from a client who had just replaced her glasses. She was eager to see her old glasses put to good use.
Most reputable opticians (in Canada) collect their client’s unwanted eye glasses to send to communities overseas for use by individuals who otherwise would not have access to eye glasses. Ask your optician directly if they participate in such a program or for redirection to another optical store that does.
