Diplo Learning Corner

Get your brain in motion

Category: Management (Page 6 of 24)

Improve scheduling and make it more effective

30/07/2019 /

We all need to improve our scheduling and make it more effective.

In our daily routine we are unceasingly exposed to facts and events that can easily draw our attention away from tasks which are essential for being efficient and fully productive at work.

Effective scheduling can help us prioritizing and preventing unfruitful struggles to cope with the demands placed upon us.

Geoffrey Whiteway on Coaching Positive Performance lists eight tips that – if daily implemented – can help us scheduling:

  1. Plan the night before: making plan the night before, will ensure you less anxiety and better night sleep.
  2. Select 1 key task: identify the most important task for each day and get that task completed.
  3. Key task first: Life is unpredictable and if somethings happens that plays havoc with your plans, getting the most important task done first will increase the probability for your day to still be effective.
  4. Context based lists: If you have more than 20 tasks to be completed, make a list and put specific tasks under headings based on the situation you find yourself in, or the resources available to you at the time.
  5. No agenda, no meeting. Avoid meetings which do not have a clear agenda, as they tend to be just “talking shops”.
  6. Establish rituals. Routines allow you to get important, repeated tasks completed with maximum efficiency and minimum thought.
  7. Only time specific tasks go in your calendar. Tasks without a deadline risk being continuously put off.
  8. Projects vs. tasks A task is something which needs to get done but has not been done yet. A project is something which needs to be done, but has not been done yet and will take more one task to get done. There is real benefit in thinking this way and breaking each project down into tasks.

Try these tips in your daily life. They might reveal useful to improve and make more effective your scheduling. They will help to improve your productivity and create some free time for you!

Improve scheduling and make it more effective

Image Source: Pixabay (CC0)

10 Tips to Work Under Pressure

17/07/2019 /
Is your routine demanding and challenging? In today’s jobs timing and productivity are not just precious, they even need to go hand in hand. It is important to find the right balance, to take advantage of time and to be able to do our best in every situation. In this article Martina McGowan suggests 10 ways to properly face up pressure.
  1. Remain calm, always.
  2. Stay focused on what needs to be accomplished.
  3. Help others to get through their taxing day.
  4. Sidestep the drama and stay positive.
  5. Get help if you need it.
  6. Steer clear of too much caffeine.
  7. Take your breaks.
  8. Use your vacation time wisely.
  9. Join in with big projects.
  10. If you are feeling stressed, avoid letting it show too much.

Read the full article

 

Image source: Pixabay – qimono (CC0)

Learn to Refuse to be more Productive

03/07/2019 /
Everybody knows somebody that even if always busy figures out how to tackle unforeseen events. These people are able to be more productive and to get their job done also with a jam-packed schedule. They rely on some basic rules aimed at limiting the daily habits and practices which reduce our productivity.
All these rules revolve around a key principle: if you want to start to be productive, you must start to refuse.
In this article, Lolly Daskal explains what enormously productive people usually refuse to do:
  1. Refuse to pursue perfection;
  2. Refuse to become distracted;
  3. Refuse to let negatively drag you down;
  4. Refuse to allow others to make your decisions;
  5. Refuse to allow past failures to drag you down;
  6. Refuse to give mental space to self-limiting beliefs;
  7. Refuse to believe what you want is impossible;
  8. Refuse to become overwhelmed;
  9. Refuse to stop learning, developing and growing.
To read the full article click here
Image source: Flickr – Matt Gibson (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Top Productivity Secrets – Master Class

26/06/2019 /

Productivity is probably one of the most commonly used words today.

All of us are looking for ways to improve, increase, hack or boost our productivity, whether that may be in the workplace or overall lives.

Articles are constantly being published and appearing on our newsfeeds on the latest secret to increasing our productivity.

Yet in all this mayhem we can end up feeling overwhelmed, not knowing which tips to implement. And we end up not doing anything at all.

In this free Masterclass, Niklas Goeke provides actionable tips that we can adopt in our everyday lives to improve our productivity without having to turn everything upside down. It’s all about small steps!

Click here to sign up to the Master Class (did I mention it is free?): Master Productivity – 14 Day Course

home-office-336378_1920

Image: Pixabay (CC0 – Creative Commons)

The Best Schedule Management Tips

19/06/2019 /

Here are 20 Schedule and Calendar Management Tips that can help you meet all those deadlines and never have to ask for more time again!

  1. Review. Then review again
  2. One event-free day a week
  3. Schedule meetings ASAP
  4. Use meeting scheduling tools
  5. Follow up
  6. Use reminders
  7. Add another time zone
  8. Import all your calendars
  9. Only meet for as long as you need to
  10. Say “no” to fact gathering or update meetings
  11. In fact, just say “No”
  12. Start on time and skip the roll call
  13. Meeting conflicts
  14. Cancel it
  15. Batch meetings on your calendar
  16. Color-code your calendar
  17. Schedule time in your calendar for email
  18. When is your productive peak?
  19. Do you REALLY need to meet?
  20. Fin time in your schedule with time-tracking tools

To learn more about each of these tips, read the full article!

20 Brilliant Calendar & Schedule Management Tips

Office, Business, Paperwork, Document, Laptop, Agenda

Image: Pixabay (CC0 Creative Commons)

12/06/2019 /

In this really interesting TED talk, Knut Haanaes talks about the importance for both companies and individuals of striking the right balance between exploration and exploitation.

Exploration means being open to new things, adopting an innovative approach and always trying to renew oneself.

Exploitation means using the knowledge and know-how that we already possess to ameliorate ourselves, our products, our services.

Though exploitation may seem like a safer option, it only reduces risk in the short term. Though exploration may seem like the best option in the fast-paced world we are living in, veering too far off from certainty can lead to failure and loss.

Finding the right balance between these two attitudes is difficult because there are many traps that keep us where we are; two traps in particular can determine failure:

  • The perpetual search trap
  • The success trap

To learn more about these two traps and how to avoid them, listen to Knut Haanaes’ TED talk:

 

6 steps to setting up a meeting for success

05/06/2019 /

It is very likely that sooner or later we will be required to organise a meeting in our professional careers. While it may seem like a fairly simple task, setting up a successful meeting means thinking about certain issues beforehand in order to avoid unpleasant situations.

It can be useful to clearly state where the meeting will take place, at what time, what the objectives are and therefore who must be present and who needn’t be. A very useful model to do this is the PALACE model.

Preparation
Agenda
Logistics
Agree timing and objective uprfront
Communication styles
Efficient follow-up

To read more about each step of this model, be sure to check out the full article!

“How to conduct the perfect meeting for account managers”

 

10 Tips On Getting the Most Out of Business Meetings

29/05/2019 /

Not only does a company waste valuable time and money conducting business meetings that don’t produce results but employees will begin to loathe attending these functions.

Here are 10 suggestions on how to get the most out of business gatherings by Stan Popovich:

1. Know what you want to accomplish. Write down a list of goals you want accomplished before your meeting and then present this to the attending members.

2. Develop a plan. Ccreate a plan on how you will communicate your goals.

3. Write a one-page summary of your meeting. Hand out a one-page summary of the major points that you want to cover during your meeting to everyone.

4. Make sure you stay on topic. If the meeting isn’t going anywhere or someone is off on a tangent, politely circle back to the important topic that needs to be addressed.

5. Ask the right questions. Write a list of questions that relates to your current business concerns.

6. Encourage participation. Create a friendly atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable expressing their opinions.

7. Determine a timeline. Make sure you have specific deadlines of when you would like your objectives to get accomplished.

8. Don’t leave the meeting right away. Don’t just finish your presentation and then leave.

9. Learn from your mistakes. Learn how to improve your company’s business meetings by reviewing past presentations.

10. Change things up. Add some variety to your meetings and do not do the same thing all of the time.

 

Image: Pixabay  – GraphicMama-team (CC0 Creative Commons)

10 Ergonomics Tips

22/05/2019 /

Ergonomics is the science of designing the workstation to fit within the capabilities and limitations of the worker, in order to design office work station so that it fits the worker and allows for a comfortable working environment for maximum productivity and efficiency.

An ergonomically correct office work station will help avoid fatigue and discomfort.

This article, provides simple tips to avoid fatigue and significantly improve office work station:

1)    Make sure that the weight of your arms is supported at all times.

2)    Watch your head position, and try to keep the weight of your head directly above its base of support (neck).

3)    Use the lumbar support of your chair and avoid sitting in a way that places body weight more on one than on the other.

4)    The monitor should be placed directly in front of you, with the top no higher than eye level. The keyboard should be directly in front of the monitor.

5)    Talking on the phone with the phone receiver jammed between the neck and ear is really bad practice.

6)    The keyboard and the mouse should be close enough to prevent excessive reaching which strains the shoulders and arms.

7)    Avoid eye strain by making sure that your monitor is not too close, it should be at least an arm’s length away.

8)    Take steps to control screen glare, and make sure that the monitor is not placed in front of a window or a bright background.

9)    You can rest your eyes periodically for several seconds by looking at objects at a distance.

10) The feet should not be dangling when you are seated.

Image: Pixabay – Skitterphoto (CC0 Creative Commons)

« Older posts Newer posts »

Archives

Archives

© 2024 Diplo Learning Corner

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑