Some of the most unenergetic employees I’ve met in my 15 years of delivering personal productivity seminars are tax auditors in an accounting firm during the off-season. They are bored during most of the year and then worked to death during tax season. This constant bouncing back and forth between underwork and overwork has really sapped their motivation and desire to devote energy to their work. Conversely, the fall is the busiest time of my year, where there’s not much breathing space to be had until November. But I make sure to keep myself occupied productively when it’s slow; in fact, I look forward to those times. If you are experiencing a slow time, don't get bored or frustrated until things pick up again! Take advantage of it and even things out. … [Read more...]
Setting and Succeeding at Back to School Resolutions
DayTimers Community productivity expert and author, Laura Stack, offers easy-to-achieve tips to help families succeed at making and keeping back to school resolutions. Back-to-the-Future. The first step in moving forward with back-to-school resolutions is to take a look back. What were the situations from the previous school year that could use improvement? Did your child often miss the bus? Did they have a hard time making the honor roll or even passing grades? Was everyone too busy to sit down for dinner together? Once you figure out what areas need improvement, it will help set goals for the upcoming year. Talk to your children. Whether your school-age children are in elementary school or high school, talk to them about areas they would like to see change, both personally and … [Read more...]
Use laughter to boost your productivity and reduce stress levels
Have you ever had a day that had so many things go wrong, that it eventually started to be downright funny? Your toast burned. Irritating. Your seven-year-old couldn’t find his other shoe, making him ten minutes late for school and you late for work. Irritating. You dropped your briefcase, and the quarterly reports you printed for this morning’s meeting fell in a mud puddle. Irritating. At lunch with a new client, you shake the mustard bottle, the cap comes off, and a big glop of mustard flies right into the middle of your forehead. Hilarious! This is the stuff comedies are made of! Your entire morning is fodder for a sitcom. I was giving a seminar at an environmental engineering firm and was told a story of an engineer … [Read more...]
Time management joke on tracking time via time sheets
With my thanks for the laugh to Golden Jokes for this great joke on tracking wasted time on a time sheet: Dear Staff, In an effort to maximize productivity in our department I will be implementing a tool used in many industries. You will be tracking your time working on certain activities and sending me a time sheet weekly showing me how your time has been spent. Attached below is a sheet specifying a job code list based on some observations of employee activities. Please begin using this job code list immediately and let me know about any difficulties you encounter. Thank you. Your boss. Code Number Explanation 5316 Useless Meeting 5317 Obstructing Communications at Meeting 5318 Trying to Sound Knowledgeable While in a Meeting 5319 Waiting for Break 5320 Waiting for … [Read more...]
Workers’ Average Commute Round-Trip Is 46 Minutes in a Typical Day
The results from the Gallup Organization's annual Work and Education survey show the average American averages 46 minutes commuting to and from work in a typical day. If you take out those who work at home, the average increases to 48.1 minutes per day. However, if you have above-average income and work more than 40 hours a week, your commute is greater than the average, and so is your stress level. Since the advice "move, earn less, and work fewer hours" doesn't work, let me instead give you some ideas to make your commute more productive, efficient, and stress-free: Use the phone. Now I’m one of those people who get aggravated while people are chatting away on their cell phones while driving…generally because they’re not, well, driving. Many people have no idea how slowly they’re … [Read more...]
Finishing what you start
My 4th of July gift for you: I received this from a friend who knows how much I preach about finishing what you start: "During these crazy days when we're going one hundred miles per hour and stress levels are soaring, I had to stop and tell myself that Laura Stack told me I need some inner peace. I discovered that the way to achieve it is to finish all of the things I have started. I looked around my house to see things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this morning I finished off a bottle of merlot, a bottle of white zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey’s, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a package of Oreos, the remainder of both my Prozac and Valium prescriptions, the rest of the cheesecake, some saltine crackers, and a half box of chocolates. You have … [Read more...]
American Time Use Survey 2006: no wonder women are so tired!
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the results of its annual American Time Use Survey for 2006 on June 28, 2007, which is actually conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. You can sift through all the data files and accompanying documentation, but let me save you some time and summarize some interesting results. Of full-time workers, men work 8.4 hours a day on average, while women work 7.7. But 52 percent of women cleaned each day, while only 20 percent of men clean each day. 65 percent of women cook each day and only 37 percent of men. Men average 5.7 hours of leisure a day, and women average 4.9 hours. Women spend 1.2 hours a day caring for children, while men spend .4 hours. Men spent more time watching television and participating in … [Read more...]
Reduce the noise
Feeling overwhelmed? Try this little experiment---turn off your computer volume. Your psyche is constantly bombarded with all the little clicks and dings your computer makes when it performs the smallest operation—simply decide you don’t need it! You only need the volume turned up if you’re watching a file with sound, such as a video. You will be completely amazed at how much more calmness you exude and how much peace of mind you feel if you try this! Encourage your co-workers to turn off their computer volume as well, to minimize the overall background noise in your office. This is especially helpful if you work in an open-space office with several cubicles. To further reduce noise in your life, trying driving with your radio off. You don’t have … [Read more...]
Save hours of time every day: Stop watching so much television!
One primary television-watching energy drain is late night shows. Given our hectic schedules with running in the door to make dinner, running out the door to take the kids to soccer practice, and then running home to finally get the kids in bed, we literally have no time left for ourselves. We quite reasonably crave a little relaxation time, but all we have the energy to do is plop on the couch and turn on the tube. We tell ourselves, “I’ll only watch for 15 minutes, then go to bed.” But those alpha waves start humming, and Letterman is downright hilarious, and before you know it, 15 minutes have turned into two hours. So you get to bed by 12:30 a.m., and you have to wake up at 6 a.m. This pattern serves you a triple wallop. First, you’re going to … [Read more...]
What color scheme is best for personal productivity: decorating your office for productivity
Investigate the link between color and worker productivity, and you'll keep coming across the name of Dr. Nancy Kwallek, Director of the Interior Design program at the University of Texas at Austin's School of Architecture. In a recent study, she had workers do mundane clerical tasks in offices with several different color schemes and discovered that white is absolutely the worst color for productivity—at first. After being exposed to an all-white environment for a while, most workers adjusted just fine. For those who could screen out their environment from the beginning, however, bright colors were more effective, since they seem to stimulate people in general. Those more easily distracted by the environment did better in rooms painted a cooler color, like blue-green. Ultimately, however, … [Read more...]
