The Productivity Pro® Blog by Laura Stack - Time Management, Getting Things Done, How to Be More Productive

These days, the ability to effortlessly send data just about anywhere in the world makes international business much simpler and more profitable than ever before. One result is that national borders don’t mean as much as they used to; and therefore, offshoring—i.e., delegating specific business functions to service providers in other countries, where labor is cheaper—has become a common practice. Who hasn’t contacted a call center and ended up talking to someone with a melodious Indian accent?

Offshoring represents a natural evolution of business in the global village. But don’t forget the benefits of “inshoring”: i.e., outsourcing business functions to providers in your own community, or at least your own country.

I don’t mean to belittle offshoring by any means; it certainly has its place on the global business stage, and has, in fact, revolutionized the way American companies do business. But at the risk of sounding patriotic, I would suggest that in this time of economic downturn, you might consider looking closer to home for your outsourcing needs first. You can find top-notch American workers in all the standard outsourcing fields, from IT to technical support—along with writers, graphic artists, personal assistants, even salespeople.

And you can get some surprisingly good rates right here at home, especially given the rising costs in traditional outsourcing nations as their economies improve across the board. Even if you do have to pay slightly higher costs for inshoring, the fact that you don’t have to worry nearly as much about things like time zone differentials can make up for that. If you have a question at 2 PM in Chicago, well, that works out to 1 AM in Mumbai. If you require responses to your inquiries on the same work day, then offshoring may put your business at a disadvantage.

And let’s face it: with inshoring, you don’t have to worry as much about language, accents, or cultural differences. This becomes most significant when offshore providers handle customer service. While these issues may not bother you, they may bother your customers—and in business, the customers are the ultimate arbitrators of the bottom line. Like it or not, most people feel more at home when speaking with someone who speaks the way they do…and a happy customer is more likely to buy again.

I’m not saying you should always select a U.S. firm over an offshore business when filling your outsourcing needs; you may very well find that a foreign provider offers a better deal all around. However, I do suggest you consider the inshoring option, weighing all the variables in the balance—not just price.

Effective Teleconferencing Tips for Virtual Teams: Following the 3P’s for Success

Your marketing team is based in Chicago; you work from your office in Denver; and the team works from field sites all over the globe. You need to connect voice-to-voice to discuss next quarter’s sales efforts and don’t have the budget to travel to a central location. Teleconference, to the rescue!

Conference calls can be a great way to connect virtual teams from around the world. They are less expensive than face-to-face meetings, can often take less time, and allow teams to communicate more informally, ask questions, and solve problems better than email.

Holding one should be a no-brainer. What can be so hard about a group of people talking on the phone? All you have to do is connect everyone on the phone and make decisions as if you were in person, right? That’s exactly the dilemma: this is NOT your normal phone call. A teleconference is a meeting. To pull it off, you’ll have to do more than pick up the phone. You’ll have to prepare for it in the same way you would a meeting, with a few extra details. It’s especially complex if some participants are meeting face-to-face while others are remote.

To make sure your next teleconference is successful, follow the 3 Ps of effective teleconferencing:

Planning

These are all the things you do to prepare for the teleconference. You must prepare for it like any other meeting. Include the following items in your planning:

1. Since you’re coordinating the calendars of several busy people, scheduling a teleconference can take many days. Give yourself at least one week before the desired meeting day to find a time convenient for all.

2. A teleconference can become unmanageable with more than ten people, so try to limit the number of participants to those whose presence is truly required. Include people who can make a significant contribution to the discussion, and copy people “who need to know what’s happening” on the minutes following the call.

3. One week prior to the meeting, solicit input for items to add to the agenda. Send out a detailed meeting agenda at least two days prior to the call, specifying the meeting objective and decisions to be made. Don’t forget to send all documents, notes, and pre-work or reading required prior to the call. Keep the process simple and the schedule short. Most people can’t pay attention while listening and looking out into space for more than about thirty minutes. If you have more issues than time, plan several teleconferences to discuss different goals.

4. Include the teleconference phone number and PIN number with the messages one week, two days, and the day of the meeting.

5. Test out the teleconferencing equipment days prior to the actual meeting. Conduct a few trial runs with the other locations, to ensure you can hear them and they you. Surprises are not fun on the day of the meeting and frustrated participants have to sit around while you troubleshoot the equipment.

Process

These are all the things you do to conduct an effective teleconference during the meeting.

1. The person who calls the meeting can act as the “voice traffic controller,” or another person may be appointed. The facilitator is responsible for keeping the meeting moving and on track. The facilitator notes the topic to be discussed based upon the timed agenda and asks specific people to report out.

2. Before you speak, remember some people may not recognize your voice. Even if you think, “everyone knows me,” always begin with “This is Laura,” and then speak. When you pick up the conversation again, repeat, “This is Laura again.”

3. Don’t be afraid of silence. Because the phone is devoid of facial expressions, you can’t always read emotion. Someone may be formulating a question in his or her mind and need another minute to chime in. Silence doesn’t always imply consent. Make sure someone has finished speaking before you begin, or you always end up interrupting others mid-sentence.

4. If a group of people are meeting in the same room, with other remote sites dialing in, try to make the virtual participants feel included. If someone cracks a joke and busts the group up with laughter, let the others know who said what and repeat the joke.

Protocol

These are the guidelines and rules of etiquette and engagement for participants to follow.

1. Use the “mute” feature of the phone when you’re not speaking, so participants can’t hear your background music or barking dog. Some systems allow the facilitator to “mute all” participants, taking them off mute at selected times to ask or respond to questions.

2. Be present. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention; could you repeat the question?” is an all-to-common phrase heard during calls. Don’t risk looking unprofessional. Stay focused. As good as you think you are at multi-tasking, the conscious mind is not capable of reading email and listening to a speaker at exactly the same time. Surfing the net or pressing the mute button so you can carry on another conversation effectively removes you from the meeting.

3. Keep side conversations to a minimum. It’s frustrating as a remote teleconference participant to hear “babbling” in the background. It’s difficult to distinguish the actual speaker from the other noise and sounds like a constant echo on the line.

4. Read all pre-work and be prepared to participate actively in the conversation. Just because no one can see you doesn’t mean your voice won’t be missed if you’re silent.

I’ve come up with a few questions that you can ask yourself to see where you stand:

Are you productive — or just busy?  Watch out for this one, because it’s an easy trap to fall into.  Everybody likes to look busy.  Some workers make a career out of it while actually accomplishing very little in the average day.  People zoom around the office, guzzling coffee and stomping back and forth to the copier; they scatter paper across every inch of their desks; and they furiously clack away at their keyboards while they talk on the phone.  Busy, busy, busy!

But having lots of plates spinning at once doesn’t necessarily mean anything was accomplished.  We all know what it’s like to have a really busy day, but still feel like we’ve accomplished very little and were unproductive all day.

Set your sights on realistic, attainable goals and work towards them.  You’ll still be redirected by everyday interruptions and the inevitable fires that must be put out, but a plan will help you get back on track.

Do you plan your day?  This goes beyond just keeping track of your meetings and jotting down deadlines.  Planning your time is about keeping track of your projects and long-term goals and managing your priorities.  If all you have is a daily to-do list and never look ahead, it is very easy to spend your day reacting to low-priority tasks without even realizing it.  Sure, you’ll probably go to each of your meetings and cross off a few items on your list, but this is no guarantee that you are maximizing your productivity, making sure your daily activities are contributing toward your long-term objectives.

Take a few minutes each day to invest in planning.  This means double-checking to make sure that every meeting you attend is a good use of your time (if you have control over this sort of thing) and that your to-do list not only tells you what you want to get done, but offers some level of priority for each item.  You accomplish things in order of priority and spend some time on tasks that aren’t due in the next few days.

In the heat of the moment, it is easy to decide to spend time on a low-priority task, just because it is easy, fun, or low-stress.  After all, if you complete an easy task, you’ll be able to scratch an item off of your list right away!  We all know what a good feeling that is, but resist the temptation.  If you do the most unattractive but highest value task on your list first, you’ll feel better about the entire day.

Do you have goals?  Are you moving toward them?  Generally our biggest goals, professionally and personally, are the things that we care most about in the world.  They represent our career ambitions.  Or our goals for our families.  Or our goals for ourselves.  If somebody asked you about them, you would probably agree that your big goals in life are your highest priorities.

Then why is it is so easy to neglect them?  Our next promotion, our relationships with our kids, our physical fitness–whatever it is that matters most–so often gets pushed to the back-burner in favor of things that aren’t nearly as important.  It is too easy for unimportant work to steal family time, for office frustrations to make you lose sight of career ambitions, or for exercise to be that one thing on the list that always gets pushed to the side.

If the last few paragraphs seem all-too-true to you, you might consider grabbing a piece of paper and writing down your goals for the next month, six months, and year.  Then post your goals where they can act as a constant reminder of your true priorities.  That might be your computer monitor at work or your bathroom mirror at home.  Just make sure that you make your goals clear and post them with pride.

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” — Actors Strother Martin and Paul Newman at various times during the film Cool Hand Luke, 1967

“It seems rather incongruous that in a society of super-sophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners.” — Erma Bombeck, American humorist.

“Communication—the human connection—is the key to personal and career success.” — Paul J. Meyer, American motivational guru.

Most people just don’t talk anymore. Oh, we blather on about this and that, but too often we don’t actually communicate. Even in our private conversations, it sometimes seems like too much effort to say more than the bare minimum; and of course, really getting into a conversation takes away from our limited store of time. How ironic that in the Information Age, when we have more ways to communicate than ever before, we actually seem to converse less.

Bad enough that this in-a-hurry existence spawns the sort of cultural anomie instant communication ought to erase. But when it takes place in the workplace, as it so often does, poor communication can absolutely wreck employee productivity. Productivity at work—any work, from logging camps to ICUs and white collar offices—depends on people knowing exactly what they need to do from moment to moment. Thus, relaying instructions and requests for new tasks, whether vertically or laterally within an organization, requires clear, concise communication between the participants.

Counting The Cost

The need for clear workplace communication may seem obvious at first glance; but as with so many things, the common sense about communication isn’t always so common. Too often, requests or orders lack clarity, even at the most basic level; usually, they boil down to little more than “please get this done” without any details as to how and when (and the “please” is optional from superior to subordinate).

Worse, many recipients of flawed communications are reluctant to ask for clarification. The reasons vary from fear to laziness. Sometimes, they just don’t want to irritate the requestor by pestering them for more information. In other instances, they don’t care to invest the time required. Whatever the cause, they sometimes end up climbing the wrong mountain as a result, generating an avalanche of wasted effort and time. In other words, failure results because they didn’t want to bother someone…or just didn’t want to bother.

Maximizing Your Investment

We’ve all suffered the results of tangled communications at one point or another. For example: I like to tell the story of a CEO at an automotive company who asked an accountant for a ballpark estimate on something—an estimate he thought might take 15 minutes to produce. The accountant spent ten hours coming up with a very accurate estimate. Both people were equally to blame in this instance: the CEO for not making his assumptions clear, and the accountant for not clarifying the order.

So when communicating, consider both sides of the equation. The next time you need to relay a request or order to someone on your team, think about it a little first. Type it out, and then edit it for maximum clarity before sending. Mull over the structure of the message. Have you used any jargon the recipient might not share? Have you couched it in vague or indefinite terms, or did you hem and haw? Have you laid out a definite deadline, or did you employ passive phrases like “if possible” or “when you can”?

You can’t afford to do any of those things. Instead, construct your communications as tightly as possible. Fancy or murky language can easily lead people down the wrong path, so don’t use a $5 word when a penny one will do. Lay out specific expectations on deliverables in terms of both timeline and quality. And don’t forget: certain assumptions that work just fine with specific co-workers or subordinates may break down when applied to others, especially if you don’t often work with them, or if they’re new to the team. They may not share a common frame of reference with you, which may leave them in the dark or lead them down the wrong path.

Finally, ask for acknowledgement of both receipt of the message and understanding of it, and make it clear that the recipients can ask you clarification questions if they don’t understand.

Treat other people’s requests or orders as you would expect them to treat yours. If the communication seems cloudy, politely ask them to clarify what they need from you until you understand completely. Continue to ask questions even in the face of their irritation, if you must. That way, you limit your chances of getting something wrong—which will certainly incur the requestor’s wrath, and negatively impact your workflow. Or even your job, if you get slantwise with the boss.

The Bottom Line

If you want to raise your team and personal productivity, and ultimately pad the company’s bottom line, then you must communicate completely and clearly with your co-workers, superiors, and subordinates. Doing so is especially crucial when you need something integral to maintaining your workflow. Clear communication doesn’t require that much time or effort—and the results invariably justify the investment. If you’ll take the few minutes necessary at the outset to make sure that everyone involved has received and understood a communication properly, then you all have a much better chance of getting what you want in the end.

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), discusses the importance of having written goals. (C) 2011 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved. http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” — M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled.

“Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; if it is not managed, nothing else can be managed.” — Peter F. Drucker, Austrian management guru.

“Make use of time; let not advantage slip.” — William Shakespeare, British playwright.

Time management. You can’t escape the topic when discussions turn to personal productivity, for a very good reason: time management forms the skeleton upon which you build your productivity. It underlies all productivity programs, whether group or individual. Without at least rudimentary time management skills in play, you may stay constantly busy, but you probably won’t get anything substantial done on a regular basis.

My work often keys on time management skills and the critical need to maintain them. But often, even my discussions touch the topic obliquely, as something that goes without saying…rather like basic arithmetic. We all know how to do our sums, and without thinking much about it, we use those skills every day.

But basic time management skills require occasional review in a way that 1 + 1 = 2 doesn’t. Otherwise, you can slide off course; or worse, fall into the kind of superficial, rote behavior that develops into unproductive busywork.

So one more time: what is time management, and why do good time management skills really matter?

In its most rudimentary sense, time management boils down to organizing and budgeting time to your best advantage. In principle, we all know time management really amounts to self management. You can no more manage time itself than you can lasso the moon, since we all get the same number of hours per day. As clichéd as the preceding phrase may seem, it bears repeating, because all of us lose track of this reality occasionally.

It starts with setting goals. What do you want to achieve in your job? What are your performance objectives? Based on your job description and your boss’s expectations, what must you achieve in order to maintain a reasonable level of workplace productivity?

Establish deadlines for each of these goals, whether short- or long-term, and take especially seriously the deadlines your boss sets for you. Then determine what you have to do to meet each deadline.  Break down large goals into manageable smaller goals, and track each one separately in your time management system.

Establish priorities for all the tasks required to reach those goals, paying special attention to the ones you should deal with first: looming deadlines, crises, and items you must perform every day to keep your team and personal workflow on track. Set secondary priorities for items that lack the urgency of your Priority 1 tasks but need attention soon (or may scale up to Priority 1 later). Everything else can fall off the list if time runs short.

Once you’ve established priority, block off time on your calendar if possible to do big, important stuff goes first; fit everything else in around it, such as meetings and email. If possible, retain some flexibility in your schedule, but focus on pushing through the hardest, highest-priority tasks first—realizing all the while that your priorities might change suddenly, depending on circumstances.

Beyond prioritizing and scheduling tasks, find ways to fine-tune your focus—whether that involves isolating yourself, clearing your environment of distractions, or cutting procrastination and perfectionism out of your mindset. Make things as simple as possible, and then crank your self-discipline setting to maximum.

If time slips away and you can’t tell exactly how, keep a time log for several days, possibly as long as a week. Every 15-30 minutes, record everything you do, and how long it took. Account for every minute, including the time you spend chatting with your officemate and going to the coffeemaker. Then review your logs and see where you can trim out time-wasters.

Finally, I can’t stress enough your need to adopt a good personal time management system. Your organizer will act as the hub holding together all the disparate elements of your life. Make sure your chosen time management system contains and correlates every schedule in your life, so you don’t end up arranging a client meeting when you should be at your daughter’s dance recital. Establish an easy way to review those schedules every day, so you know what you need to do when, and add in new items as they pop up. Make room for your to-do lists, both daily and master, as well as thorough, detailed information on all your important contacts.

There you have it: the fundamental principles of time management. Plenty of nuances and wiggle-room exist here, naturally, as with all important things. But if you’ll learn to exercise basic time management skills, and continue to pay attention to and hone them as you go, it will be much easier to avoid overwhelm and other forms of productivity meltdown.

One of the trickiest parts of leadership is finding a way to strike a balance between your employees as subordinates and your employees as real, live people. Read on for some important points to keep in mind as you work to build relationships with those around you. Not a leader? I hope you’ll read on anyway. Managing relationships with the people you work with (and for) is as important to your everyday productivity as it is to your career.

Teach people how to treat you. You know how you want to be treated. But do you actively take the steps to make sure it happens? Always think about the precedents you are setting as you interact with other people – whether you work with them every day or are meeting them for the first time.

If you let others speak to you disrespectfully or second-guess your decisions, not only are they going to continue that behavior, but it is only going to get worse as time goes on.

This mindset where you actively teach others how to treat you doesn’t come naturally to everyone, but once you make it a habit you may be surprised at how easy it is to do. After all, it is much easier to gently correct one of your employees the first time they take an inappropriate tone with you than it is to break the pattern of behavior once you have let it fester over time. Nip it in the bud and speak up the first time it comes up.

This is an important tool when you are dealing with subordinates, but it is also goes a long way with your other relationships.

You might not be able to be as forceful and direct with others as you can with your employees, but the basic philosophy holds true for your friends, your family members, and even your boss. You are entitled to certain boundaries and expectations, no matter who you are dealing with.

Communicate and connect. Just as it is important to take a stand for how you would like to be treated, it is also important to build relationships in more subtle ways. Obviously you don’t want to treat work like it is a social situation, but to build strong, effective relationships with others; you can’t keep things 100 percent professional all the time. As hard as it may be to imagine, people do have lives outside of work and it’s critical that you recognize that the world does not always revolve around the workday.

But how do you connect without compromising your professionalism? Chances are that you are a busy person who isn’t particularly interested in spending large chunks of your valuable time socializing and chatting about life outside the office.

Nor should you be. But that doesn’t mean that you never take off your “professional” hat and take an interest in those around you. It only takes a few minutes to show that you care about life outside of nine to five.

Is someone requesting vacation time? Ask them where they’re headed and find out about what they like to do for fun. When they get back, make sure to take five minutes to see how the trip went. You don’t need to pry – just show an interest.

Do your employees and coworkers have families? Those families are the number one priorities in their lives. Shouldn’t you know a little bit about them? The more you are able to show you care about the people you work with every day, the better off you’ll be. Who would you rather work for – a real live person with or a stuffy robot in a business suit?

Establish boundaries. On the other hand, you don’t want things to get too personal. Depending on the culture where you work and the individuals that you work with, there may be a tendency for office relationships to stray too far from the professional and too close to the personal.

The bottom line is that you are there to work. You want to get things done and you want those around you to do the same, whether they are your office peers or your direct reports.

People say it all the time: “I’m just trying to get my work done and all Pat wants to do is chat!” That may be true, but nine times out of ten, it takes two to tango when it comes to socializing at work. If you are faced with an office gossip or someone who just can’t seem to help going on and on about their personal lives, you have probably done something to encourage the behavior.

Perhaps, just to be polite, you make it a habit of engaging people like this by simply listening to them talk or even joining in a little yourself. They wouldn’t keep coming back if you weren’t providing some sort of social payback. If you stop showing interest, they will probably find someone else to bother.

If it is one of your Employees who is the office chatterbox, you’ll need to address the issue more directly. It might never have occurred to the person that they are spending an undue amount of time socializing.

Keep them in the loop. One of the biggest sources of workplace anxiety is a lack of information. Especially in times of change, it is often assumed that decisions made at the top are being communicated down through the ranks. As a leader, the best thing that you can do for your people is make sure they have good, accurate information and that they receive it in a timely manner.

Don’t take for granted that you know what is going on and don’t assume that those beneath you have all the facts. The water cooler can breed some wild stories when people aren’t kept informed. Be open and honest. Others will appreciate it.

When it comes right down to it, connecting with others is all about respect. Respect their boundaries, respect their need to know what’s going on, and respect that they are more than employees – they are people.

If you do that, you’ll help create an environment with the type of work-life balance conducive to everyday productivity and overall satisfaction.

Sometimes I wish I were a bear, so I could hibernate for six months. Alas, I’m only human. How much sleep do you think the average adult gets per night? A National Sleep Foundation poll of 1000 adults found that 1/3 get less than 7 hours per night and only 1/3 are getting the recommended 8 hours per night. John Shepard, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center, says that most adults need between 7 ½ and 8 ½ hours of sleep per night, teens need 9 hours and 15 minutes, and small children need more.

In 1910, the average adult got nine hours of sleep per night, because without electricity, people generally went to sleep when darkness fell. Now we just flip on the lights and keep working. Americans tend to under-sleep by choice, burning the candle at both ends due to hectic work and family schedules. We believe we can have more time for work and family by allowing ourselves less time for sleep. However, many of us do snooze—at work, driving to and from work—in a state of stupefied sleepiness.

The poll actually also showed that 85% of people would sleep more, if they were convinced it would contribute to a happier life. Here are some statistics to convince you:

• The Foundation reported that drowsy workers are costing U.S. employers an estimated $18 billion annually in lost productivity. If you add in errors, damage, and health consequences, the costs are even higher.
• Overall, the quality of work, the amount of work, and your concentration EACH decline by 30% when you’re sleepy.
• A lack of sleep affects your personal life too. Among those having sleep problems, 77 percent also said they had less marital satisfaction. 38% of married respondents said they have intimate relations with their spouse less than once a week because of fatigue and lack of time.
• Studies show that sleepiness impairs memory, reaction time, and alertness. Tired people are more moody, less patient with others, and less interactive in relationships.
• Too little sleep also suppresses your immune function, which leads to increased infection and illnesses.
• Getting inadequate sleep also causes problems similar to drinking too much alcohol. Nodding off at work isn’t just unproductive; it can be disastrous. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that sleepy drivers cause at least 200,000 crashes each year. The 1989 Exxon Valdez Alaskan oil spill was reportedly due at least in part to the severe fatigue of the tanker’s sleep-deprived third mate. The Challenger accident, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island accidents were also due to worker fatigue. In rats, prolonged sleep deprivation resulted in death. (Although we haven’t had any volunteers for that study in adults yet!)

The bottom line is that sleeping well is not a luxury…it’s a necessity.

The Mayo clinic defines an adequate amount of sleep as whatever produces daytime alertness and a feeling of well-being. You shouldn’t need an alarm clock to wake you up if you are getting enough sleep. So let’s test your level of sleep deprivation!

Answer the following questions “yes” or “no”:

1. Do you get sleepy while at your desk during the day?
2. Do you consistently get grumpy or feel low?
3. Do you need an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning?
4. Do you hit an afternoon “slump” after you eat?
5. If you were a passenger in a car for an hour during the day, would you nod off if you didn’t take a break?
6. Would you fall asleep if you sat quietly and read during the day?
7. Are you likely to doze off while watching TV during the day?
8. Do you get fewer than six hours of sleep at night?

Total number of “yes” answers: _______

Check your score to see how sleepy you are:

1 – 3 Congratulations, you are getting enough sleep!
4 – 5 You are sleep deprived.
6 and up Seek the advice of a sleep specialist!

If your score is 6 or higher, you might want to consider having your primary care physician order an oximetry test on you, just to rule out a more serious problem. If your score is moderate and shows you’re simply not sleeping enough, here are some ideas to help you sleep better:

Slow your pace. Avoid activities that stimulate you, such as fast video games, arguing with a spouse, or working out, at least an hour before bedtime, preferably more. With all its sounds, lights, and color, TV-watching can be especially stimulating. Yes, you may get drowsy and doze off in front of the television, but you’ll have to wake again to settle into a sleeping position, and then experience wakefulness during the night. Your body may be tired, but your brain waves are very active after watching television. Instead, select non-stimulating activities such as light reading, ironing, doing dishes, taking a bath, or writing letters for at least one hour before bedtime.

Clear your mind. Write down everything you’re thinking about that must be done the next day. Lying in bed awake with all those reminders running through your head will prevent you from sleeping soundly. If you’re stewing over an issue with someone, journal or write a draft email but don’t send it. (In fact, you’re safest not to even put their email address in the “to” field so your trigger-happy finger doesn’t accidentally go off.) Waiting 24 hours after you’ve vented on paper will give you a better perspective, and you’ll probably be glad you put time between your writing and sending that message. The bonus? You were able to get to sleep.

Train your brain. I read an article about how some babies sleep better when exposed to the sound of a heartbeat or another “white” noise. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it on adults, too. So for Christmas last year, I bought John a sound machine. He played with the different noises and selected the “ocean” sound, with waves crashing on the shore. From December 25 until January 3, he played this sound while drifting off to sleep. On January 3, we went on vacation to Cancun, Mexico, with the family and were lucky enough to get an Oceanside room. John didn’t even need his sound machine! For someone who doesn’t usually sleep well in hotels, I was so amazed how deeply and long he slept. He was always the last one to get up in the morning. I think that Cancun vacation may well be one of his favorites, simply because he got such great sleep!

Form good sleep habits. When you lie down, can you fall asleep within a matter of minutes? No? Then you might not have the right mental association to your bed. When you get in your bed, your brain should tell your body to shut down and go to sleep. Unfortunately, many people crawl into bed and don’t put their heads on the pillow. They eat. They watch television. They read. They do paperwork. They have conversations with their significant other. They worry. As a result, these associations encourage wakefulness, and the brain soon disassociates the bed with sleep. When you finally tell it, “Okay, I’m serious now,” it takes longer to get the message. Only use your bed for sleeping and intimate relations with your significant other. Eating, watching television, reading, working on your computer, and any other activity should be done out of bed, preferably in a completely different room. Your bedroom should be your sleeping sanctuary—a place where your mind automatically goes to sleep. You’re better off doing something relaxing an hour before bedtime, such as a warm bath, aromatherapy, knitting, petting your cat, doing dishes, or reading. If you wake up during the night and don’t fall back to sleep in 15 minutes, get up. Write down everything you’re thinking about. Then try to sleep again 15 minutes later. If don’t get up, over time your body will adjust to tossing and turning instead of sleeping.

Eat and drink to sleep. Elizabeth L. Vliet, M.D., author of “It’s my Ovaries, Stupid!” says to take 200 to 400 mg of magnesium and 500 mg of calcium thirty to sixty minutes before bedtime to help your body prepare for sleep. “Studies show that your brain needs adequate levels of these vitamins, along with optimal levels of estradiol, in order to regular sleep,” says Vliet. Avoid eating a large meal just before bedtime; however, don’t go to bed ravenous—it’s about balance—have a light snack if you must. Breus says “milk, tuna, halibut, pumpkin, artichokes, avocados, almonds, eggs, peaches, walnuts, apricots, oats, asparagus, potatoes, and bananas” all promote good sleep. Also watch the alcohol before bedtime. Alcohol can indeed make you sleepy, but it is considered a stimulant and will cause wakeful sleep, nightmares, sweats, and headaches as your body clears it from your system. Try warm milk instead or even a Benadryl if you’re desperate. If you want to avoid midnight trips to the bathroom, stop drinking large amounts early in the evening. I go to bed at 10:00, and I stop drinking at 7:00. If I’m thirsty, I take a small sip of water.

Record your “can’t miss” late night shows. I often hear this excuse for staying up late: “I love the Jay Leno Show, and it’s on late.” That’s no reason to not go to bed on time. Open your user’s manual and finally figure out how to program your VCR to record your favorite shows. Or subscribe to DirectTV, use Tivo, or record to DVD. Then you can watch them on your own time, not when it’s time to sleep (and skip through the commercials to save time).

Protect your sleep when you travel. If you are traveling to a location with drastic time zone differences, try resetting your body clock several days in advance. Wake up, eat, and go to bed earlier or later, depending upon your goal, until you approximate the day-night pattern you’ll be adapting at your destination. Some globe-trotters have told me they even reset their watches to the destination time, so they can make the psychological switch as well. Try to get additional sleep before leaving and during your flight. Avoid alcohol (two alcoholic drinks consumed in a pressurized cabin have the physical effect of four drinks at sea level), caffeine, and high-calorie meals. Try to arrive a day earlier than necessary, so your brain can make adjustments before you’re expected to be coherent. In general, allow for about a day on either end to allow your body to adjust.

When I take an informal poll during a seminar and ask participants if they think daytime sleepiness is normal, about 75 percent agree. Most people also believe that feeling sleepy in the afternoon is normal. However, sleep experts tell us that daytime sleepiness is NOT normal if you’re getting the correct amount of sleep for your needs. When people start nodding off, they blame the heavy meal they just ate, the stuffy air in the room, or the boring movie they were watching. These things don’t cause sleepiness; they just unmask it. Many people don’t make the connection between the amount of sleep they get at night and how drowsy they feel during the day. Hopefully, with these tips, you’ll get better sleep at night and will be more productive the next day.

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” — Peter Drucker, Austrian management consultant and social ecologist.

“Leadership and learning are indispensible to each other.” — John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. President.

 

“Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr., American author.

Succession planning—i.e., providing for future leadership—is crucial to any organization’s long-term success. Essentially, this process boils down to “buy or build.” Either the organization hires proven leadership from outside as needed (often at the expense of loyalty), or it cultivates new leadership from the ground up.

The second option usually provides greater productive advantages than the first, though identifying and grooming emerging leaders does require considerable effort and planning. Ideally, the sequence begins with hiring only high potential candidates, though this practice can only provide a field of candidates from which to choose. They require further assessment later on, once they’ve had sufficient time to establish themselves, prove their workplace productivity, and make their talents known.

Intuition plays a part here, but otherwise such evaluation requires a standardized measurement system applied as evenhandedly as possible. If the tasks falls to you and no such system already exists, then adopt a scale based on common criteria for accomplishment and behavior, and codify it with simple, straightforward documentation. While no universal standard exists for all enterprises, keep the criteria consistent with your organization’s needs and values.

Assessing a leadership candidate also requires validation of their performance and value with a wide range of stakeholders: peers, partners, supervisors, even end-users. 360-degree performance surveys are often helpful here, as do qualitative interviews.

As a leader, ask yourself: does this person inspire trust and confidence in the people he or she works with and serves? If you aspire to be a leader, ask the same of yourself.

Notable strengths of emerging leaders include:

• Credibility
• Teachability
• Flexibility
• Self-control
• Self-discipline
• People skills
• Delegation skills
• Decision-making ability
• Forward-thinking capability
• A solid understanding of the big picture
• A reputation for delivering strong results
• Influence with peers
• Initiative
• The ability to motivate others
• Competencies specific to the position

A potential leader may not possess every one of these characteristics, but they need to possess most of them; and if they lack teachability—i.e., an obvious willingness and ability to learn—then either find an efficient way to develop the trait in them, or strike them from your list. Otherwise, they may ultimately cause more trouble than they’re worth. The ideal proto-leader must be moldable, so you can help them reach their maximum potential and fit into the leadership roles you foresee for them. Take care not to constrain them too far, of course; as I’ve noted above, they’ll need some flexibility, if only to help them deal with the dynamic business environment.

A word of caution here: don’t confuse high-performing individuals with high-potential individuals. Yes, high performers consistently offer a high return on investment; but as valuable as they are, they don’t always represent leadership timber. True high-potential workers contribute not just to the bottom line but to the organization as a whole. They assume greater responsibility with minimal or no prodding, respond well to training, understand and embrace organizational values, and think strategically in the long term.

Too often, succession planning receives consideration only when the need arises—though by then, the opportunity to make a reasoned decision has often passed. As a result, transition proves shaky at best. But in this fast-paced world, any organization that experiences a leadership crisis, no matter how brief, risks going the way of the dinosaur. Darwinian factors apply to business as well as biology, where the chief rule is “adapt or die.”

Smart organizations:

• Create a succession plan for each leadership position, from the humblest on up.
• Hire for talent, not just to fill a need.
• Provide opportunities for emerging leaders to make themselves known.
• Implement training opportunities that help emerging leaders hone their abilities.

At a leadership level, effective succession planning requires a clear eye, a delicate hand, and a willingness to act in whatever fashion best balances integrity with organizational needs. If you’re an ambitious worker, then make yourself available and obvious as an emerging leader, and work with current leadership to demonstrate your worth. Stretch yourself, and apply the effort necessary to develop as many of the above-listed leadership strengths as you can.

In this competitive economy, just being able to do your job is no longer enough.

Competence is simply expected in today’s workplaces. But you can’t be simply competent; you have to be super competent to get an edge.

Part of being super competent is discovering the six keys to unlocking your full potential: Activity, Availability, Attention, Accessibility, Accountability, and Attitude. Once you do, you’ll find you have reached a clear and practical system for achieving maximum results in a minimum amount of time. By contrasting super competent hero thinking with simply competent zero thinking, you’ll see that transforming your performance is not about mantras but mindsets.

When the rubber hits the road, the difference between merely having ability and being exceptional may be the difference between losing your job and keeping it. The best workers possess a constant, expansive ability to be good at everything they do, no matter how general or specific.

Super competent people have an acute sense of direction, in which the nature of their activities reflects their relative priorities. They’re particularly aware of one thing that escapes most of their colleagues: that being busy and being productive are two very different things.

You can be busy all day long, running from one brushfire to another, and not accomplish anything productive at all. True Activity involves knowing your goals intimately, keeping them constantly in mind, and working toward them in an efficient way that wastes a minimum of energy and time. Super competent people aren’t hidebound by the old ways of doing things, either; if there’s a possibility of doing something more efficiently, they suggest or implement it. Here are a few ways to help you fine-tune your workday in the Key of Activity, keeping things humming along like a well-oiled productivity machine.

1. Know exactly why you work hard and what you’re trying to achieve. You can’t be very productive if you don’t know what you’re working for. Plan out your goals and dreams, and work toward achieving them. Learn what makes you tick, own your destiny, and keep focused on your mission.

2. Know what to do, when to do it, and why. Take initiative and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Don’t just work on projects in the order they come across your desk; learn to structure your time and processes effectively, or others will out-compete you.

3. Create systems to perform tasks more efficiently, so you can leave the office on time. Too often, we’re gulled into working harder than we should by stuff that was supposed to make our lives easier. Step forward and create or suggest more efficient ways of doing things, so that you can take back your time.

4. Regularly rest and recharge your batteries, so that you can be productive and creative when you return to work. For heaven’s sake, you’re not a robot. Take a break when you need to! As long as you don’t become a slacker, taking time off can be one of the healthiest, most productive things you can do.

5. Do the day’s most profitable and valuable tasks first. Instead of taking care of piddling brushfire issues, learn to delegate. Put the most important tasks at the top of your list, and work through them first—then do all the rest, if you have time. It’s not a sin to let unimportant tasks go.

At the end of the day, all that matters is results—and results are measured by productivity. That means you need to be very sure that your time is not only accounted for, but has real value.

Productivity, in its most meaningful sense, is all about reaching high-value goals in every area of your life, often in the shortest amount of time (but not always, such as spending time with loved ones). Nobody cares how many things you crossed off your list. Nobody cares how busy you were last week if key projects are falling through the cracks.

Only results matter, so strive to get the most value out of every day. Grab your dreams and get going!