Good intentions and habits are part of good management of business documents. Keeping in line with our timelines, working efficiently, reaching our goals, and problem solving are part of an effective plan.
For some, roadblocks may cause a postponement of the inevitable, actions required to stay on top of the situation. Procrastination is one area, which contributes to prolonging these roadblocks. Being sidetracked is another cause for concern. What does procrastination have in common with being sidetracked? Actually, they go hand in hand. If the task is not one you are content in doing, you will quickly be distracted with the other more interesting tasks.
If there is a task I dislike, or despise, it may get deferred or set aside for awhile. Eventually, I do get around to it. I have established a new rule to resolve this problem. I start with the boring tasks and get them done, in other words, get them over with. Don't we all have work that we just don’t want to deal with and wish we could have someone else to do the work for us? Is this only wishful thinking? Either way, these tasks need to be handled and done well, no matter.
What choices do we have? In fact, we have many.
Solutions to this problem can be about how we approach these tasks or handle them. I can set time limits to getting them done, book them into my calendar, and ensure that I follow through, without fail. Practice this often enough and you will not think about it as a drab chore, it will become a part of your work habits and part of the solution.
Unfortunately, that does not always work for everyone.
Another alternative can be to delegate these duties to an employee, or hire part time help. Both are acceptable solutions. Others may find the work interesting or they may be willing to help you out. Exchange tasks in the office, work this out and make it a "Win Win" situation. Find out how you can share your duties in the same department, and assist each other in areas which may be challenging or simply not of great interest to you. If you are the manager, inspire your team to take on their work with gusto, no matter the task, and offer a reward such as employee of the month or offer a gift card every once in awhile. If we consider that all facets of our jobs are important, our efforts will become valuable assets to the company.
Do we not tend to gravitate to what we like to do?
If you are disciplined, that does not mean you will not have a problem with procrastination. If over the years, you have allowed this habit to persist, it is time to make a change. Be in charge and don’t let it continue to interfere with the management of your business activities, no matter how small or less important these tasks are to you. Take charge of your goals from the bottom up.
Francine Renaud
Records Management Consultant
http://www.timeouttoorganize.com/
Tel: 250-763-3988
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Five important tips for scheduling and organizing documents for meetings.
1. Agenda
Use your planner, paper or electronic, properly. Enter all appointments in your calendar and arrange appointments by geographic area. Select a day that you can dedicate to meeting clients or a time period on a specific day(s) of the week, which is suited to ensuring that your goals are in line with your timelines. Respect the time period allotted for the meeting as they need to keep their agenda on schedule as well.
2.Documents
Organize your clients or in-house department files according to the time period set for the meeting, and by client or co-worker. Many tools are available to file paper documents in order of appointments, such as an accordion folder. If you choose to put your papers in a briefcase, enter all documents under client name or category by business function, in a coloured folder.
For online documents, prepare a one page reference sheet, which will list the client's or colleague's names, document's names, directories / category for filing, type of documents in any format, and accompanying material in paper format. Not all documents are electronic as we still work with hard copies.
3. Notes for each meeting
This is a good time to do additional brainstorming and who knows, maybe something new will come to light, or other factors will come into play. Review and adjust notes.
Prepare an agenda and itemize all points for discussion in the order you wish to present this in Word. Print this out for your meeting. It is less distracting if you work with a paper copy in front of your client or colleagues than doing this online. Foresee any problems or roadblocks you may encounter, and offer a range of possible solutions. Allow space for comments from the client or questions you need to resolve at a later date. You don’t want to forget to talk about important matters even when they are minute in detail or comments, suggestions, or additional questions your client may have. Have you ever come back from a meeting and forgot to mention something important and have to make that extra phone call? If your schedule is very busy, it is easy to forget no matter how good the memory is.
Prior to meeting, reserve time to work or review documents needed for those meetings. Send a short e-mail message or pick-up the phone to confirm the appointment.
After the meeting, make a list of all items needed to complete the work resulting from the meeting. Enter the time allotted for work in your calendar.
4. Follow-up
Once your work is completed, call or email the client and review or add information to discuss and/or report about. Is it not a welcomed call when you know the service offered is considerate of your time, needs, and of your concerns. This short phone call or email will be valuable time spent for you and your client. This is a good time to make the arrangement for further meetings, if deemed necessary. It is important to allow the client to speak about any pending issues or problems, which were not resolved, or need more attention. Listen carefully, mirror what you hear, and suggest any new ideas, or tell them you will be working on it A.S.A. P. This is valuable feedback and information, and your clients will recognize that you are interested in providing excellent service.
5. Adjust
This is a good time to look at how you prepare yourself for meetings and appointments. Do you come in to the meeting feeling confident? Were you able to present or find all related documents for the meeting? Did you accomplish all that was needed to have a successful meeting? This will come through and your clients and colleagues will no doubt value the effort and time you put into your work and/or presentation.
Francine Renaud
Records Management Consultant
http://www.timeouttoorganize.com/
Tel: 250-763-3988
Use your planner, paper or electronic, properly. Enter all appointments in your calendar and arrange appointments by geographic area. Select a day that you can dedicate to meeting clients or a time period on a specific day(s) of the week, which is suited to ensuring that your goals are in line with your timelines. Respect the time period allotted for the meeting as they need to keep their agenda on schedule as well.
2.Documents
Organize your clients or in-house department files according to the time period set for the meeting, and by client or co-worker. Many tools are available to file paper documents in order of appointments, such as an accordion folder. If you choose to put your papers in a briefcase, enter all documents under client name or category by business function, in a coloured folder.
For online documents, prepare a one page reference sheet, which will list the client's or colleague's names, document's names, directories / category for filing, type of documents in any format, and accompanying material in paper format. Not all documents are electronic as we still work with hard copies.
3. Notes for each meeting
This is a good time to do additional brainstorming and who knows, maybe something new will come to light, or other factors will come into play. Review and adjust notes.
Prepare an agenda and itemize all points for discussion in the order you wish to present this in Word. Print this out for your meeting. It is less distracting if you work with a paper copy in front of your client or colleagues than doing this online. Foresee any problems or roadblocks you may encounter, and offer a range of possible solutions. Allow space for comments from the client or questions you need to resolve at a later date. You don’t want to forget to talk about important matters even when they are minute in detail or comments, suggestions, or additional questions your client may have. Have you ever come back from a meeting and forgot to mention something important and have to make that extra phone call? If your schedule is very busy, it is easy to forget no matter how good the memory is.
Prior to meeting, reserve time to work or review documents needed for those meetings. Send a short e-mail message or pick-up the phone to confirm the appointment.
After the meeting, make a list of all items needed to complete the work resulting from the meeting. Enter the time allotted for work in your calendar.
4. Follow-up
Once your work is completed, call or email the client and review or add information to discuss and/or report about. Is it not a welcomed call when you know the service offered is considerate of your time, needs, and of your concerns. This short phone call or email will be valuable time spent for you and your client. This is a good time to make the arrangement for further meetings, if deemed necessary. It is important to allow the client to speak about any pending issues or problems, which were not resolved, or need more attention. Listen carefully, mirror what you hear, and suggest any new ideas, or tell them you will be working on it A.S.A. P. This is valuable feedback and information, and your clients will recognize that you are interested in providing excellent service.
5. Adjust
This is a good time to look at how you prepare yourself for meetings and appointments. Do you come in to the meeting feeling confident? Were you able to present or find all related documents for the meeting? Did you accomplish all that was needed to have a successful meeting? This will come through and your clients and colleagues will no doubt value the effort and time you put into your work and/or presentation.
Francine Renaud
Records Management Consultant
http://www.timeouttoorganize.com/
Tel: 250-763-3988
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Time Management: part 1 of 4
Time management: all those tasks and corresponding documents awaiting your attention.
Is this still a challenge for most of us? With all that stuff hitting us left and right in the office environment, we need to assess and reassess our processes. With our extended world today, it is even more imposing and it becomes a daily struggle to keep on top of all those electronic messages and workload.
"Time is of the essence" is a popular saying that says it all. In business, clients, time management, and efficiency are synonymous with success. If too much time is spent with processes, email management, and finding documents, you will need to assess and define your priorities, your goals, and what needs to be done at the end of each day.
Survey:
Create a spreadsheet and start a survey for the period of one week and log the time it took to find documents and all related material, make phones calls, attend weekly and monthly meetings, and work associated with preparation and post meeting work, all visits with clients, and in marketing.
Begin with listing each major category and log your tasks under each category.
Make a list of tasks for the week and prioritize. Include time for email responses, report writing, drafts and revisions, phone calls, meetings, accounting, and other activities for the week.
Online and manual agendas and calendars:
Use your paper based or electronic calendar. Write your time schedule for the week. Allow room for extra interruptions, and they do occur.
Minimal time period:
Start dealing with tasks that require little time. Get them out of the way. Don't procrastinate with tasks you don't like to do, do them with the same intensity as you would other tasks,and it will soon become a new habit. Tasks ,which do not demand a great deal of effort or thought, can be taken care of quickly and dealt with early in the day. The pile will diminish quickly.
Response to emails that can be handled easily and do not need a lot of your time and attention due to the nature of the message, can be put on the top of the list. The list of emails will shrink considerably since we do get a lot of transitory messages. Phone calls that require you attention can be dealt with immediately.
Maximum time:
Important new and ongoing projects, conference calls, out of town meetings, ongoing activities, which require more than one hour, must be well estimated.
Log the maximum time you think it would require to write a report that day, work with your colleagues on a revised document, attend a meeting, etc. Prioritize and follow simple good practices and the stress and piles will look much better by mid morning.
Francine Renaud
Records Management Consultant
http://www.timeouttoorganize.com/
Tel: 250-763-3988
Is this still a challenge for most of us? With all that stuff hitting us left and right in the office environment, we need to assess and reassess our processes. With our extended world today, it is even more imposing and it becomes a daily struggle to keep on top of all those electronic messages and workload.
"Time is of the essence" is a popular saying that says it all. In business, clients, time management, and efficiency are synonymous with success. If too much time is spent with processes, email management, and finding documents, you will need to assess and define your priorities, your goals, and what needs to be done at the end of each day.
Survey:
Create a spreadsheet and start a survey for the period of one week and log the time it took to find documents and all related material, make phones calls, attend weekly and monthly meetings, and work associated with preparation and post meeting work, all visits with clients, and in marketing.
Begin with listing each major category and log your tasks under each category.
Make a list of tasks for the week and prioritize. Include time for email responses, report writing, drafts and revisions, phone calls, meetings, accounting, and other activities for the week.
Online and manual agendas and calendars:
Use your paper based or electronic calendar. Write your time schedule for the week. Allow room for extra interruptions, and they do occur.
Minimal time period:
Start dealing with tasks that require little time. Get them out of the way. Don't procrastinate with tasks you don't like to do, do them with the same intensity as you would other tasks,and it will soon become a new habit. Tasks ,which do not demand a great deal of effort or thought, can be taken care of quickly and dealt with early in the day. The pile will diminish quickly.
Response to emails that can be handled easily and do not need a lot of your time and attention due to the nature of the message, can be put on the top of the list. The list of emails will shrink considerably since we do get a lot of transitory messages. Phone calls that require you attention can be dealt with immediately.
Maximum time:
Important new and ongoing projects, conference calls, out of town meetings, ongoing activities, which require more than one hour, must be well estimated.
Log the maximum time you think it would require to write a report that day, work with your colleagues on a revised document, attend a meeting, etc. Prioritize and follow simple good practices and the stress and piles will look much better by mid morning.
Francine Renaud
Records Management Consultant
http://www.timeouttoorganize.com/
Tel: 250-763-3988
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