Kevin Crenshaw
28 December 2009
Holiday decorations are a resource item. If the décor already has a home, put it there. If it doesn’t, make a home for it quickly. But if you can’t do it quickly, it is a pending action. “Collect” pending actions for your task list. (See here for details about “collecting.”)
Here’s one example: Your son gave you a painting as a present this year. Now it’s propped up against the desk, waiting to be mounted on the wall. Mounting it is a pending action. But you need to get a hammer and nail and mounting bracket first, so put “get hammer and nail” as the next step in your task list. Collect the task instead of doing it right now, and put that painting on an appropriate “Deferred” shelf in the meantime.
Here’s another: A Christmas wreath is hanging on your door. Now that the holidays are over, it belongs in the basement closet. Move it to the Christmas Decorations shelf in the closet and be done with it. Here, there’s no pending action.
Applying one of these two steps will help you recuperate quickly from the holidays, and get your house or office clean and organized for the new year.
Kevin Crenshaw is a time management expert, business consultant, and executive coach. As author of the blog ”Strategy in Principle,” he shares insights on productivity, management, and other organizational hot topics. He is also CEO of Priacta, Inc., a company that helps you get an extra two hours out of [Click title for more…]
Kevin Crenshaw
22 December 2009
Do you repeatedly change, cancel, or (worst of all) miss appointments? These symptoms could mean you need a better time management system. But if you already have a great system and you still miss appointments, then your problem might just be a bad scheduling habit or two.
Each kind of bad habit demands a different solution. So, to help you recover from your particular ailment, we’ve listed 6 possible diagnoses and their cures. Refer to this list whenever you find yourself falling behind on appointments.
Click here to read more.
Kevin Crenshaw
19 December 2009
Somewhere in our house, we’ve all got that “drawer” that we’re afraid to open. And I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean a literal drawer: a drawer so stuffed with random, miscellaneous items that we get tired even thinking about having to root through it. And if it’s not a drawer, it’s a cabinet or the top of your desk, stuffed with random things. If you can’t describe the “theme” of that drawer in 3 words or less, it’s not organized.
It came to be because every day, pieces of information fall into our laps, and these pieces of information have to go somewhere. So we began sticking the information wherever we could find space: in a filing cabinet, on top of the printer, in piles on the floor, on colorful sticky notes attached to our computers, or in a drawer where we didn’t have to look at it.
Until we do have to look at it.
This kind of “task build-up” undermines your ability to concentrate. Every time you open the drawer to get one item, all your other unfinished projects look up at you, forlornly—whining for attention.
Click here to read more.
Kevin Crenshaw
9 December 2009
If you’re like most people, you know the basic rules of common courtesy, and you try hard to follow them at work. But what if someone thinks you were rude? What if they take offense when it wasn’t intended? Or what if you came across as angry or impolite on accident?
Usually, our first instinct is to defend ourselves. “I wasn’t rude,” we say, because we weren’t trying to offend anyone. ”Besides, I had good reasons to say that.” Sound familiar?
Don’t go there! That approach sounds like you don’t care, so it’s guaranteed to make things worse by fostering contention, bruising feelings, and fracturing teams, maybe for a long time. As Yoda put it, “Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny.”
There’s a much better way.
Click here to read more.
Kevin Crenshaw
1 December 2009
This really isn’t a gripe session. We hope that Rackspace will soon deliver the “fanatical customer support” they advertise for all its clients, all the time. It’s a great slogan, it’s a superb goal, and it is achievable.
Unfortunately, Rackspace isn’t even close yet. This business case study analyzes why companies like Rackspace fall short and—more importantly—what they must change to deliver the promise.
If you yearn for world-class support in any industry, read on. These principles are universal.
Click here to read more …
