Below are some tips to help you get started:

1. Gather all the loose papers around you in one place.

2. Grab one piece of paper and decide right away what you want to do with it?

    -          Do you want to keep it?

    -          Shred it?

    -          File it?

    -          Is there an action you need to take e.g. if the piece of paper is meant to be given to someone else, give it to them!

3. Do this with every single piece of paper on your pile – 10 minutes a day, one day at a time.

4. You will have moments of uncertainty – whether to throw something away or keep it.  If there is some information on the paper that you need, write it down on a note-pad and throw the piece of paper away

5. Make use of hanging files which will make it easier to flip through paper.  This will help to prevent building a paper pile in the first place! 

 You will be surprised at the kind of relief you will feel once you are done.  Enjoy!

2.      Allot a certain amount of time to such miscellaneous tasks and interruptions and make sure that your team is aware of this daily time slot so that they only come to you during those periods except for critical circumstances

3.      When someone walks into your office and has something they need to discuss but you are focused on something else, inform them that you would like to give them uninterrupted time and suggest a time when you can meet, unless it is urgent.  Putting them in your calendar and blocking out a time when you can meet shows them that you value them and their problems, you want to give them uninterrupted time and allows you to complete the tasks you are working on until you are prepared to meet.  You can also make some of these meetings lunch meetings, it helps to maximize your time.  While you both perform a function you have to perform [eating food] – you meet.

4.      Make time during the day [maybe 3 minutes] to do a quick check-up on everyone – particularly if it is a team that you manage.  Ask them how they are doing, if they are facing any challenges, need any help, etc.  This is the time when they can get to speak to you about anything they may have in mind.  It will reduce their need to interrupt you throughout the day.

5.      Close your email when you’re working on something of high priority. A simple pop-up box from outlook is enough to make you get distracted or sidetracked.

6.      Respond to each e-mail as soon as possible, even if it is simply to say “I will get back to you on this tomorrow”; when people are waiting on a response from you regarding something, it invites interruptions as they will eventually come to you for whatever they need.

7.      Learn to say NO! You will always be invited to partake in frivolous conversations; learn to simply walk away and take the person who talks the most with you.  This will help to disband the group.

8.      Shut the door half-way if you are working on something urgent

9.      Turn off your electronics if you are working on something critical, e.g. turn-off your cell-phone, shut down your Instant Messenger, put your office phone on “Do Not Disturb” - it will go to voicemail, allowing you time to complete your tasks.

10.  Make time to listen to voicemail messages and respond. 

11.  Plan social office events after business hours, monthly if possible, where people can nurture their business relationships and feel less inclined to do so during business hours.

12.  Encourage teams to go on lunch together; they can fulfill their social needs during this time, reducing the need for human contact while working.

13.  Put a physical INBOX outside your door; this is where all your mail and important documents will be placed, preventing people from interrupting you to deliver documents.           

1. Learn how to delegate: If you are a CEO, Executive, or in any position to make critical decisions for your company yet you are still deciding whether to buy plain paper or striped, something is terribly wrong.  Take a look at some of the tasks you perform on a daily basis and determine what it is you are doing that is not adding value. Get rid of it or delegate it; you have work to do!
2. Put clear Systems and Structures in place: There are a couple of best practices you simply cannot do without, things like performance appraisals, information systems, policies and procedures, etc. These things help to create some consistency in an organization and will facilitate growth.
3. If it can’t be measured, it can’t be measured: Make sure you have a clear idea of where things are going.  What should you be measuring daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly?  Whether it’s sales, error rates, bounce rates etc., it is important to have a firm grasp of what is going on, even if you don’t like the answers.
4. Create a priority list and stick to it: What are your priorities as an organization? Think of at least three things that you simply cannot allow to decline. For instance, if one of your priorities is offering exceptional customer service, then make sure that everything the company does is in alignment with that objective.
5. Evaluate the Market: It is important to know what is going on in the outside world.  What are others in your industry doing? What are best practices and worst blunders? Is there a specific trend that is on the horizon that you should be monitoring?
6. Focus on Constant Improvement: You must continue to grow as an individual or else you’ll get left behind.  Determine what areas you need to improve on, where you can stand to grow and what you can learn. Always stay current.
7. Leadership: Make people, their objectives and the company’s objectives a priority and watch yourself succeed.  Determine what you have to do to make each employee grow; try to foster creativity and innovation. If you are able to get others to do things as well as you do, or better than you do, you have won half the battle.

Interviews have become predictable, with candidates taking courses on how to perfect their resume’s and answer obvious interview questions – almost anyone can excel at this game. The less predictable an interview is, the easier it is to determine how a candidate will perform on the job.

A few things you can do before the interview:

1. Call the candidate: This is your initial contact with the candidate which will help to form the first impression. Was it easy to reach the candidate? Are there any observations you can make about the candidate from your initial conversation? I was looking for a Marketing Specialist at one point and got on the phone to speak to a candidate with a rather impressive resume, I was subjected to listening to the lyrics of Eminem’s “Yellow Brick Road” as the ring-tone – before the candidate picked up the phone with the greeting ‘What?’ It was then that I decided he would not be coming into my office for an interview.
2. Schedule the interview giving some strict instructions: Ask the candidate to send you a resume and cover letter – you will be able to use this to determine if the candidate is able to follow instructions or if they are prompt and courteous. You can also look at the content of the resume to determine how neat or sloppy they are, as well as their level of literacy. Examine resumes critically, gaps in employment can have significant meanings and at times it may be necessary to follow-up on that 4.0 GPA.
3. Assign something for the candidate to complete before the interview: Depending on the position, you may ask the candidate to do a relevant task. I often ask candidates to go to our website and then I ask them for their observations. Is the information they relay specific, insightful and well thought-out. Does the candidate actually perform the task? Do they look for opportunities of improvement?

Use as many avenues as possible to find the best people; this will help to increase your chances of hiring an A’ Player. Take your time, it will save you sleepless nights later on. People are genuinely your best asset and they can make or break your company, so be sure to look over resume’s carefully, cross-check your facts and hire for success. As Bill Gates once said:”Take our twenty best people away, and I will tell you that we would become an unimportant company”

Customer Service

I recently added a phone line to my T-mobile account. A gentleman named Tyson helped me through the entire process and not once did he ever say no to any of my outrageous demands. I told him I wanted a new line that came with a free phone and any other perks he could come up with – he dug deep into his system and found anything and everything he could to keep me happy, then told me as gently as possible when it was just not possible. I was clearly a little demanding and taking full advantage of the fact that I was a loyal customer for over 7 years – I felt a sense of entitlement and frankly T-mobile is the only place I can call and get treated as if I own an American Express black card. Most places you do business with today leave you wondering why you are spending your hard earned cash on their business when you can go elsewhere.

Dealing with irate customers is part of doing business. Consumers can be a little demanding at times but we always have to remember the person on the other end of the line is just another human being asking to be treated fairly.

Here’s how to deal with what you may call ‘difficult customers’:

1. Always be honest with your customers. At times their demands may be a little overboard – but if you tell a customer something that they believe to be untrue – you reputation is ruined forever. Don’t tell the customer ‘we attempted to deliver your package 3 times” when UPS tracking clearly indicates that you only shipped the package out the day before. If you simply dropped the ball – apologize and tell the customer the real story, you’ll be surprised how understanding they can be.
2. Stay on top of things and be informative. Things have not gone as you intended to, none of which was within your control – you have done everything in your power to fix the problem, but somehow things continue to fall to pieces. Inform the customer of changes as they occur – if you thought something was in stock and then it turns out it isn’t, let the customer know – don’t waste their time or make them do the run-around.
3. Be genuine. If you give your reps scripts that they have to follow and read whenever they speak to a customer depending on the situation – it may make the rep sound insincere. Train your reps to be courteous, genuine and caring – customers will immediately know the difference.
4. Listen and ask questions. Irate customers are people that simply want to be heard. Let them vent and ask them how you can best resolve their situation considering the circumstances – they may be able to help you come up with an acceptable alternative if their initial needs cannot be met.

Yesterday, I committed to a breeder to buy another KBT.

This time, a female. A puppy. An untrained, 3-month-old bundle of unfocused energy and a thimble-sized bladder that will need emptying (hopefully in the yard) with consistency tending on insanity — or I’ll have to keep paper towels close at hand.

I sense it all slipping away — focus, organization, productivity.

And I volunteered for this job?!

Anyone who’s trained a puppy knows the chaos that awaits. Wake in the morning to an otherwise sleeping household, and its ears perk and it’s ready to play. “Free me from this crate” they say.

And you must comply. For if you don’t the whining will commence, the household will awaken, and you’ll end up freeing the animal anyway — only now, with a houseful of angry humans.

So beginning in about three weeks, we’ll start the training. And the frustration. And the piddle on the floor. And the poop in the corner.

And we’ll know that in three to four months of focused training, it all will come to an end. We’ll have a well trained puppy.

And I’ll have a new companion in my home office.

Stay tuned. And send paper towels, if you have some…

If you’re an overworking work-at-home dad, it’s time to power down the PC, make some breakfast and coffee and focus on the woman in your life.

If you’re a work-at-home mom, it’s a great morning to tell the fam to make it a special morning (and to drag you away from your laptop and spend some time with the family).

Some tips for all:

- Pack a lunch and plan a day to some local site or place of interest - the park, the beach, the mountains (depending on your locale).

- Turn off the phones, rent some movies (chick flicks - defined by whatever your ‘chick’ likes to watch), draw the blinds, pop some popcorn, and do NOTHING but watch movies all day.

- Give her the hall pass to call the shots and do what she’d like to do today (a novel idea for any mom out there).

- Blog, Facebook or Tweet about her greatness as a mom. This is no time for humility.

Most importantly, enjoy the morning. Now, it’s time for me to get back to my wife before her Hall Pass is to banish her overworking hubby to the doghouse.

My desk is for business. My computer is for business. My two-line phone with my Plantronics headset both are for business.

Yep. This place passes the IRS’s litmus test for use “dedicated and exclusive” to the pursuit of business.

But I also work from my bed.

And the kitchen table.

And the softball diamond and hockey rink with my wi-fi laptop or simply my BlackBerry Pearl in hand.

Where is YOUR home office today?

Work is a thing, not a place. It’s not about going to the corporate tower, or a telework center, or to that erstwhile bedroom whose use is “dedicated and exclusive” to plying a trade (NOT a hobby) from home.

So when I’m blogging for business from my bed — with the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on the plasma screen and my son doing homework beside me and my wife knitting beside him — I’m working.

When I’m walking some college campus with my 17-year-old daughter who’s like a kid in a candy store wondering what school she’ll go do, and I answer an email from a New York Times reporter wanting to do a story on how people work remotely in the modern age, I’m working.

When I hold a 30-minute interview with that reporter as we’re driving 450 miles toward home that afternoon, I’m working. When I’m on a cruise and replying via satellite Internet to a client’s request, I’m working

Where is YOUR place of business? The seat of your car, a seat in the bleachers, a perch in your bed?

Work is a task to be done, NOT the place it gets done.

Does it add anything significant, or is it a requisite accessory to the Urban or Suburban milieu? Is it someone whom you care deeply for, or something you feed, bathe, tend to and drop $100 or so each year in vet visits?

Is it a companion for your home office, telework or small business experience (not to mention your and your family’s lives) or just a freeloader?

Our dog, Riley, died recently. And we lost a loving, energetic companion from our home — and from my home office.

That he died at 7 of a irreversible kidney ailment called protein losing nephropathy was bad enough. That I had said only a few weeks prior during one of his nutty Kerry blue terrier outbursts that, “I have another seven years of this behavior” left me feeling guilty like my Jewish mother never could.

That I’m left alone in the home office on days when the family’s at work or school — days when Riley would have been there for and with me — remains saddening, even two weeks later.

I’ve been left to ponder his significance lost in this space. Who was Riley? What did his presence here bring? Companionship, or angst — especially when I was on the phone with a client and the sight of a squirrel would send him into a frenetic, whine-and-bark laced tirade to catch that critter?

Comfort or chaos? Focus or distraction?

Pets in the home office can be all of those. The important role they play in our lives in general is simply transported to the home-based workspace — with equal, if not greater, import. For in the often maddening solitude and isolation of the home office, they are companions who say little, but bring immeasurable friendship.

I’ve written before about bringing “life” in the home office — plants, a fish tank, we’ve had snakes, we own a hamster now. But nothing surpasses the engaging “life” of a canine or feline for try fellowship in the home and home office.

That’s what Riley brought — until his sudden, unexpected and untimely passing.

And that’s what we hope to find as we go hunting for a new pet.

Pets play an important role in the home office, and the home. And five Zbars would attest to that — and are committed to experiencing that companionship again.

]]> http://www.lifeorganizers.com/blog/index.php/2009/05/03/dogs-cats-fish-oh-my-pets-in-the-home-home-office/feed/ http://www.lifeorganizers.com/blog/index.php/2009/05/01/got-a-mess-put-a-label-on-it/ http://www.lifeorganizers.com/blog/index.php/2009/05/01/got-a-mess-put-a-label-on-it/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 09:26:56 +0000 Jeff Zbar http://www.lifeorganizers.com/blog/?p=292 Kids’ projects and corporate files. Home-related documents and client projects.

So much paper and folders in the home and home office — so little organization.

Keeping track of all the stuff in the home office takes organizational finesse. It’s especially true if you have a home office for your home-based business or even your telework / telecommuting job.

Between the files and docs related to running the household, and those required to run a business, stuff gets cluttered.

The solution: File folders and a label maker.

There’s a reason file folders come in boxes of 50 or 100 from the local office supply superstore: Because filing is not about categorizing one, two or even five or 10 projects. It’s about organizing every project or category in the house.

You don’t have HOME files. You have files related to concepts and projects within the home. For example, in our home, we have individual folders for:

- Homeowner’s insurance.

- Home / real estate taxes. And

- Projects (a new fence, and the permits required; the air conditioner we recently replaced; landscaping; roof repair, etc.)

We have files for each child’s medical or health records, our dog, each vehicle, and a catch all called Misc. Docs. (individual receipts from big purchases, rebates, appliances, etc.)

None of these cover home office receipts or files or documents. While I’m increasingly moving toward digital for those receipts and docs, I still have a portion of my file cabinet dedicated to home office needs.

To continue the linear thinking here, each folder gets a label with the name of the category. Instead of using a pen or pencil, a label adds importance to the concept, makes it easier to spot, and increases the likelihood that I’ll adhere to the plan.

They say 21 days makes a habit. So make this a short-term experiment, and see if it sticks. Ask around to see if a friend owns a label maker. Buy a box of folders. And try this process out for three weeks or so. Chances are, once you begin putting labels on your folders, you might label much more - tool trays in the workshop, shelves in the laundry room, kids.

You get the picture.

Got a mess? Label it. You’ll bring order to your life and be able to focus on what’s really important.

Like finding a friend with ‘67 Mustang you want to borrow next…