Time Management - Education, Personality Development

20 Time-Management Lessons Everyone Should Learn In Their 20s

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sat, 10 May 2014 02:35:00 +0000

RICHARD FELONI
Posted on MAY 8, 2014, 12:04 PM
Article from http://www.businessinsider.com

When you're just starting your career, you need all the help you can get managing your time. Even when you're working hard, you could be wasting a tremendous amount of time either by trying to multitask or by focusing too much on minute details.

Montreal-based designer Étienne Garbugli has struggled with all of that. But as he's gotten older, he's learned how to manage his time and workload more effectively. Today, he's a consultant and entrepreneur, and recently published his first book, "Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want."

Last year, he collected some of his favorite lessons in the SlideShare presentation "26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I'd Known At 20." In December, SlideShare named it the "Most Liked" presentation of 2013.

Below, we've explained some of Garbugli's best time-management tips everyone should learn in their 20s.

1. There's always time. Time is priorities.

You never "run out of time." If you didn't finish something by the time it was due, it's because you didn't consider it urgent or enjoyable enough to prioritize ahead of whatever else you were doing.

2. Days always fill up faster than you'd expect.

Build in some buffer time. As the founder of Ruby on Rails and Basecamp, David Heinemeier Hansson said, "Only plan on four to five hours of real work per day."

3. Work more when you're in the zone. Relax when you're not.

Some days you'll be off your game, and other times you'll be able to maintain your focus for 12 hours straight. Take advantage of those days.

4. Stop multitasking. It kills your focus.

There have been academic studies that found the brain expends energy as it readjusts its focus from one item to the next. If you're spending your day multitasking, you're exhausting your brain.

5. We're always more focused and productive with limited time.

Work always seems to find a way of filling the space allotted for it, so set shorter time limits for each task.

6. Work is the best way to get working. Start with small tasks to get the ball rolling.

The business plan you need to finish may be intimidating at 8 in the morning. Get your mind on the right path with easy tasks, such as answering important work emails.

7. Work iteratively. Expectations to do things perfectly are stifling.

Gen. George S. Patton once said, "A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

8. More work hours doesn't mean more productivity. Use constraints as opportunities.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that sitting at your desk will somehow extract work from you. Do whatever you can to finish your current task by the end of regular work hours instead of working into the night.

9. Separate brainless and strategic tasks to become more productive.

Ideally, you can brainstorm your ideas and then execute them. If you're constantly stopping your flow of work to rethink something, you're slowing yourself down.

10. Organize important meetings early in the day. Time leading up to an event is often wasted.

If you have an important meeting scheduled for 4 p.m., it's easy for anxiety to set in and keep that meeting at the front of your mind. Try to get them over with early so you can work without worrying about them.

11. Schedule meetings and communication by email or phone back-to-back to create blocks of uninterrupted work.

You'll disrupt your flow if you're reaching out to people throughout the day.

12. Work around procrastination. Procrastinate between intense sprints of work.

Try Francesco Cirillo's "Pomodoro Technique." "Pomodoro" is Italian for "tomato," and it refers to the tomato-shaped cooking timer Cirillo used to break his work into 25-minute increments with 5-minute breaks in between. You can use the same idea with your own increments, as long as they inspire bursts of hard work.

13. Break down a massive task into manageable blocks.

Alabama football coach Nick Saban follows a similar philosophy he calls the Process. Instead of having his players focus on winning the championship, he trains them to focus only on what is directly in front of them — each block, pass, and field goal.

14. No two tasks ever hold the same importance. Always prioritize. Be really careful with to-do lists.

Daily to-do lists are effective ways of scheduling your day. Just do what you can to keep bullet points from making "clean desk" on par with "file taxes."

15. Always know the one thing you really need to get done during the day.

To help prioritize, determine what task in front of you is most important, and focus your energy into getting that done as soon as possible.

16. Delegate, and learn to make use of other people.

To be truly efficient, get over the fear of handing work off to someone else. "If something can be done 80% as well by someone else, delegate!" says John C. Maxwell, author of "How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life."

17. Turn the page on yesterday. Only ever think about today and tomorrow.

Don't distract yourself with either the successes or failures of the past. Focus instead on what's in front of you.

18. Set deadlines for everything. Don't let tasks go on indefinitely.

Spending too much time on a project or keeping it on the backburner for too long will lead to stagnation. Get things done and move on.

19. Always take notes.

Don't assume you'll remember every good idea that comes into your head during the day. It doesn't matter if it's a notebook, whiteboard, or an app like Evernote — just write stuff down.

20. Write down any unrelated thoughts that pop up when you're in the zone, so that they don't linger as distractions.

You'll get them out of the way without losing them.

RICHARD FELONI
Posted on MAY 8, 2014, 12:04 PM
Article from http://www.businessinsider.com

Five golden rules of time management

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sat, 03 May 2014 03:31:00 +0000

Both entrepreneurs and their staff should consider a few key areas, to help them become more productive than ever

Jon Card

Guardian Professional, Thursday 1 May 2014 09.28 BST

Posted from http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/

Successful time managers usually have to-do lists to keep them on track. Photograph: Alamy

Time management is a contentious subject. Many of the prescriptions of experts and consultants can be both counter-intuitive and critical of how workplaces are actually governed. Its maxims tend to take issue with micro-management and call for people to take control of their own time, work and personal lives. Ultimately, time management is a personal goal process, but there are a few key areas which everyone should consider. These five golden rules are designed for both entrepreneurs and their staff and should help you to become more productive than ever.

The to-do list

Every successful time manager has a to-do list of some sort and entrepreneurs are no exception. Sir Richard Branson believes in lists so much that he adorned the inner sleeves of his biography with them. To-do lists are typically done daily and are meant to help us focus on what's urgent and important. Time management expert and business consultant Mike Gardner recommends writing a to-do list at the same time every day. "It's generally agreed that they should be done at the same time every day, for me it's the night before," he says. To-do lists are great for left-brain logical types, but for some they can be a problem. However, an action list of three things, which can only be done by the individual, should work for most people, he says. "I recommend that people write down three things they want to achieve and focus on those first. Take it as far as you can and then move on to the next thing."

One task at a time

Concentration works best when it is focused on a task in hand. Constant interruptions break our train of thought and increase the time it takes to do tasks. It's not always possible to prevent every interruption, but don't float between tasks. Also, try to limit distractions and persuade others to leave you alone when you're busy. "A two minute phone call takes away about 15 minutes of productivity if it interrupts an important task, similarly emails are very distracting," says Gardner. "I recommend only checking emails three times per day, in the morning, midday and evening. Also, I let calls go to voicemail if I am busy. In truth most people can do this. We wouldn't respond if we were in a meeting or at the hospital, so it is doable. Often it's about training others as to how you work and taking control," says Gardner.

Automate where possible

With online tools emerging all the time, our existing working practices quickly become old-fashioned. A regular review of your current methods might well reveal ways of improving efficiency through automation. "If you've done it more than three times then create a system to do it for you," advises Nicola Bird, CEO and founder of online coaching company Jigsawbox. Bird built up her company while also raising a family and is a strong advocate of simplifying life wherever possible. Her company uses a range of easy to operate systems to handle emails, follow up on sales and handle admin. All systems must also undergo the 'Tilly Test' (named after Bird's young daughter), which means they must be so simple that even a child could understand them. "If you automate your income streams you can focus on the important things in life," she says.

Parkinson's law

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion," declared British civil servant Cyril Parkinson. It's a point which many have taken exception to over the years, but there does seem to be some truth in it. It's remarkable how much we can all achieve when pushed, so cut down on your workload by slashing the time spent doing it. Gardner reckons that if we really enjoy a task we tend to stretch out the time it takes to complete it and there's a great deal of procrastination in the workplace. "Sometimes we should say: 'that's good enough'. It's not that we should not do good work, but that often we achieve 80 % of the task in 20% of the time we spend doing it. The rest of the time is spent attempting to perfect it, when really we should stick to time limits and complete the task."

Take a break

The final rule of time management is the most paradoxical of them all - do nothing. If we work around the clock, we become less productive, creative and prone to making costly mistakes. Everyone needs sleep, some time off and a little time to step back and think about things. Angela Muir, head of leadership and people practice at Ashridge Business School, says all business owners need to take breaks, although the exact amount of time required is a personal decision. "There's no 'one size fits all' approach for holidays, the key things are about autonomy and control," she says. Muir also says that business owners that get too sucked into the world of work can dramatically reduce their effectiveness. A lack of sleep can reduce productivity by as much as 80% and mistakes are bound to follow.

Entrepreneurs are liable to burning out and should step back before they do so. "There's something about stepping away from the dance floor and going up to the balcony to look down on things for a while - stepping back and recharging your batteries is a good idea," Muir says.

For Nicola Bird, this has a special resonance, and she is now determined not to overwork, as she has done in the past. "I used to be really goal driven. I was striving to get everything, the seven-figure company, the house, the car, etc. But when I achieved it all I didn't feel any happier and I also became really ill," she says. The illness became a watershed moment in Bird's life and she has since embarked on her Simplicity Project. "It's about taking things off my to-do list and focusing on what's important. We need to be more aware of how we are feeling and how this affects our ability to work."

Similarly, Gardner says he's seen many middle and senior managers burn out and advises against burning the candle at both ends. "No-one says 'I wish I spent more time in the office' when they're on their deathbed," he says.

Jon Card
Guardian Professional, Thursday 1 May 2014 09.28 BST
Posted from http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/

Time Management Skills Are Stupid. Here’s What Works.

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:46:00 +0000

By Eric Barker
March 28, 2014
http://time.com/

Put the schedule down for a second.

Consider something I read in The Power of Full Engagement: Maybe it’s not about time. It’s about energy.

Via The Power of Full Engagement:

Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.

It’s a qualitative lens instead of a quantitative one. Focusing on your time management skills sounds great but all hours are not created equal.

We’re not machines and the time model is a machine model. Our job isn’t to be a machine — it’s to give the machines something brilliant to do.

Do you accomplish more in three hours when you’re sleep-deprived or in one hour when you feel energetic, optimistic and engaged?

This may sound fluffy but it’s an important perspective to take: 10 hours of work when you’re exhausted, cranky and distracted might be far less productive than 3 hours when you’re “in the zone.”

So why not focus less on hours and more on doing what it takes to make sure you’re at your best?

Work Like An Athlete

For most people, good work happens in sprints, not marathons. Time management skills don’t address that.

Use the analogy of an athlete. They might train for long periods of time but the focus is not on monotonous hours of uninspired grind.

For athletes, it’s a focused explosion of effort followed by rest and planning before another all-out push.

Via The Power of Full Engagement:

Their entire lives are designed around expanding, sustaining and renewing the energy they need to compete for short, focused periods of time. At a practical level, they build very precise routines for managing energy in all spheres of their lives–eating and sleeping; working out and resting; summoning the appropriate emotions; mentally preparing and staying focused; and connecting regularly to the mission they have set for themselves. Although most of us spend little or no time systematically training in any of these dimensions, we are expected to perform at our best for eight, ten, and even twelve hours a day.

Forget the stereotype of the dumb jock. The athlete metaphor is actually quite good for the modern day worker.

Who is more concerned with results over theory than athletes? Who looks at metrics more than they do?

Via The Power of Full Engagement:

They aren’t satisfied with inspirational messages or clever theories about performance. They seek measurable, enduring results. They care about batting averages, free-throw percentages, tournament victories and year-end rankings. They want to be able to sink the putt on the eighteenth hole in the final round, hit the free throw when the game is on the line, catch the pass in a crowd with a minute to go on the clock. Anything else is just talk.

The Research Agrees

A lot of research on self-control and willpower aligns with what The Power of Full Engagement says about focusing on the proper use and renewal of energy.

In my interview with Roy Baumeister, author of the New York Times bestseller Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, he made clear that every decision you make depletes your self-control:

Making choices depletes willpower and afterward your self-control is impaired. If you have people exert self-control and deplete their willpower and later on have them make decisions, then their decision-making is of poor quality.

President Barack Obama makes deliberate efforts to limit decision fatigue so he can devote his mental energy to things that matter:

“I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing,” he told Michael Lewis. “Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

So when you perform different types of work is key.

Do you wake up fresh and renewed — only to respond to thirty depleting emails solving someone else’s problems?

Jealously hoard your prime hours for important work. Respond to email when your brain is already taxed.

It’s Not Just Physical

It’s not merely an issue of physical energy. The book also discusses softer things like relationships, optimism and meaning that bring energy to our work days.

Work metrics get measured and analyzed but we’re terrible about being as accountable in our personal lives — even though the latter can make a huge qualitative difference in performance.

Via The Power of Full Engagement:

“It’s great to know how to recharge your batteries, but it’s even more important that you actually do it,” Vinod Khosla, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers told Fast Company. “I track how many times I get home in time to have dinner with my family. My assistant reports the exact number to me each month. Your company measures its priorities. People also need to place metrics around their priorities…”

Personally, if I don’t schedule significant social time into my weekend, Monday hits me twice as hard. It feels like I never really “got away.”

A 40-hour week after a weekend getaway is quite different from a 40 (or 50) hour week without it.

Research shows vacations increase productivity at work for up to a month afterward. All hours are not the same.

What To Do Next

If you want to work like an athlete, here are things to take into consideration:

Get enough sleep: Nobody is at their best when exhausted.

Know your prime hours and use them strategically.

Time meals and snacks to make sure you have the energy to do solid work and you’re not hungry or sluggish when you need to perform.

Strategically use rituals that keep you positive and energized. Does social time rejuvenate you? Does a video game session help you relax?

Schedule evening and weekend activities that recharge you.

No doubt, time management skills are necessary. But just as with your relationships, “quality time” matters and right now there’s little focus on that.

By Eric Barker
March 28, 2014
http://time.com/

The Skinny on Time Management: How To Maximize Your 24-Hour Gift

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:56:00 +0000

By JIM RANDEL
Reviewed by MARGARITA TARTAKOVSKY, M.S.
Article from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/

Time management is no doubt a universal topic. Especially in today’s productivity-focused society, most — if not all — people want to know the secret to managing their time more effectively. The Skinny on Time Management: How To Maximize Your 24-Hour Gift aims to do just that: provide the best of the best of time management advice in a slim, CliffsNotes-style book.

This book is one of many in the Skinny On… series, which was founded by attorney and entrepreneur Jim Randel. The concept is that Randel reads through tons of writings on a topic, handpicks the important points and highlights them in mini-book form. When it comes to time management, according to Randel, after reading 100 articles and books on the topic, he noticed that “all the writings say pretty much the same thing.” Thereby, The Skinny on Time Management strives to condense all this information, and lays out the 50 principles you need to know.

The book is presented as a cartoon with a series of drawings, large text and bullet points, so it’s easy to breeze through. Randel is portrayed as a stick figure instructor who guides readers on an hour-long lesson — he promises that you’ll read the book in one hour, but it seems to take a bit longer than that.

The Skinny on Time Management is divided into two parts. Part 1 helps you better understand how you spend your time. Specifically, Randel discusses the importance of being aware of time. He shows readers how to keep a time journal so you become “aware of your own theory of relativity,” as Randel calls it. Next, he talks about setting and defining goals, and illustrates how to conduct a goals-steps-time analysis, so you can identify not only your goals but the steps you need to take and how much time they’ll take. The last section in part 1 discusses making choices. Here, Randel briefly talks about making the right decisions, which will need to be in line with your goals.

Part 2 is essentially the meat-and-potatoes of the book, as it gives readers specific tips on time management. It discusses everything from minimizing wasted time to beating procrastination to creating effective to-do lists to increasing focus. Throughout the book, you’ll find humorous tidbits, anonymous quotes and, most importantly, the tips and wise words from experts in the field. It ends with 10 points to remember about time management.

The tone is friendly and the book delivers on its goal of being clear-cut and straightforward. Remember that Randel isn’t presenting any new or revolutionary information on time management. Rather, he’s summarizing what he feels are the most effective techniques and insights from experts. Overall, I think readers will get motivated by this book and find nuggets of wisdom — if they’re unfamiliar with the topic of time management, want an introduction into useful practices (and would like to get it fast) or are bogged down by the various productivity systems out there. Obviously, you won’t find deep discussions of theories here because that’s simply not the nature of this book.

As a whole, I think The Skinny on Time Management: How To Maximize Your 24-Hour Gift accomplishes what it sets out to do: provide a quick-and-dirty look at time management tips that work, and serve as a motivational tool.

The Skinny on Time Management: How To Maximize Your 24-Hour Gift

By Jim Randel

Rand Media Co.: January 2010

134 pages

Paperback, $14.95

JIM RANDEL
Reviewed by MARGARITA TARTAKOVSKY, M.S.
Article from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/

Skills that make successful managers

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:14:00 +0000

BY: Ruth Steyn
Published on 14 May 2013
Article from http://www.destinyman.com/article/

Successful managers can be hard to find, as not everyone has the right balance of skills, experience and knowledge. Here’s how to build your management know-how.

Often, employees are promoted to managerial positions before they are equipped with the right skillset, and are then left with little support to face their team. In situations like this, there can be many landmines to negotiate: young teams in need of strong leadership; older and more established teams that resist new management; “difficult” or resentful team members – the list goes on. So what does it take to get it right? What do you need to know if you’re a new or aspiring manager? There’s no formula for perfection, but there are some good practises that apply to all fields and industries.

Understand motivation and group dynamics

For many people, it is not enough to hear: “You can do it”. Motivation is not based purely on confidence and self-belief. In fact, there are a multitude of factors that can affect an individual or team’s motivation. Some common reasons include poor stress management skills, difficulty in coping with change, personal concerns that are affecting performance at work, exclusionary behaviour of other team members, feelings of inadequacy, and a sense of purposelessness. These are all issues that can be addressed, but first it is necessary to identify the root of the problem. Depending on the size of your team, it may not be feasible to assess each individual. In this case, it is often wise to identify key players as well as influencers – often, one or two individuals’ behaviour can have a profound effect on the group as a whole. Understanding the dynamics behind behaviour is paramount in finding ways to create a constructive and thriving team environment.

Learn what makes communication work, and what doesn’t

Not everybody communicates in the same way, and not all communication techniques are effective in any given situation. Familiarise yourself with various ways of breaking bad news, negotiating with difficult parties, eliciting responses and feedback, and mediating. The more strategies you are familiar with, the easier it is to change tack if a particular approach is not working. This doesn’t mean you’ll always get it right, but it certainly increases the odds.

Find effective ways to manage your time

To say that the phrase, “there are just too few hours in a day” is overused is an understatement. There are as many hours in the day as there have always been, and trying to pack in an unreasonable to-do list is can be detrimental to your overall wellbeing as well as your ability to do your job effectively. Hold yourself to realistic standards, prioritise activities, and ask for help if you need it. Time management is an essential skill for good management, so trade in the time spent on complaints and excuses for the more productive exercise of finding ways of managing your time that work for you.

Develop healthy coping mechanisms

There will be days when everything seems to be going wrong, and you may feel that you are not cut out for management. Learn to understand what triggers this feeling and ask yourself (or someone whose opinion you respect) whether there is something constructive you can do to remedy the situation. However, nobody expects you to be perfect, only to do your best, so don’t let yourself down by wallowing in self-doubt. Coping mechanisms can be a saving grace, but be sure to cultivate healthy habits: venting your frustrations in the office lunch room or snapping at a colleague may seem fairly harmless at the time, but you can quickly develop a reputation for unprofessional conduct. Whether it’s excusing yourself to call a friend, taking a few deep breaths outside or making yourself a strong cup of coffee, try to develop coping mechanisms that neither alienate others nor create further problems.

Advance your skills

It is vital to take care of your own professional development if you wish to advance your career. Whether this means learning from colleagues, participating in training programmes or signing up for part-time courses to expand your skills and knowledge, prioritising growth and development is the biggest gift you can give yourself. There is no such thing as being “too highly skilled” – perhaps for a particular job, but all this means is that you are ready for a more senior position or a change of path.

Learn to be an effective manager with the University of Cape Town Effective People Management short course. The course is presented part-time and entirely online throughout South Africa by the University of Cape Town in partnership with online education company, GetSmarter. For more information, contact Dominic on 021 447 7565 or on dominic@getsmarter.co.za. Alternatively, visit www.getsmarter.co.za and choose from over 30 online short courses designed for working professionals seeking to advance their career.

Ruth Steyn
Published on 14 May 2013
Article from http://www.destinyman.com/article/

Navarrette: It's time to limit what we try to fit into our daily lives

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Ruben Navarrette Jr. says in today's multimedia and multitasking world, Americans would do better to focus on fewer activities and juggle less.

By Ruben Navarrette Jr. | May 11, 2013 | Updated: May 11, 2013 3:16pm
Article from http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/

How are your time management skills? Or, like me, do you think that the whole thing is a non-starter because you don't have much free time to manage?

It's the modern American paradox. We value our time above all else, even money. And why not? With time, you can make more money. But at the end of your days, money can't buy you more time.

We now have all these portable electronic devices that are supposed to help us save or better manage our time, and yet many of us still complain about not having enough time to do what we really want - like spend more time with our families. What's worse, and rarely talked about, is that we're trying to squeeze too many activities, hobbies and tasks into the time we have. From homemakers to hedge-fund managers, we're spreading ourselves too thin, and so we're doing too many things halfway.

Several years ago, my wife gave me what turned out to be very valuable advice. She had come home one day to find me multitasking. Actually, it was more like juggling. I was trying to care for my infant daughter while dashing back and forth to my home office to try to finish a column. She put a stop to that. Pick one, she demanded.

"When you're going to be with the baby, be with the baby," she said. "And when you're working, work. Don't try to do both, because both will suffer."

Wise words. The kind that might have been useful to one of America's best known media critics.

Howard Kurtz is formerly of The Washington Post and, after a recent parting of ways, now formerly of The Daily Beast. He also hosts "Reliable Sources" on CNN, a Sunday media criticism show that the network says is under review.

Kurtz's career seems to be suffering because he made a serious error in a story about pro basketball player Jason Collins, who recently announced that he is gay.

During an extraordinary segment of "Reliable Sources" where CNN invited two other media critics - Dylan Byers, media reporter for Politico, and David Folkenflik, media correspondent for NPR News - to grill the host, here's how Kurtz explained what went wrong:

"I read the 'Sports Illustrated' article by Jason Collins, the first pro male team athlete to come out publicly as gay. I read it too fast and carelessly missed that Jason Collins said he was engaged previously to a woman, and then wrote and commented that he was wrong to keep that from readers when, in fact, I was the one who was wrong."

At first glance, this is a story about a media critic who is now under the same microscope that - for more than two decades - he has put many of his colleagues. It's about making mistakes, which we all do. And being willing to correct them publicly, which many of us are not always eager to do.

But for me, this story is about something bigger, something that goes far beyond the Beltway and should resonate with millions of Americans.

That's because, when Folkenflik asked about what had been Kurtz's "multiple roles" - media critic and Washington bureau chief of The Daily Beast, author, CNN host, contributor to a new media website, etc. - and whether the journalist had been "distracted," Kurtz said this:

"I'll leave it to others to judge whether I have taken on too much. I have always done both print and TV. I shouldn't say always, but for a long time. My kids tell me I work too hard. It's hardly unusual in the multimedia world for people to take on multiple responsibilities."

Kurtz is right. It is a multimedia world and it is customary for those of us who participate in it to juggle several jobs at once. I myself worry about doing too much. For me, it is a process of continual self-evaluation.

But this is also a cautionary tale, and not just for journalists. All Americans should take note. We can't possibly do everything. So we should focus on doing just a few of what we consider the most important things, and doing them well. Otherwise, we may wind up accomplishing nothing at all.

Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com
Ruben Navarrette Jr. | May 11, 2013 | Updated: May 11, 2013 3:16pm
Article from http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook

Five College Skills You Can Use To Boost Your Career

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sat, 11 May 2013 08:05:00 +0000

May 06, 2013 by William Frierson
Article from http://www.collegerecruiter.com/blog/2013/05/06/five-college-skills-you-can-use-to-boost-your-career/

The word “skills” on a chalkboard. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

You have a degree. Now what?

For many college grads, looking back at the time spent feverishly studying for term papers and putting together presentations can be nostalgic. It can also reveal some crucial life lessons learned throughout your time in college.

Although some lessons learned will not apply to all types of jobs, the career path you choose will benefit from the skills you acquired during your education. Here are the top five college skills you can use to build up your career and get you started in the real world on the right foot.

1. Communication – First and foremost, you need to be able to properly and effectively communicate with others. In college, you meet a lot of people. When you do, you learn how to connect with a variety of communication styles. This lesson can be applied to any job that you may begin. Whether you are a doctor needing to communicate with your patients, or a web developer needing to communicate with clients, communication skills are crucial.

2. Problem Solving – Throughout your college career, you work hard to solve problems in your class, social life, and schedule. These problem-solving skills prove beneficial in a career, regardless of which field you enter. To be exceptional at problem solving, you must think analytically and creatively. You must have an exceptional ability to use reason and initiative to come up with solutions. Your creative side will help you to think outside the box to come up with innovative ideas that will help bring you to the next level in your career.

3. Time Management – Organization is a crucial life lesson to have. From juggling work and family, you must be able to know your limits and manage your time effectively so that you can accomplish everything on your plate. In college, you are focused on multiple courses and internships at one time. Out in your job, you will focus on a variety of tasks in each workday. Using your time management skills learned in college can help you to prioritize tasks and get your projects completed on time, every time.

4. Integrity – Ethics in the workplace, whether you go into healthcare or the corporate world, are vital to your career success. While not always talked about in job interviews or cover letters, having integrity to stay true to your values and do what is right in every situation will help you be successful now and in the future.

5. Self-Motivation – Going to college, waking up for class, and holding a steady job requires you to be motivated. Just showing up takes initiative and drive. In your career, you can take this passion to be the best person you can be to another level by exceeding expectations each and every time. Show your employer that you are goal-oriented and your drive to make it to the top and you will impress the right people to help you get ahead.

As you head out into the workforce, holding onto these intrinsic values will help you get ahead. You will become a better person for having developed these life skills, and your career will benefit from it.

About the Author:

Joyce Del Rosario is a career and education blogger and she is a part of the team behind Open Colleges and InformED, one of Australia’s leading providers of Open Learning and distance education.

William Frierson

Article from http://www.collegerecruiter.com/blog/2013/05/06/five-college-skills-you-can-use-to-boost-your-career/

Better life

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:54:00 +0000

Written by Armando O. Bartolome
Published on Tuesday, 07 May 2013 18:59
From: http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/business/entrepreneur/13129-better-life

THIS column is dedicated to those are searching for a better life. Many of us are almost always faced with stresses and challenges daily. Recent reports about the young in particular easily giving up disturbed me, as you should also be.

Time management binds our life. The Pareto Principle also known as the 80:20 Rule states that 80 percent of efforts that are not managed or unfocused generate only 20 percent of desired output, but that 80 percent of the desired output can be generated using only 20 percent of well-managed efforts. Although the ratio 80:20 is only arbitrary, it is used to emphasize how much is lost or gained through judicious or wasteful time management.

Some people view time management as a list of rules that involves scheduling appointments or setting goals or priorities through thorough planning. But there are more skills involved in time management than the core basics of making it to meetings or achieving targets, among them, learning to make decisions and developing inherent abilities, such as critical thinking.

Personal time management involves everything big and small that you do. Every bit of knowledge you acquire, each new advice you consider and each new skill you develop should be considered in managing your time well.

Getting results, not being busy, is what personal time management should be all about. To get the results, you first have to improve your physical, intellectual, social, career, emotional and spiritual aspects, key areas to achieving a better life.

The physical aspect involves having a healthy body and lessening stress and fatigue.

The intellectual aspect involves learning and other mental-growth activities.

The social aspect involves developing personal or intimate relations and being an active contributor to society.

The career aspect involves school and work.

The emotional aspect involves manifesting feelings and desires.

The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning.

Thoroughly planning and preparing a to-do list for each of the key areas may not be very practical, but determining which area in your life is not being given enough attention is part of time management. Each area creates the whole you. If you are ignoring one area, then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.

Personal time management need not be so daunting a task. It is a very sensible and reasonable approach to solving problems big or small. Practice it and enjoy self-fulfillment and other benefits.

Through the following, learn time management and improve your personal life:

o Review your goals whether short term or long term.

o Make good on the review by keeping a list of such goals. You should always have access to the list.

o Always determine which task is necessary or not in achieving your goals and which activities are helping you maintain a balanced lifestyle.

o Do the difficult tasks when you are at your sharpest.

o Learn to say “No.” You actually hear this advice often. Heed it even if it involves saying the word to family or friends.

o Pat yourself on the back or just reward yourself in any manner for effective time-management results.

o Try to get the cooperation of people around you who are actually benefiting from your efforts to manage your time well.

o Don’t procrastinate.

o Adopt a positive attitude and set yourself up for success but be realistic in your approach in achieving your goals.

o Have a record or journal of all your activities. This will help you put things in their proper perspective.

Personal time management is the art and science of building a better life. In acquiring time-management skills, you are presented options on how to grow personally and doors for opportunities to knock on. A happy life to all.

Feel free to visit my web site http://www.gmb.com.ph

Written by Armando O. Bartolome
Published on Tuesday, 07 May 2013 18:59
From: http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/business/entrepreneur/13129-better-life

10 Time Management Tips That Work

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:33:00 +0000

Are you working on clock time or 'real' time? Learn how to manage your day by understanding the difference with these 10 time management tips.

BY JOE MATHEWS, DON DEBOLT AND DEB PERCIVAL

From: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553

Chances are good that, at some time in your life, you've taken a time management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. "Why, with this knowledge and these gadgets," you may ask, "do I still feel like I can't get everything done I need to?"

The answer is simple. Everything you ever learned about managing time is a complete waste of time because it doesn't work.

Before you can even begin to manage time, you must learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as "the point or period at which things occur." Put simply, time is when stuff happens.

There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years old, no more or no less.

In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you're doing. Two hours at the department of motor vehicles can feel like 12 years. And yet our 12-year-old children seem to have grown up in only two hours.

Which time describes the world in which you really live, real time or clock time?

The reason time management gadgets and systems don't work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don't live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time, a world in which all time flies when you are having fun or drags when you are doing your taxes.

The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You create it. Anything you create, you can manage. It's time to remove any self-sabotage or self-limitation you have around "not having enough time," or today not being "the right time" to start a business or manage your current business properly.

There are only three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations and actions. Regardless of the type of business you own, your work will be composed of those three items.

As an entrepreneur, you may be frequently interrupted or pulled in different directions. While you cannot eliminate interruptions, you do get a say on how much time you will spend on them and how much time you will spend on the thoughts, conversations and actions that will lead you to success.

Practice the following techniques to become the master of your own time:

Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You'll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.

Any activity or conversation that's important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they're unworkable.

Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.

Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.

Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you're doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having "office hours." Isn't "office hours" another way of saying "planned interruptions?"

Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.

Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what's missing in your next call or activity?

Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you absolutely have to get work done.

Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.

Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.

Remember that it's impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.

Matthews has held management roles with Subway, Blimpie, Motophoto and The Entrepreneur’s Source. DeBolt is a former president of the International Franchise Association. Percival works in franchise development. They are co-authors of Street Smart Franchising from Entrepreneur Press.

BY JOE MATHEWS, DON DEBOLT AND DEB PERCIVAL

From: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553

7 Steps for Keeping Physicians On Time at ASCs

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:06:00 +0000

Written by Laura Miller | April 11, 2012

Article from ASC Reviews

There are several ways to maintain efficiency at surgery centers, but ASCs can't be efficient unless surgeons have good time management skills.

"In my view, time management is one of the single most important things for ASCs," says Larry Teuber, MD, chief medical officer and president of Medical Facilities Corporation and founder and physician executive of Black Hills Surgery Center. "When I look at the efficiency of the facility, I look at what it costs to perform operations. The cost of a facility includes drugs and supplies, implants, payroll and general overhead. One of the largest wastes is payroll, meaning that surgical start times, turnover times and surgeon tardiness are probably one of the most expensive costs in the center, and the hardest to track."

Dr. Teuber discusses how surgery centers can make sure physicians start on time and maintain their schedules throughout the day.

1. Define "start time." Different specialists within the surgery center often have a different interpretation of what start times are. Anesthesiologists will have a different idea than perioperative nurses and OR technicians about when the actual "start time" begins. Dr. Teuber recommends defining start times; his group defined "start time" as the moment when the surgeon walks into the pre-op room and sees the patient.

"The fact is, everything depends on the surgeon coming to talk to the patient, sign the extremity, autograph pre-op consent and make sure the patient is ready to go," says Dr. Teuber. "There is a huge amount of wasted time if you think of the number of people who are lined up waiting for surgery — pre-op nurses, anesthesiologists, circulators, surgical assistants, postoperative specialists and recovery specialists — all dependent on when the surgeon is present in the morning. The costs on payroll are huge even if the surgeon is 15 minutes late."

Once the "start time" is defined, preoperative staff can prepare the patient before that time and everyone else will manage their schedule based on the surgeon entering the patient's room on time.

2. Shorten turnover times. Facilities must have a realistic vision of their turnover times and always work to make that time shorter. If there isn't enough time planned between patients to turnover the room, the next case will start late and both patient and physician time will be wasted. This also means staff will stay longer and place a burden on the payroll.

"The single most expensive waste in the facility comes from wasting time, and waste means inefficiency," says Dr. Teuber. There will be some unforeseeable delays, such as difficult intubations, problems during induction, problems because the patient is obese or technical challenges during surgery that could make the procedure run over schedule.

When delays are unpredictable, the center can roll with the punches; however, when delays occur due to physician tardiness or inappropriately scheduled OR times, there are ways the surgery center can eliminate them.

3. Track procedure times and make sure surgeons follow them. When surgeons schedule cases for an hour, but they are constantly taking one hour and 40 minutes to perform their cases, you must be prepared for delays.

"Continually track the time it takes surgeons to perform procedures," says Dr. Teuber. "Typically it takes a certain length of time and if the surgeon schedules it for less, that's inefficient. Surgeons will seldom schedule their cases for longer than it typically takes, but you have to make sure the schedule reflects the actual time it takes them to do the procedure."

For example, if an ACL repair usually takes 45 minutes, surgeons might schedule a case for 30 minutes because they are optimistic. Most surgeons predict they will need less time for a procedure because they don't foresee complications; however, statistics say complications occur.

4. Schedule cases efficiently. When cases have a low chance of running long or over schedule, it makes sense to schedule them earlier in the morning; cases that are less predictable should be scheduled later in the day so fewer cases run the risk of starting late.

"Procedures like knee surgery and carpal tunnel release can be done at the beginning of the day," says Dr. Teuber. "Spinal fusions, revision joint replacements and other spinal procedures should be scheduled at the end of the day."

5. Monitor when surgeons are late and modify the schedule. When surgeons are chronically late for their start times, schedule their cases for later in the day. If they are usually 15 minutes late for a 7:30am start time because they have a hard time getting out of bed earlier, the scheduler can move their start times from 7:30am to 8:00am.

"It's terribly inconsiderate for surgeons to be habitually late," says Dr. Teuber. "We monitor that and if we have a surgeon who's habitually late, we move back their start times. In a partnership, you should respect your partners, staff, patients and patients' families."

6. Assess penalties to chronically late surgeons. If moving the start times doesn't fix the problem, the center could fine surgeons for the wasted time. "If tardiness becomes a continual problem, we assess surgeons a fine for being late," says Dr. Teuber. "When a surgeon is late, the patient and families blame the facility, not the surgeon, so it reflects poorly on us. Surgeons could be late for several reasons during the day, such as their clinic running late or they were working at the hospital, but we have to deal with it."

Dr. Teuber's team compiles every minute chronically late surgeons waste and converts those numbers into financial statements. For example, if every 15 minutes of wasted time costs the center $525 — and adding up all the late time for three months equals 15 hours — the surgeon has wasted $31,000, or around $10,000 per month, just by being late.

"When you show people the economics of the situation, it starts to make sense," says Dr. Teuber. "Then the other partners in the group start wondering why one surgeon is always late and costing the center so much money. We present this information to the partners and they want to make sure everyone runs on schedule."

Sometimes the transition from the hospital to a surgery center setting is difficult because surgery centers are built for efficiency while hospitals are bigger organizations where it takes longer to move through the processes. Make this transition smoother by imparting a strong culture of efficiency in the ASC.

7. Reinvent the culture like a well-run business. If surgeons are used to hospitals where things run on a slower and less efficient clock, you'll need to reinvent their attitudes for the outpatient surgery center setting. "The most important thing is to understand and define what is efficiency and inefficiency," says Dr. Teuber. "Efficiency is really the amount of input it takes for an output. Inefficiency means something isn't as good, for a reason."

Consider how much time is spent in the operating room and how much waiting time is necessary. In a hospital, in the big economic picture, there is very little material waste but huge amounts of money are spent on implants and wasted time. In a surgery center, the goal is to cut the time between cases as much as possible.

"The staff has to make sure everything is done so the surgeon isn't waiting on them," says Dr. Teuber. "Everything must be ready and everyone must be in position when the surgeon comes in — on time — ready to operate."

Article from ASC Reviews

Put Time Back on Your Side

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:56:00 +0000

Our quiz will show you if time is controlling you. Next month, learn the steps that will get your time back in your control.

BY SUZY GIRARD-RUTTENBERG | January 30, 2009|

Article from The Entrepreneur

Part I

Time and again, you've made all the right moves to master time--to put a firm harness around what's surely the most elusive but powerful asset in your life and business.

You bought the latest and greatest BlackBerry, iPhone or PDA. You attended time-management seminars. You juggle, multitask and mind map. You delegate, prioritize and project.

At the end of the day, you confront a frustrating reality--you've still been robbed. Robbed of time and, in turn, opportunities.

The hours flew by, thwarting intentions to advance your most important plans. Your greatest goals sit on paper--instead of in motion--deferred for yet another day, week, month or year.

You wonder why there's never enough time, and you daydream about having more hours in a day.

"I am organized and a great planner," one business owner told me. "But everything changes when my plans intersect with what comes up in a given day. . . . I can never seem to run my day. Instead it's always running me."

Another business owner and friend of mine once complained, "It seems I spend my days in a frenzy of activity but achieve very little; so much time is wasted with insignificant tasks, rather than concentrating on the things that matter most. If I step back and look at my day, I'm very busy--but I feel like I don't get anything done."

Both are bright, successful businesswomen, but they sense they're squandering valuable time, rather than working smarter and taking control of their time. If time doesn't feel like it's on your side, you need to uncover your time bandits, those productivity-robbing patterns that deny your life and your business of realizing their full potential.

Take the following self-evaluation to discover whether your relationship with time is powerful or dysfunctional. The results may surprise you:

I'm more comfortable using paper than an electronic calendar.

Tasks or activities often take longer than the time I allot for them.

I spend a great deal of time in meetings.

I spend a lot of time waiting for other people.

My calendar usually fills up with things I need to respond to, instead of reflecting my priorities.

I worry a lot about things that will or could happen.

I spend a lot of time pursuing outstanding receivables.

I have a difficult time saying "no."

I pride myself on being a perfectionist.

I have a lengthy to-do list.

How did you do? If you sailed through the checklist and answered yes to only one or two items, you're a pretty effective time manager. Still, there are things you can do to tweak your relationship with time to make things even better.

If you answered yes to more than three questions, you're good at many things but still have some challenges when it comes to managing your time. With a little guidance, you can take powerful steps to move to a higher level of productivity and goal attainment, in business and life.

Of course, if you answered yes to five or more questions, it's time you took steps to regain mastery over your precious time.

So where do you start? How do you go about regaining control over time so that you're not busily working here, there and everywhere (and not getting much done anywhere)?

Next month, in "Put Time Back on Your Side: Part 2," I'll identify aspects of time management that will help you work more efficiently and become the master of your time.

Part II

Mick Jagger famously declared his mastery over time. "Time," he has sung for more than half a century, "is on my side, yes it is!"

Maybe so for a Rolling Stone, but most of us regular folks feel about time the same way as author William Penn, who once lamented, "Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst."

Awkward English aside, wasted time is also fixable. Time management is a skill that can be learned. Everyone has tools at her disposal to regain mastery over time--at work and in life. It just takes a little effort.

In my previous column, Put Time Back on Your Side: Part I, I offered tips on how to evaluate your relationship with time and determine whether you're a minor or egregious misspender of time, or somewhere in between.

Here are the promised tips to help you be more like Jagger and get time back on your side:

Tip No. 1: If you're attached to your paper calendar, go electronic. Your reliance on paper is doing you (not to mention your environment) more harm than good. You won't have a backup if your trusty paper planner is misplaced, and it's hard to use as a long-term planning platform.

Electronic calendars allow you to map out your entire year strategically, scheduling recurring commitments and activities months ahead of time, all with a few simple keystrokes. Strategic scheduling is critical to implementing long-term plans and accomplishing larger projects by breaking them up into smaller, scheduled activities. It's also easier to implement and tweak when it's in electronic format.

Tip No. 2: If activities often take longer than the time you allotted, build a schedule around your life priorities before scheduling work priorities. Once sleep, vacations, personal and family commitments and self-care are scheduled, there's limited time left for work. This should lead to ruthless prioritization of the activities necessary to accomplish work goals. Also, be realistic--build transition, travel and break time into all of your activities.

Tip No. 3: If you seem to spend a great deal of time in meetings, ask others to agree on at least one outcome--in advance. Before your next meeting, request that attendees agree on at least one significant result from getting together (e.g., "create a framework for at least one new revenue-generating vehicle that will serve our clients' recessionary sensitive needs" or "select the candidate we will make the final offer to"). If your group can't commit in advance to creating at least one result, the meeting is likely to be a waste of time. Designing an outcome before a meeting focuses attendees' efforts and cooperation, ensuring that time spent together is a wise investment.

Tip No. 4: If you spend a lot of time waiting for other people, plan ahead for downtime. No excuses here. Be prepared for inevitable delays in your day; have what you need at your fingertips to turn what could be wasted time into time well-spent. Whether it's a book you enjoy reading or a meditation tape on your iPod, having a plan for downtime will increase your productivity and prevent frustration. The average person spends 45 to 62 minutes a day waiting--so use this time wisely.

Tip No. 5: If you worry a lot about things that will happen or could happen, stop it. Confront your concern(s) head-on. Most mental "movies" are negative, formed out of fear. They waste time and tend to be woefully inaccurate. If you can't turn it off, check it out. Get on the phone, send an e-mail--share your concerns and determine whether your worries are valid. If not, relax. If they're valid, seize the opportunity to re-engage and get it right before you waste any more time worrying.

Tip No. 6: If you spend a lot of time pursuing outstanding receivables, set up automatic billing and bill-payment systems. Chasing after receivables can be a costly use of your time. Opt for credit card pre-authorization. Set up automatic billing agreements. By utilizing credit cards to bill and receive payment for services and products, you can process payments instead of chase after them.

Tip No. 7: If you have a difficult time saying no, know what a yes is worth to you.

You may need to determine what commitment is worthy of a yes before responding to your next request. Knowing what a yes is worth will help you have the discipline and courage to say no to anything that doesn't fit into that commitment.

Tip No. 8: If you pride yourself on being a perfectionist, set a time goal to complete a project, and stick to it. Much time is wasted polishing something that reached the "good enough" stage long ago. Instead, give yourself a specified time frame to complete a task, rather than pursue an unreachable standard of perfection. Then watch how much more time you'll have for other things in your day.

Tip No. 9: If you have a lengthy to-do list, tackle those projects in an allotted time frame. Allotting time to complete your to "dos" instead of having them exist as a separate "hope I get to them" list forces you to prioritize and resolve them instead of having them compete with your scheduled activities for your time and attention.

Final word: By applying these time management tips and skills, you'll be able to concentrate as much of your time and energy as possible on the high-payoff tasks. That way you can achieve more with the limited amount of time you have.

Just like Mick...

Ready to achieve mastery over your time? Columnist, business and life-coach Suzy Girard-Ruttenberg is now offering "90 days to Complete Time Mastery," an exclusive phone-coaching workshop guaranteed to change your life and grow your business by redesigning your usage of time. For details, email Suzy at suzy@girard-associates.com or call 561-883-6006.

Article from The Entrepreneur

8 ways parenthood can make you better at your job

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:50:00 +0000

April 3, 2012 7:00 AM

By Amy Levin-Epstein

Article from CBS News

(MoneyWatch) People always say that becoming a parent changes everything. Does that include affecting your work? I asked dozens of parents how raising kids has made them better at their jobs. Below are eight stories I heard about how the compassion, patience, and even conflict-resolution skill parents had to summon up on the home front changed their approach to work. Have one to add? Please share it in the comments section.

I have better time management skills. When I became a mother, I found that my time management skills were perfected. I began to organize things the night before and would be awake earlier in the mornings to get things done. I also learned to multi-task more efficiently, which has made me better at my job managing my clients. -- Kate Shamon, PR consultant

Parents: Would you quit your job to save on childcare?

Motherhood and work: 6 surprising facts

The gender pay gap: one way to solve the issue

I have better advice for my clients. I'm a restructuring advisor for troubled businesses, and my specialization is crisis management. I have a 15-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. Many of my clients waste an enormous amount of resources being concerned with their image within their own industry -- not the target market, but their competitors. Seeing the parallel with my daughter [and her peers], I appreciate what this behavior might mean to the client and how it effects their decisions. -- Nat Wasserstein, Lindenwood Associates

It gave me thicker skin. Most PR professionals recognize that a thick skin shields our "Energizer Bunny" spirits from the rejection of reporters, the red-pen edits, or a client's reaction to what we thought was a brilliant idea. In the world of parenting, you quickly learn that your child's rejection of your cooking is not personal. When they scream at you for turning off the TV or tell you they hate you for grounding them, you know it's because you are actually doing something right. In both PR and parenting, having a thick skin, a sense of humor -- and the occasional large glass of wine -- help us keep our blood pressure down and things in perspective. -- Samantha McGarry, vice president, InkHouse

I'm more compassionate. I'm much more patient, and think that my ability to train and mentor has also been enhanced as a parent. I am more aware of nonverbal communication, and I find that I'm a great motivator to my staff. The same way I motivate and praise my kids for a job well done, I transfer this to the workplace and demonstrate to my team how much I value their commitment to doing a great job. -- Linda Woody, communications manager

I'm more savvy at resolving conflicts. With three boys, there's a lot of competing interests and headbutting. Often, getting them to articulate in words what they are thinking is the key to finding ways for them to come to mutually agreeable solutions. I do this with my team members, as well. The are often acting out of something they are not saying, instead of what they are actually complaining about. So getting them to talk through it in a non-adversarial environment can bring these things out and then help them to help me respond to their needs and resolve their issues. -- Michelle Colucci, CEO of MyLawsuit.com.

I understand people's unique values. I know better how to utilize employees and coworkers for their strengths, and either support them in their weaknesses or work around them. I have gained this skill because my two kids are very different from each other. My daughter is outgoing and athletic, and my son is autistic and very socially awkward. What I say most often when someone complains about a mutual coworker, "That person has many strengths, however, (patience, writing skills, leaderships, etc.) is not one of those strengths." -- Anne M. Woods, public relations director, Hope For The Warriors

I can spot a back-stabbing whiner. I've always held that parenting made me a better manager. Bill Cosby said you can't be a parent until you have two or more children. He said when you walk in the living room and the lamp is broken, each kid pointing to the other, that's when you become a parent. Same thing with management. I've learned to fire the back-stabber. Don't come to me complaining about another worker without discussing your grievance with them, or coming up with a solution. -- Richard Kelleher, marketing sociologist

They keep me on my toes in terms of technology. As my young children became young teenagers, the Internet opened up to them. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and social-media secrets were quickly discovered and shared with me, as only teenagers can do. In the past 12 years, I have truly learned so much about social media that I have become better at my job. -- Sherry Gavanditti, PR media specialist, Menorah Park Center for Senior Living

Amy Levin-Epstein

Amy Levin-Epstein is a freelance writer who has been published in dozens of magazines (including Glamour, Self and Redbook), websites (including AOLHealth.com, Babble.com and Details.com) and newspapers (including The New York Post and the Boston Globe). To read more of her writing, visit AmyLevinEpstein.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MWOnTheJob.

Article from CBS News

Effective office management skills

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:08:00 +0000

Article from Women24

We've rounded up the 4 essential skills to keep your office running smoothly.

There is a need for people with strong administrative skills in any business. With business processes, equipment, documentation and communication becoming increasingly complicated, managers and professional administrators need a wide range of skills to run the office effectively. Often these skills are neglected or ignored, which results in ineffective office management.

If you are unsure of the abilities you need to keep up with administrative tasks, here are 4 important skills for efficient office management.

1. Business documentation

As an office manager, you will mostly likely need business writing skills, as you will be required to write up a number of business documents. Some documents may include:

• business letters,

• reports,

• proposals,

• quotations,

• statements, and

• invoices.

It is imperative to understand what these documents are used for, and to know how to format, write and administer these documents.

2. Communication strategy

In the current business environment, communication is handled almost exclusively through computers. It is important for office administrators to feel comfortable communicating through various platforms, such as email, Skype or MSN, as it is mostly likely that you will communicate with employees or customers via these platforms.

You will need to learn to communicate appropriately depending on the platform used. Office managers are also required to communicate with employees and customers on the phone, so an appropriate telephone manner is essential.

3. Office administration

General office administration is part-and-parcel of the day-to-day running of any business. As an office manager, you may be responsible for petty cash, managing the switchboard, dealing with delivery services, the administration of basic office facilities, and general management.

The latter is vital, as staff rely heavily on office management in order to complete their tasks successfully.

4. Information management

We are now consuming more raw data than in any other time in history. Information needs to be housed somewhere, and it is often kept in files so that you can make reference to specific documents at a later stage.

As an office manager, it is important to manage the filing and indexing for both digital and hard copy documents. Arrange your digital folders effectively so that you are able to find certain documents with ease. Hard copies should be filed away and clearly marked so you can retrieve these documents at any time.

To learn more about office management consider the University of Cape Town Professional Communication and Management course, which starts on 16 April 2012. Please contact Tamsin on 021 447 7565 or tamsin@getsmarter.co.za for more information. Alternatively visit www.GetSmarter.co.za.

Article from Women24

Manage Your Time—Manage Your Life

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:28:00 +0000

Article from Literacy News

Colleges test your literacy and numeracy, making sure you’re ready to read your textbooks and balance equations in algebra and chemistry. They ought to test your personal management skills, too, because your ability to complete your assignments on time and in style contributes more to your academic performance than your basic skills ever will. Take time to learn exactly how to manage your time so that you effectively can manage school, work and a social life.

Find the system that works best for you.

The internet has literally thousands of time management resources from which you may choose. Of course, each system claims it works best, and no two are exactly alike. Your college bookstore probably has thousands of beautiful notebooks to complement all the systems you see on the web. Compare and contrast until you find the system and datebook that make most sense to you; then, work them relentlessly. If you do not start working your time management system right away, you will fall overwhelmingly, insanely behind by the end of the first week of classes. Then, desperation and bad habits will substitute for an effective system, making you crazy and sick.

Philosophy supports the method.

Most of the web sites and instruction manuals fast-forward to the details of planning and management, skipping the philosophy that informs and supports effective management of your time and your life. Before you begin neatly filling-in all the blanks spaces in your new planner, lay the philosophic groundwork for your system:

Set goals and benchmarks.

Some of your classes may matter more to you than others. Set your goals and plan to meet them according to the importance you attach to each class. More value translates to more time; dedicate that time right now so that you do not make other commitments. Try to plan as realistically as you can. How much time do you genuinely need to compose an “A” paper? Block-out that time—plus ten percent—right now. Within that time, indicate when you want to complete your outline, when you want to finish your rough draft, and whn you want the whole assignment perfectly complete.

Work backwards from excellent outcomes

You may actually plan your semester backwards from final exams. Study skills books do, after all, say you should begin studying for final exams on the first day of class. Your syllabi tell you the big days for tests, papers, and major projects. You should fill in those dates and then work backwards through preparation and planning, carefully estimating just exactly what it will take to get excellent grades on everything. You also should make sure you block out vacations, special weekend events, and other obligations that will take time away from studying. The more you depend on your system and planner, the more you will imagine a white space in the notebook represents time available. If you do not consistently apply your system, you may trick yourself into tragic mistakes.

Set priorities according to your goals and values.

As you plan and manage your time, be honest! Do not plan a saint’s life if you know you’re a wild child. If you know you inevitably will go out every Friday and Saturday night, block-out that time. Similarly, do not use your planner as a book of promises you cannot keep. Plan according to what you cherish, dedicating time for the activities, people, and classes that genuinely matter to you.

Follow your plans.

Beginners often run into one or both of two major traps: First, they make awesome plans, and their planners look like little works of art, but they never follow their awesome plans. As the perfect planners procrastinate, their pretty notebooks just make them feel guilty. Second, many students become so devoted to planning their lives they never quite get around to living them. A planner may become an official scorebook, and you can invest so much time in maintaining the schedule that you actually eat-up valuable hours you could devote to studying. Set aside a little time for updating your planner first thing each morning; then, leave it alone except to check it.

You will discover that managing your time contributes substantially to your feeling you have your life under control. You probably will discover you have more time than you imagined. As you become more proficient at time management, look for empty spaces in your weekly schedules, filling them with healthy exercise and recreation—your rewards for taking charge of your time and life.

About the author: Tanya Mitchell is a part time writer and nurse earning her masters in nursing online degree so she can study in her spare time.

Article from Literacy News

The new 4-H: leadership, lifetime skills and technology

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:54:00 +0000

Article from WSLS

By: SUSAN ELZEY | GoDanRiver

Published: March 29, 2012

If your idea of 4-H is a bunch of kids leading calves and sheep around a livestock arena, then it’s time for a reality check.

Today’s 4-H is all about learning leadership and lifetime skills, science and technology, friendship and even a fun summer camp with classes like Zumba.

This year’s camp for the Danville 4-H will be held from July 2-6 at theW.E. Skelton 4-H Educational Center at Smith Mountain Lake.

“At camp we learn about team building, leadership skills, emergency preparedness and risk management, howto work with teens from other places and life skills to be productive citizens,” explained Tadashi Totten, 4-H/youth development extension agent.

Working as team leaders for the summer camps are teen volunteers who have been members of 4-H for years and train for their responsibilities throughout the year.

ShontellWhite, a junior at GeorgeWashington High School, and Jared Lewis, a senior atGW, are two of the volunteers who count 4-H camp as the best week of their year.

“I’ve been going to camp since I was 9,” saidWhite.

“Then at 12 or 13, when I was able to, I became a counselor in training and then when I was 14 I became a teen volunteer.

Lewis has been a team leader at the camp for the past five years.

“My sister went one year, and I tagged along because I thought I was missing something,” he said. “I was.”

Something for everyone

Totten said there is a wide variety of activities at the camp: canoeing, kayaking, Zumba, horsemanship, scuba diving, Japanese art, archery, different levels of swimming and rock climbing.

White said when she first started going to camp there were just four classes to choose from, but nowthere are all kinds plus plenty of organized activities.

“We have campfires, carnivals, theme night, a dinner theater and a talent show,” she said.

There are also events that focus on community service, such as writing letters to the military.

Last year the camp hosted 62 campers and had 15 teen volunteers and two adults supervising. The camp enrollment caps at 75 campers, according to Totten, who added, “The more the merrier.”

According toWhite, the girl campers stay in a lodge that is “more like a hotel” with electricity, air conditioning, private bathrooms for each roomof three campers and one teen counselor.

The boys live a little more rustically with six to a roomin the boys lodge.

There are six educational centers similar to the one at Smith Lake throughout Virginia.

Not just camp

The Danville 4-H program isn’t just confined to the summer camp, however. There are programs throughout the year in various sites in the city, such as food and nutrition after-school programs, science projects, leadership clubs and programs with the Boys and Girls Clubs, local churches and theW.W. Moore, Jr. Juvenile Detention Home.

Curricula within the various programs include space and flight, natural resources and environmental education and foods, nutrition and health.

Last year more than 3,000 kids in Danville participated, Totten said.

There are 18 teen volunteers who train throughout the year to help with the programs and with camp.

“The teen volunteers serve as role models and leave great impressions,” Totten said.

“Most of the volunteers go to college and participate in leadership, taking the lessons they have learned.”

White said that as a child she was shy, but not anymore.

“I was not looking to make new friends (in 4-H), but now I can talk to anyone,” she said.

“Now the campers ask for me, and I have to act as a mom. The campers look up to us.”

The teens are even trained in different scenarios dealing with homesickness, but in all the years of camp only one child has been sent home for homesickness.

“We let the teen volunteers work it out,” Totten said.

White said the best thing is that after the campers get over their homesickness, they want to come back the next year.

Healthy and happy

Safety is the No. 1 priority at the camp, Totten said.

There is always an emergency medical technician on the staff and no child has ever been sent to the hospital. Adults stay in separate rooms from the children, and the teen volunteers are in the rooms with the children.

“Every child participates, is healthy and has a good time,” he said.

The cafeteria even deals with food allergies.

“It’s the one week I don’t get any sleep,” Totten said with a laugh. “But I enjoy seeing the smiling faces.”

Lewis calls the camp “a comfort.”

“I can go there and be nothing short of who I am and that’s OK,” he said.

Elzey is a freelance writer for the Register & Bee.

Article from WSLS

How to Write Like a Top Chef: Get a Ghostwriter

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:04:00 +0000

By LISA ABEND Tuesday, Mar. 27, 2012

Article from Time US

Gwyneth Paltrow poses as she signs copies of her cookbook, "My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness" on April 21, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. The actress has denied using a ghostwriter.

Gregg DeGuire / PictureGroup / Getty Images

Rachael Ray is so congenitally nice that it would seem nearly impossible to annoy her, but the New York Times has found a way. On March 13, dining section reporter Julia Moskin published an essay about her own and others' experiences ghostwriting cookbooks. The article's suggestion that stars like Ray and Gwyneth Paltrow might not write their own books outraged the two women in question. One barrage of tweets (Sample from Paltrow: "No ghost writer on my cookbook, I wrote every word myself.") and several indignant morning show appearances later, the controversy hasn't died down. Ray and Paltrow continue to defend their authorship and demand a correction from the Times, while the paper — fanning the polemic by implicating not only ghostwriting but "ghost cooking" — is standing by its story.

Lost in the brouhaha is the fact that most restaurant chefs don't want to write their own books. With 16-hour days to endure and Michelin stars to maintain, most would no sooner write their own cookbooks than forge their own knives. And it's not just a question of time management. Notorious perfectionists, many cooks recognize that their skills in the kitchen do not extend to the page. "Why would I write my own book? " ask Thomas Keller, the culinary genius behind Per Se and The French Laundry. "I'm a chef, not a writer." For him and others cooking at the upper echelons of the food industry, a co-author is a source of salvation rather than embarrassment.

That doesn't mean the relationship is uncomplicated. No one asked Mark Vancil, Michael Jordan's ghostwriter, to take a few shots during the NBA playoffs. Charles Leerhsen, Donald Trump's co-author, never had to close a multi-billion dollar deal. But for the writers who help chefs explain themselves it's not enough to capture accurately the voices, techniques, and inspirations of the apron-clad. They must also translate the chef's work in a way that, at least while we're turning pages and contemplating our next dinner party, makes us believe we can do it too.

How do they do it? Chemistry helps. Author Michael Ruhlman has written the introduction and headnotes for all four of Keller's cookbooks (Susie Heller wrote the recipes), and he recalls that from their first meeting, the two men clicked. That helps explain why Ruhlman found it easy to tell Keller's stories — like the famous one about the time he ordered up a dozen live rabbits only to realize that he didn't actually know how to kill them — in the chef's voice. "It's like doing impersonations," he says. "Some people are good at impersonating Christopher Walken. I happen to be good at Thomas Keller."

Impersonation is easier when the chef has a distinctive way of speaking. Peter Meehan was friends with David Chang of the Momofuku empire of restaurants by the time the two began to collaborate, so he was familiar with the chef's speech patterns. "Dave likes to start a conversation with a short, bombastic sentence," Meehan says. "And he likes to split infinitives with ["an expletive"]. If you do those two things you pretty much sound like Dave Chang."

For Andrew Friedman, who has collaborated on 20 chefs' books, learning to sound like his chefs sometimes requires a bit of method acting. He uses music to help him capture a personality — listening to the Cure while writing the forthcoming book of Paul Liebrandt (Corton), and turning up the Puccini when it was Pino Luongo (Il Cantinori). He often finds himself cooking in the style of his chef as well. "When I'm deep into a book, I want to cook and eat the way the person I'm working with does. When I was working with Tom Valenti, I kept breaking out the white vinegar and bacon, and doing all these long braises. It was very weird and Zeligy."

During the time that Bon Appetit executive editor Christine Muhlke was collaborating with Eric Ripert on his third cookbook, On the Line, she actually worked the poaching station at his restaurant Le Bernardin in Manhattan. "The book was a portrait of the restaurant as a whole, so I felt that I had to," she says. "But it was terrifying. Everything has to be perfect and you have two minutes to do it. It was like one of those nightmares where someone is trying to kill you but you can't make your legs work fast enough to run away."

Yet getting into character is never enough; the cookbook collaborator must also translate the chef's voice into instructions that can be followed by someone who hasn't spent the better part of his youth chopping onions. When Rick Flaste began ghostwriting for the late Pierre Franey (the chef-turned-columnist who wrote the Times' The 60-Minute Gourmet), he didn't know much about cooking, and began taking classes on the side from culinary educator Peter Kump to raise his skill level. "Sometimes Peter would explain things in a way that I found particularly helpful, and so I'd run it by Pierre, and if he was okay with it, it would go in as his."

The technical phrase for this is "dumbing down," and chefs, who spend their careers doing things the hard way, often fight it. Yet because publishers insist that recipes be accessible to readers, the writer frequently has to mediate. The most common dispute is over measurements — chefs use metric because it's more precise — but there are other sources of tension too.

"Very early on, I'll have what I call the 'tripe conversation,'" says Friedman. "Chefs love tripe, but home cooks see it as complicated and a little gross. I have to insist on only one tripe recipe per book." And it's not just about what gets left out. Joanne Smart has collaborated with Gordon Hammersley (of Boston's Hammersley's Bistro) and Scott Conant (Scarpetta) on their cookbooks, and admits to sometimes playing bad cop with both. But never more so when she insisted, in a concession to the home cook's fallback dish, that Boston chef Barbara Lynch (No. 9 Park) include a recipe for a boneless chicken breast — an ingredient that many chefs consider hopelessly banal — in their book Stir. "I think she still blames me for that."

Certainly a tough hide is a valuable commodity in a culinary ghostwriter. Yet given the high temperatures and hotter tempers of the average kitchen, what's more remarkable is how many chefs and co-authors maintain close friendships. For the writers, the work grants them access to the closed subculture and battlefield-like camaraderie of the professional kitchen. Added bonus: it even imparts valuable cooking lessons. "I'm embarassed to say how often I cook from that book," says Meehan of the Momofuku cookbook. "I've made those rice cakes a million times."

The relationship can be just as rewarding for the chefs. Liebrandt appreciated the chance to talk to a civilian who understands what chefs do. "I found myself telling him things about my life I had never told anyone," he recalls. "I learned a lot about myself."

Ripert learned even more when, for his second book, he took his then-collaborator Ruhlman to France for a little improvisation. The two started each day at the market, and ended it in the kitchen as the chef developed new dishes and submitted them to the writer for approval. "Until then, I never believed I had talent," Ripert recalls. "But when we were doing that book, I remember thinking, 'Holy crap, this is delicious! It gave me incredible confidence."

It's the nature of celebrity to lure us into believing that we know our stars, which is why it makes sense that pop culture figures like Ray and Paltrow would want to reassure their audiences that what they see (or read) is what they get. But serious restaurant chefs — the ones who make us wonder if food can be art — are still allowed a degree of mystery. Their brand of cooking is far enough from that bowl of pasta we whipped up last night that we accept that we need a translator, the writer who can act as both the magician amazing us with marvels and the wiseguy in the audience pulling away the curtain.

Which is why many of chefs' co-writers, even those with their names on the cover, still pride themselves on their ability to shapeshift. "Chefs will come up to me and say 'I didn't know you wrote that book,'" says Friedman. "To me, that's a compliment. If I'm doing my job right, I'm invisible."

Article from Time US

Time-Management Tips from Serial Entrepreneurs

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:53:00 +0000

Five business owners offer their best advice for becoming more productive -- and finding the right work-life balance.

BY JANE PORTER | January 16, 2012

Article from The Entrepreneur

For small-business owners who run more than one business, time management is of the utmost importance. We talked to five serial entrepreneurs to learn how they oversee their businesses and still find time for their personal lives.

Here are their tips:

Joe Adkins, Altamonte Springs, Fla.

Joe Adkins

Photo courtesy of Ray Baquero

Owns:

Realty Referral Alliance, a real-estate referral company
Global Asset Management Group, a money management firm
The Realty Factor, a real estate agency
The Rental Factor, a property management company
Adkins' Tip: Keep a clean desk and limit meetings.

Walk into Joe Adkins' office and you won't find a scrap of paper on his desk. That's because Adkins scans and shreds all his documents as they arrive in his office. "The more folders there are on your desk," he says, "the less productive you are because you’re looking at all these stacks of things that need to get done." Adkins also limits his time on the phone and in meetings, relying on email as much as possible. Three years ago, for example, he stopped running weekly training meetings for employees and instead created training videos that he distributes by email.

Becky McCray, Hopeton, Okla.

Becky McCray

Photo courtesy of Rebekah Workman

Owns:

Allen's Retail Liquors
McCray Cattle, a cattle ranch
Tourism Currents, a social-media training site for tourism professionals
McCray and Associates, a municipal grant writing and consulting service
McCray's Tip: Set weekly goals.

Becky McCray's four businesses couldn’t be more diverse. On any given day, she might have to count liquor store inventory, run a conference call on new training products for her tourism business, repair a windmill on her cattle ranch and update her consulting website. McCray sets a weekly goal for each business to make sure she doesn’t neglect any of them. She then organizes her weekly schedule around achieving those goals. "Until you know where you’re trying to go with each business," she says, "you have no way to effectively schedule your time."

Arik Kislin, New York, N.Y.

Arik Kislin

Photo courtesy of Chance Yeh

Owns:

Gansevoort Hotel Group, a boutique hotel company
Ocean Blue Management, a yacht management company
JetFlite International, a charter jet and aircraft management and sales company
Kislin's Tip: Thoroughly train your top lieutenants.

When Arik Kislin hires someone into top management, the new executive literally sits beside him for a month to learn how he runs the business. By thoroughly training his top people, Kislin can trust them to make decisions when he's absent. "When they are originally hired," he says, "I keep them very close to the vest with me." He runs a tight ship with only 12 people staffing his core office in New York. And they know he has a low tolerance for wasting time. "You are either working hard or you are out," he says.

Related: A Saucy Millionaire Role Model for Serial Entrepreneurs

Drew Sharma, Newton, Mass.

Drew Sharma

Photo courtesy of Cookies.com

Owns:

Digiventures Holdings LLC, an e-commerce holding company
ClickVentures Holdings LLC, a personal finance and insurance holding company

Sharma's Tip: Keep your to-do list close at hand.

Through his two holding companies, Drew Sharma manages 80 websites, from Cookies.com to TravelInsurance.com. He gets up at 5:30 every morning to start work and immediately turns to his task list, which he always keeps updated and close at hand. He uses iCloud, Apple's cloud-storage technology to sync the list on all of his devices. "There’s nowhere I go in the world where I don’t have my iPhone, iPad or laptop," Sharma says. "The task list is always with me." He also often shares the list with his 20 employees to make sure they’re on the same page.

Alma Steger, Phoenix, Ariz.

Alma Steger

Photo courtesy of Untitled Advertising & PR

Owns:

Alma & Co., a direct seller of fashion jewelry
Untitled Advertising & PR

Steger's Tip: Schedule personal time like a can't-miss business meeting.

Not only does Alma Steger run two businesses, but she also has a one-year-old at home to care for. Finding time to fit work and family into each day is a constant struggle. But as busy as her days are, Steger always schedules an hour of personal time, whether it's going for a walk or reading. She believes that hour helps boost her productivity when she returns to work. "It’s easy for entrepreneurs to be working 24 hours a day," she says. "Oftentimes, the best ideas come during your down time."

Article from The Entrepreneur

Time Management is Key for Students Who Juggle Work and Classes

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 01:43:00 +0000

By By Samantha Tracey / Log Staff Writer
Published: Friday, March 23, 2012
Updated: Friday, March 23, 2012 16:03
Article from The Salem State Log

Full-time students at Salem State University experience both positive and negative effects from maintaining one or more jobs at the same time while attending a college or university.

According to a study done in 2008 at the University of Kentucky, just over half of all students who go to college work while they’re in school.

Some students have recognized an increase in their overall classroom performance, specifically due to developing better time management skills.

Talia Maihos, 21, a senior at SSU, is currently carrying 12 credits this semester while working three different jobs. She works as a waitress at TGIFridays in Danvers approximately 30 hours a week, and teaches dance at two different dance schools for a total of eight hours a week.

Maihos also dances for the Repertory Dance Theatre at the school for about five hours a week, and spends an estimated five more hours each week of her own time to choreograph dances.

This semester is Maihos’ first where she is working more than one job. She has been working at least one job since the second semester of her freshman year. With all the working, she has seen a difference in her schoolwork, but in a positive way.

“My grades are actually better,” she said. “I feel like I need to always be on top of things so I actually have to schedule time for my homework.”

Maihos feels that her busy schedule this semester has forced her to time manage even more efficiently. She doesn’t always do it alone, though.

“It takes a lot of energy drinks and coffee,” she said.

The two teaching jobs that Maihos took on this semester are at dance studios: the Youth Talent School and Maureen Macaro’s School of Classical Ballet.

Although they take up a good amount of her time and energy, Maihos feels those jobs are the most rewarding because she’s doing what she loves to do: dance.

“It’s such a rewarding job; it doesn’t even feel like work,” she said.

Heather Spring, 21, a junior at SSU, also started working three jobs this semester as well.

She works at Home Health Aid for an hour and a half on Wednesdays, teaches gymnastics at the Youth Talent School in Swampscott every Friday for three hours, and works as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) for approximately ten hours a week.

Along with working, Spring is carrying 15 credits this semester and is a nursing major. She takes one four-hour nursing course on Tuesdays, and two online courses outside of class. In addition to schoolwork, she also has to complete 16 clinical hours every other week.

This semester is Spring’s first time maintaining a job while in school. Like Maihos, she feels that her grades have taken a positive effect.

“I’m actually doing better,” she said.

According to an article from About.com, working in college can actually improve students’ time management skills and increase their grades. The article also stated that “this is a result of learning to organize and plan your study time effectively.”

Although some students benefit from the responsibility of maintaining a job, working while in school can also have negative effects on students.

According to a University of Kentucky study done in 2008, researchers found a strong correlation between working 20 or more hours a week and sleeping less, binge-drinking, and low academic performance.

Lucas Paradis, 23, a senior at SSU, has maintained an on-campus job since his freshman year. He works as a secretary at the help desk for the facilities department approximately 15 to 20 hours a week.

Paradis is currently holding a 12-credit course load and goes to school Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“I usually go to work after class every day,” he said.

The department closes at 5 p.m., so Paradis has the rest of the night to go home and do his homework.

He has always worked while in college, but each semester brought him new challenges.

Up until this academic year, Paradis used to participate in the school’s golf team. He’d go to work in the morning, go to class, and then have golf practice until about 7:30 p.m. After that, he’d go home to shower and eat, and by the time that was done it would be about 9 p.m.

“Trying to do homework at 9 p.m. after you’ve been up since 8 a.m. just didn’t work out,” he said. “It was mentally draining.”

When Paradis first started college he said he was very focused on his schoolwork.

From his sophomore through his senior year, he started participating in golf tournaments every weekend. He’d usually miss class on Friday, and wouldn’t get back home until Sunday night.

“I’d be gone all weekend, and get back and realize I had all this homework to do,” he said. “It ends up piling up pretty fast.” Paradis is not the only student that has felt the stress of working while attending college.

Kevin Card, a Salem State student, has also felt the pressure. He works for the information technology department (IT), and music departments on campus and is also training to be a DJ at WMWM Salem.

“I was managing a 12-credit work load, but I recently dropped an 8 a.m. class, because three journalism classes and a literature class on top of all that work was just too much,” he said.

The stress of balancing schoolwork with working a job is not the only issue students’ deal with. They also have to be concerned with how many hours they are receiving at their jobs and being able to work enough to afford what they need.

According to Card, the IT department has cut hours recently and it has hurt him.

“It kind of stinks because I need those hours for grocery money,” he said, adding, “I can’t really do an off- campus job that wouldn’t allow me to study in the off minutes.”

Working in college doesn’t seem to be a choice that students have any longer. As tuition continues to rise, more and more college students must maintain jobs while attending class in order to afford their own education.

Article from The Salem State Log

5 proven steps to boost productivity and reduce stress

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:53:00 +0000

by BUSINESS MANAGEMENT DAILY on MARCH 20, 2012 4:22PM
in NEWS ROOM
Article from Business Management Daily

March 21, 2012

Contact: Elizabeth Hall, Senior Web Editor
(800) 543-2055 (703) 905-8000
editor@BusinessManagementDaily.com

5 Proven Steps to Boost Productivity and Reduce Stress

Falls Church, Va. — According to a Lexamark International study, 92% of studied respondents say they make or take work-related communications outside of the office, including during vacations. Like most people in corporate America, there never seems to be enough hours in the day to complete tasks, leaving employees the options of either burning the midnight oil or infringing on ‘personal time’ with work projects. While one can’t create more hours in the day, there are effective ways to use that time more wisely. Discover better, proven and efficient tips to increase productivity and decrease stress.

According to Business Management Daily’s Senior Web Editor, Elizabeth Hall, “When it comes to boosting productivity, you want to make every hour count, so you plan your day in 15-minute chunks and prioritize your tasks accordingly. However, there’s a caveat: Although that’s smart time management, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll work productively.”

Hall adds, “So to make sure your time is best spent, you’ll operate most efficiently if you banish aimless anxieties and the urge to procrastinate.”

Here are the 5 proven tips that Hall suggests for increased business productivity:

1. Confront, Don’t Complain. There’s a time and a place to vent your frustrations. But if you deplete precious time during the workday by dropping what you’re doing and talking about your irritations, you’ll dig yourself in even deeper. If you’re annoyed at a co-worker, don’t complain to whoever happens to walk into your office. That’s unproductive. Instead, speak directly to the person with whom you’re upset. This saves time and reduces the spread of ill will.

2. Block Out Some “Worry Time.” If you grow anxious thinking about all the work that awaits you, reserve blocks of time to indulge yourself in worry. Don’t let these thoughts creep into the rest of your day—or you may wind up worrying about a job rather than doing it.

3. Get It Down. Have a pen and paper ready and list your anxieties, numbering them in order of importance. This exercise will help you clear your head—and maybe even reprioritize your tasks—so that you can return to work free of mental distractions.

4. Anticipate First, Reflect Later. If you make a high-profile mistake, you may feel compelled to dissect what happened in excruciating detail. You can do that on your own time, but don’t waste the work day analyzing or justifying your decisions.

5. ‘POP’: Plan, Organize, Prepare. Plan ahead using solid project management skills. Make sure you map out milestones on your timeline and anticipate ample turnaround time for deliverables and deadlines. Organize your notes, tasks and workload. Prepare for projects, such as fact gathering, logistics or calling hard-to-reach project stakeholders.

Hall concludes, “These are simple, proven tactics that can help you prioritize tasks and anxieties … and stop you from working in constant crisis mode.”

For more information on boosting productivity in the workplace and to download the free report, 10 Time Management Tips: A how-to guide on efficiently managing your time through effective delegating, calendar management and using productivity tools, visit www.BusinessManagementDaily.com.

About Business Management Daily

Business Management Daily provides plain-English, actionable news, information and tips to busy professionals in the areas of human resources, leadership, management, administrative skills, office technology, employment law, tax and more. Subscribe to our free e-newsletters and download our free reports. ‘Like’ us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter at @BizDaily.

Article from Business Management Daily

Helping Managers Find, and Fix, Their Flaws

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:03:00 +0000

By NATASHA SINGER

Published: March 17, 2012

Article from the New York Times

MANY management coaches teach executives specific skills toward becoming better mentors, delegators or supervisors.

Not the minds at Minds at Work, in Cambridge, Mass. The company, founded by Robert Kegan, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Lisa Lahey, a development psychologist who also teaches at Harvard, guides executives through a step-by-step process of self-examination and gradual behavioral change.

The program is based on the idea that, like dieters with a weakness for doughnuts, many executives want to change but behave in ways that impede their progress. So, rather than teaching technical skills, Minds at Work gives managers structured exercises to help them pinpoint the ingrained habits and beliefs that are undermining their goals.

One manager who says she wants to be a better delegator, for example, may be taking over projects at work because deep down she fears that her staff isn’t up to the task, Dr. Lahey says. Another manager may also say he wants to delegate more, even as he hip-checks his staff off of projects lest they do a better job and outshine him. These kinds of self-protective habits make people resistant, or “immune,” to change, she says.

“On the one hand, you have one foot on the gas and you want to delegate,” Dr. Lahey says. “On the other hand, you have a foot on the brake because you are committed to never being shown up.”

Minds at Work tries to help people get over the stalemate. Over the years, the firm has coached leaders at financial services and technology companies, railways, unions, medical and educational institutions and government agencies like the C.I.A. It has also helped lawyers, judges and doctors.

Consider Dr. George M. Rapier III, the chief executive of WellMed Medical Management, a $1 billion health care company in San Antonio. During medical school in the 1970s, Dr. Rapier says he learned to be a perfectionist and a solo problem solver. Those traits served him and his patients well when he went into practice as a general internist.

But now, he manages a company with 46 of its own medical clinics that, along with affiliates, serve more than 90,000 patients annually. And he recently realized that his longstanding tendency to micromanage had become a hindrance.

“My worst characteristic was trying to keep my finger on everything,” Dr. Rapier says. “You can’t do that for everything in a big business.”

Two years ago, he signed up for the Minds at Work program. In consultation with Professor Kegan, Dr. Rapier began to observe his own behavior at work, identifying occasions when he was reluctant to hand over projects — or when he superficially handed them over, only to retain ultimate control.

Along the way, Dr. Rapier says, he realized that he was reluctant to delegate important work because, in the past, the results often failed to meet his standards.

“I had a historical finding of delegating to people and then either them not getting it done the way I would do it, or not getting it done fast enough,” Dr. Rapier says. “My ingrained belief was, ‘If you want it done right, do it yourself.’ ”

Professor Kegan asked Dr. Rapier to test this assumption by conducting experiments at his office to see if delegating always disappointed him.

Instead, the opposite occurred. Through trial and error, Dr. Rapier discovered that if he gave staff members more specifics about the results and time frame he expected, they could meet or even exceed his expectations. That freed him to concentrate on more important issues, like long-term strategy.

Of course, these self-examination exercises don’t work for everyone.

Counterproductive habits are difficult to give up because they serve a purpose, Dr. Lahey says: they help executives protect their self-image. But, she says, managers who are willing to investigate and challenge their own deeply held beliefs often find that their original assumptions were incorrect, a discovery that allows them to change, she says. She and Professor Kegan offer some case studies in their book, “Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization.”

“The structure of the exercise allows people to get some sort of ‘aha’ moment that is very mobilizing to them,” Dr. Lahey says.

Two years ago, for example, Christopher Forman, president of the Decurion Corporation, a firm in Los Angeles that owns real estate development and movie theater companies, hired Minds at Work to coach about a dozen of the firm’s executives. At the same time, Mr. Forman decided to work on his own goal. By nature a logical problem-solver, he wanted to connect on a more emotional level at work.

“If I wanted to become more effective,” Mr. Forman says, “I needed to go beyond the sense-making and make more of a human connection.”

As he went about observing his own behavior, he noted the frequency with which he automatically brushed away his employees’ feelings about work problems, by saying things like “don’t worry about it.” He also realized how often he would immediately jump in to solve employees’ problems for them — a technique that helped him avoid empathizing with them.

“I think maybe I was worried about appearing less than competent,” Mr. Forman says. “I could solve problems. Could I really be an effective leader sitting more with the feeling side of things?”

But over time, as he tested his original assumptions, he discovered that increased empathy actually made him a more effective manager.

“People don’t always come to me with problems in order to get them solved,” Mr. Forman says. Sometimes “they come to be heard and have me join them. I’m very comfortable with that now.”

AS executives progress through the exercises, some also find themselves reworking their job descriptions, Dr. Lahey says.

Dr. Rapier, for example, recounted his own transformation from “micromanager” to bigger-picture thinker. Going into the process, he says, “I wasn’t really a mentor, I was a puppeteer.” But now he views himself as more of a circus ringmaster.

“There are all these moving parts in the company,” he says. “I see myself as the one making sure they are all moving in concert.”

E-mail: slipstream@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 18, 2012, on page BU6 of the New York edition with the headline: Helping Managers See and Fix Their Flaws.

Article from the New York Times

Bridging the skills gap

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:37:00 +0000

Article from Seacoastonline.com

Though hiring is improving, we still suffer from high unemployment. Yet, employers cry that they can't find skilled individuals. In a survey conducted by Manpower, more than half of all employers said they can't find enough qualified workers to fill their jobs. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that there will be a shortfall of 3 million skilled worker positions in the U.S. this year. And the problem is the same in Maine. How can this be? With 13 million unemployed Americans, why aren't these jobs being filled? Unfortunately, having people who want to work is not the same as having people with the right skills to do the work. And that's the problem. People desperate for jobs and employers are begging for help.

So what's the answer? There is no easy solution and whatever one is generated, will take the cooperative efforts of employers, employees, education and government to make happen. Not an easy task.

There are some things that can be done quickly. Education and training is a big part of the answer. But the skills gap can only be narrowed through them. Over the last several years employers have slashed training budgets in an attempt to contain costs. This short-term thinking has impacted business' long term competitiveness and survival. To reverse this, employers have got to be willing to invest time, resources and money into comprehensive skills training for their workers. Many are doing it and enjoying the rewards. A few are creating in-house corporate universities. These programs, often developed with colleges and universities, can propel a workforce forward. I led an initiative to develop such a university for a plastics manufacturing firm. We educated our workforce and even invited our competitors to attend. Thirty years later, this program continues to operate and literally thousands of workers and managers have completed the program, meeting the skills requirements of my former employer. A win-win for the company, its employees, the partnering university and the plastics industry.

Education has a big role to play. One bright spot in Maine is our community college system. Many have partnered with employers to provide programs in manufacturing and health care to name just two. But we can't stop there. Employers must actively collaborate with all levels of education, from middle schools to universities, providing resources, internships, direction and support.

Government needs to be involved too. Education is not free. Funding of education is essential, a tall order in a time of tight budgets. But a weakened education system cripples the feeder system that will propel our economy. Poorly prepared students make poorly prepared workers. It's an investment we must make.

Workers also have a role. Employees must continue to upgrade their skills. Education and training is a continuous process, not simply something that ends upon graduation or with a job. An employee's value increases with learning. And it's often great protection against layoffs. Whether employers pay for training and education or not, employees must invest in their own careers.

As for the unemployed, the ugly reality is many will never find jobs doing what they had previously done. Some jobs have become obsolete. Others have been eliminated or outsourced. As hard as it is to accept, retraining for a new profession may be the only solution.

While narrowing of the skills gap will not solve the unemployment crisis or fully cure our economic woes, it is a start. The crisis will not be solved with a magic wand or a presidential election. It will be solved with small incremental changes with everyone playing a role.

The recession has been hard on everyone. But the skills gap began growing decades before this downturn. Rapid technological changes and an aging population with Boomers soon exiting the workforce will further exacerbate this problem. We need to make changes now.

Rick Dacri is a workforce expert, management consultant, and author of the book "Uncomplicating Management: Focus On Your Stars & Your Company Will Soar." Since 1995 his firm, Dacri & Associates has helped organizations improve individual and organizational performance. He can be reached at rick@dacri.com and www.dacri.com. Readers are encouraged to send comments, questions and ideas for future articles to Rick Dacri at rick@dacri.com.

Article from Seacoastonline.com

What We Can Learn About Leadership From March Madness and Linsanity

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:21:00 +0000

Victor Lipman, Contributor

LEADERSHIP | 3/11/2012 @ 12:48PM

Article from Forbes

On the eve of March Madness, and five weeks into Linsanity, it seems a good time to reflect on some unique management lessons that basketball can teach us.

First, a few quick warm-up questions…

Are you ever frustrated with our political or business leaders? Ever sense a lack of vision, a failure to assess risk, a reluctance to make hard decisions? Ever feel just a hint of a need for more selfless behavior?

If you plead guilty to any of the above, I only half-jokingly suggest you find leadership inspiration in an unlikely place: watch more basketball. No, it’s not the coaches I’m thinking of – whose tendencies toward tempestuous behavior are well documented. It’s the point guards.

My premise is that good point guards at all levels – high school, college, the NBA… from Bob Cousy to John Stockton to Jeremy Lin — embody the very qualities that are too often lacking among our leaders. Specifically:

Good point guards have vision. They understand the environment. In basketball of course it’s called “court sense.” They’re game managers, controlling the tempo in a fast-paced, fluid environment. They regularly make snap decisions on whether to fast break or slow the pace down. They have an uncanny ability to see things in a way their teammates don’t, surveying the entire court and making the right pass to find the open man, or woman. They see the big picture and take appropriate actions as a result.

Good point guards understand risk. While it’s the occasional behind-the-back or through-the-legs pass that brings the crowd to its feet, the fact is, good point guards make responsible, low-risk decisions the vast majority of the time. Arguably the greatest point guard of them all, Magic Johnson, who earned his nickname for his no-look, highlight-reel passes, was fundamentally a brilliant game manager who used his size and incomparable hand-eye coordination to protect the ball, make sound decisions, and control the pace of play. The late great coach and commentator Al McGuire used to call fancy passes “French Pastry.” Pastry is delicious now and then. We may love it, but can’t live on it. Too many turnovers and you’ll quickly find yourself back on the bench.

Good point guards aren’t afraid to make tough decisions. In fact, they have to make them constantly, in a chaotic environment. They regularly decide when to push the pace in the open court, or when to settle things down and run a set play. They know when to pass and when to take it to the hoop. They know who their shooters are, who their role players are, and who can be counted on to help handle the frenzy of a full court press. They know who’s hot, who’s not, and who stays cool when the game is on the line.

Good point guards are selfless. They’re never greedy. They distribute the ball. Though they can score when needed, their training – their first impulse – is to look for others. They’re not concerned about personal statistics or glory. They involve their teammates. The very best make everyone on the court with them considerably better. Ultimately, Jeremy Lin’s success with the New York Knicks will likely be determined not by how many points he scores, but by how skillfully and effectively he involves Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire in the offense.

It’s been said the essence of athletic excellence is making the very difficult look routine. From Walt Frazier to Magic to Sue Bird to Derrick Rose to the global phenomenon that is Jeremy Lin… to the steady anonymous point guard for your local high school… good point guards are money in the bank. They’re team players who exercise prudent judgment in challenging situations and run their operations in a responsible, controlled manner.

I ask myself, now where have we needed these qualities in recent years?

So the next time someone tells you you’re wasting time watching too much of The Madness over the next month, just tell them you’re actually not watching basketball – you’re studying sound management practices. And pass the pretzels, please.

Article from Forbes

Smart ways to tackle time

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:45:00 +0000

By Diana Clement
5:30 AM Wednesday Mar 7, 2012
Article from New Zealand Herald

Show bosses you can organise yourself to land top roles, writes Diana Clement

Time management: it's sometimes more important than actual skills when it comes to getting ahead in a career. What's the point in being good at your job if you can't get anything done?

It's all too easy for work to be derailed by time-eaters such as meetings, ad hoc requests and the distractions enabled by technology - including email and mobile phones, says Megan Alexander, general manager at Robert Half New Zealand.

If you're procrastinating when you should be getting an important job done, you're unlikely to land that next big role. Conversely, being known as a good time-manager will help progress your career within the organisation and outside of it.

If you're not careful, your entire day could be spent checking and replying to emails and chasing up loose ends on the internet. We've all done it - the word "Houdini" in an email led this journalist to lose half an hour on the internet finding out about the man behind the legend - just to realise that a deadline was looming.

Kim Hope, an associate of the Capability Group who runs time-management courses at the University of Auckland's Centre for Continuing Education, says taking time out to reflect on your use of time can be useful.

In many instances people are adding more to their to-do list every day than they can possibly get through, she says. The participants on her course say they need to use their time more effectively, but have no idea how to change their ways.

Among other things, Hope gets participants to look at ways they can invest time to make time. That might include learning to touch-type or breaking a habit.

Get time management right and there's a good chance you will be noticed - by your colleagues, employers and even others in the industry who see you achieving goals.

Kelly Services marketing manager Victoria Robertson says there are ways to demonstrate your time-management skills during the job-hunting process. "[In your CV,] incorporate specific examples of when you have achieved results and outcomes within the allotted timeframe," says Robertson.

"For example, an event planner's job is likely to have daily, and even hourly, deadlines, compared to a long-term deadline expected from a researcher, so your project-management examples should reflect this. If applicable, include any delegation of tasks."

If you're not an organised, efficient time-manager, it's time to change. As well as reducing stress, good time management means that you can prioritise. Instead of trying to get everything done in order and have important projects slipping, you can focus on the most important task at hand. Say goodbye to backlog and "time regret". As one Chinese proverb says: "No amount of gold will buy you time that has passed." Alexander's top tips that can help you take control of your day are:

Analyse your schedule.

Keep a detailed work diary, which will tell you where your time really goes.

"For the next week, make a point to write down what you do and when during the work day," she says. "Examining how you spend a typical day at the office will help you to identify when you are most productive, how often you sort through emails, make phone calls or engage in meetings." You'll also find how often you are interrupted or distracted, and by whom.

Develop an action plan and set aside time windows.

Reviewing emails, making and returning phone calls, or catching up on articles in industry publications are best conducted in "time windows", says Alexander. Your schedule of time windows should also take advantage of your body clock. "If you are sharpest before lunchtime, schedule more difficult tasks for completion in the morning hours."

Let messages wait.

Bad email and voicemail discipline steals time and distracts you from more demanding tasks. "Unless your role requires it, try to avoid reading and responding every time a new message arrives. Instead, schedule times throughout the day when you focus exclusively on messages. You'll cut down on ongoing anxiety while making your responses less hasty and more useful."

Turning off email notifications and closing down the chat window can save up to an hour a day of wasted time.

Rediscover single-tasking.

You can't solve a technical challenge while talking on the phone, filing paperwork and planning for an upcoming meeting. "When working on a crucial assignment, give the issue at hand your undivided attention so you do it right the first time. Fight the urge to multitask, which often impedes real productivity by leading to oversights and errors."

Check out.

If you're prevented from completing important tasks by unnecessary interruptions, close the door and tell your colleagues you're off limits for a period of time so you can focus on your work. Interruptions break your train of thought and it can take a while to get back to full capacity.

Build in rewards.

Keeping to a schedule is challenging because it takes discipline. Give yourself credit for adhering to your agenda and accomplishing all "must-do-today" items with a reward such as a daily coffee or a lunchtime walk.

Alexander says people also need to be realistic. "Some days you will be more productive than others, so don't worry if you get off track temporarily."

But as the old adage goes, rules are made to be broken. It you need to take extreme measures to overcome old habits, then it's worth getting electronic assistance from internet and smartphone applications.

Simple internet-based products such as RescueTime or RWorks can help you analyse where your time is going, showing you what you've been doing at the computer. RescueTime claims to add three hours' productive time to the average person's day.

Although a small amount of leisure surfing on the internet can be good for focus, you can find out with software such as RescueTime where you are being distracted and even voluntarily limit the time you are allowed on particular websites. Software such as this can launch reminders whenever you're distracted from the activity you planned.

There are many to-do list applications available for the PC or smartphone, such as iProcrastinate Mobile and Remember The Milk.

But even using simple programs such as Microsoft Outlook to its fullest capacity can help save time, adds Hope.

Some lower-tech devices can also be useful - such as old-fashioned countdown timers on your desk which alert you when it's time to move on or to complete a task.

By Diana Clement

Article from New Zealand Herald

Internet study speculates about cognitive skills of younger generation

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:50:00 +0000

by Katherine Blunt on March 6, 2012

Article from The Pendulum

Generation gaps are not a foreign concept. Many adults question the effect of digital technologyon the younger generation, a new survey shows.

Janna Anderson, associate professor of communications and director of Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, and Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, conducted a survey that explored the increasing prevalence of digital technology and its potential consequences come 2020.

More than 1,000 Internet experts and users provided predictions about the overall consequences of hyper-connectivity. Participants were initially asked to agree with one of two hypothetical scenarios that presented the positive and negative consequences associated with increased technological experience. Participants were later allowed to submit a personal opinion in response to the two scenarios.

In the study released Feburary, the responses, then submitted by leaders in various technology-centric industries and university programs, ranged from positive to negative, but most often suggested ambivalence.

In the hyper-connected community of Elon, most students are all too familiar with the practice of multitasking. An ever-increasing amount of digital and social media poses a constant threat to distraction.

“Twitter and Facebook are probably the biggest distractions for me while I’m working on schoolwork,” said senior Jacquie Adams, who responded to the survey in Anderson’s Future of the Internet course. “If I need a break, I’ll check Facebook and easily waste up to 30 minutes on it. I think I’ve gotten so used to being connected to everything all the time, I almost feel like I have to check Facebook constantly.”

Other students find such distractions manageable and even beneficial. Sophomore Joe Bruno, who also completed the survey, said he multitasks constantly, both on and offline.

“I’m constantly plugged in and wouldn’t want it any other way,” Bruno said. “Multitasking has become so incorporated into my life. Digital technology immensely affects my concentration when faced with schoolwork, but I don’t see this as a problem. I don’t buy into the argument that people cannot effectively multitask.”

Nevertheless, how students and young adults choose to divide their time, rather than if they chose to do so, is more indicative of digital efficiency, Anderson said. An underlying concern that the younger generation often use the Internet and other digital tools to pursue superficial interests can be found in many survey responses.

Yet, Amy Hogan, assistant professor of psychology who teaches a course titled Psychology and the Internet, acknowledges our limited knowledge with respect to the web.

“It is important to keep in mind that the Internet is rather in its infancy,” Hogan said. “We really don’t know its long-term benefits. There are studies that suggest that being connected all the time can affect concentration and focus, but there are also studies that indicate that (the Internet) is rewiring our brains to have greater visual and spatial intelligence and to deal with all sorts of information at one time.”

Survey participants disagreed on the pervasiveness of digital technology and its ability to foster change in cognitive and behavioral patterns. The survey results showed the true feasibility of multitasking is contested, as are its consequences. Nevertheless, Anderson said she believes the Internet contributes to people’s ability to multitask.

“Some people try to say that (multitasking) doesn’t exist, but it has been proven that people can juggle tasks,” Anderson said. “Some people may be more capable (of multitasking) than others, but these are skills that can be learned.”

But these skills are not innate for the younger generation, she said.

“I think that older people assume that every young person is a digital native,” Anderson said. “That’s absolutely not true. All (young people) have different skills based on how much they have immersed themselves in (technology). We absolutely want young people to realize how much more power they hold when they use digital tools the right way.”

In some ways, the digital capability of the younger generation rests in the hands of the older generation, Hogan said.

“We do have the responsibility to teach children digital fluency, and that includes when and how to use digital technology effectively,” Hogan said. “It’s also important (to teach them) what information is important online, because there is so much out there.”

But ultimately, the reality of either hypothetical situation proposed in the study will be determined by the self-control and the prudence of a generation largely accustomed to constant communication and instant gratification, Anderson said.

“A lot of it comes down to the whole idea of self-discipline and time management,” Anderson said.

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ABOUT KATHERINE BLUNT

Katherine Blunt, from Severna Park, Ma., is a Senior Reporter for the Pendulum. This is her first semester on staff, and she hopes it will be one of many. Katherine is majoring in print and online journalism to appease her natural love for writing and reporting. She is also majoring in history, for she truly believes that the past is the best predictor of the future. Katherine also enjoys cooking to classic jazz and reading just about anything.

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Article from The Pendulum

60% Of College Grads Can't Find Work In Their Field. Is A Management Degree The Answer?

ridodirected@gmail.com (RIDO) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:11:00 +0000

James Marshall Crotty, Contributor
I cover education as a sector and as the bedrock of all sectors.
Article from Forbes

EDUCATION | 3/01/2012 @ 5:37PM

Sixty percent of U.S. college graduates cannot find a full-time job in their chosen profession, according to job placement firm Adecco. Dubbed ‘Generation Jobless’, college graduates ages 24 and younger face an uncertain job future that, even with improving employment numbers, is only going to get more difficult if we continue to turn out graduates without what an Apple exec described as “the skills we need.” Career and job websites, such as Monster Worldwide, ostensibly exist to address the challenge, but, in practice, offer only generic resume-building tips and interview skills.

The needs of this job-seeking cohort are more granular. It is no longer sufficient to have quality undergraduate training in a specific area (say, journalism or architecture). Today’s employers can choose from candidates all over the globe. And what sets one applicant apart from another are skill sets that transcend one’s major or desired profession.

In particular, employers are looking for applicants with core business competencies. Unfortunately, most U.S. undergrads, focused on training in their desired field, never bother to accrue such skills. I see this first-hand at Monk. When we actively seek out creative professionals in writing, marketing, production and post-production, we find that applicants often lack basic training in 21st century tech skills, such as programming, web design, and search engine optimization. In addition, applicants lack training in vital “soft skills,” including critical thinking and shared inquiry that come from a rigorous, deep chronological reading of “the Great Books” (not the leftist secondary source pablum fed to many undergraduates). Moreover, few, if any, come equipped with training in finance, marketing, project management, and business administration.

That is probably why a new trend is emerging among U.S. universities to partially combat ‘Generation Jobless’: specialized, accelerated Masters in Management (or MiM) programs that take less time than conventional MBAs, cost less, and allow students to break through a cluttered job market in order to join their chosen field faster. MiM programs are particularly tailored to undergraduates from non-business backgrounds.

I would have welcomed such a degree. My undergraduate alma mater, Northwestern University, would not allow me to transfer from their School of Speech (now School of Communication) into their renowned Medill School of Journalism, despite my then near-perfect GPA. Furthermore, Northwestern did not offer an undergraduate business program. I came out of Northwestern raring to work, but, with few, if any, practical business skills.

Fortunately, universities are finally getting the memo. Currently there are at least four MiM degree programs (not to be confused with Masters in Information Management, which are sometimes called MiM programs) at top U.S. universities, including Arizona State, Pepperdine, University of Florida, and Wake Forest. Class sizes range from 45-95 students.

Young entrepreneurs have been particularly drawn to MiM programs. According to a recent study conducted by the Young Invincibles and funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, 54 percent of the nation’s recent graduates either want to start a business or have already started one. However, many would-be entrepreneurs do not major in business, even though business majors continue to grow in popularity (about 22% of all majors).

Imagine, for instance, that you are a dance major, but dream of opening your own studio. You may choose the MiM degree to learn business fundamentals to help you forge a marketing plan, read a supply sheet, balance your budget, raise capital, and get your business off the ground. Perhaps you are an engineering major. An MiM degree positions you to move up the corporate ladder faster through better understanding of business fundamentals.

However, if one is going to invest one year in a MiM, why not invest two years and get a traditional, and more respected, MBA? While both MiM and MBA programs use the case study method and emphasize team work, the answer lies in the type of student that would apply for each. MiM applicants are typically college seniors or recent graduates under the age of 24, with little or no job experience. They majored in a non-business degree, but now know that management training will give them a competitive edge for even an entry-level position. Alternately, a MiM provides essential skills to start one’s own business. Moreover, with an MiM degree, a student will complete the degree in just nine months at a cost of $22-36K, depending on the program.

By contrast, most MBA applicants have been in the professional workplace for several years – the average age of MBA applicants is between 27 and 32 — and want to pursue a C-level position. They seek an in-depth, specialized curriculum plus a summer internship that leads to a job offer. Moreover, they have a flexible schedule with two years available to complete a new degree, plus at least $47-75K to spend, depending on the program.

For the right entry-level or entrepreneurial person with an analytical bent, the MiM degree is the cost-beneficial option. Heretofore, MiMs have been a European phenomenon, where many students get them in lieu of an MBA. However, according to the GMAC Application Survey, the number of applications to U.S. MiM programs has risen steadily since 2008, including a 69% increase in 2009 applications alone. If the ROI of MBA graduates is an indicator, MiM graduates are likely to get not only the job they want, but the salary they want too.

The rise in MiM programs suggests that universities are finally listening to employers who’ve long decried the lack of strategic savvy, financial literacy, technical competency, and entrepreneural drive among applicants for entry-level jobs. “Finding a job upon college graduation has historically been challenging and is exacerbated by today’s down economy,” said Amy Hillman, executive dean of Arizona State’s W. P. Carey School of Business. “We created the new MiM program specifically to address the enormous pain point felt by today’s graduating class.”

In so doing, MiM programs are addressing a far larger “pain point”: the slide in global competiveness among many American firms due to a dearth of properly trained American undergraduates.

Article from Forbes