Get Out of Town! 5 Tips for Lightening Your Workload So You Can Take a Vacation

Get ut f the office earlier

 

You work hard. You covet every day of vacation you're entitled to. So why aren't you using them? According to Expedia.com's annual "Vacation Deprivation" survey, nearly one-third of Americans do not always take their vacation days. In fact, Americans are likely to give back more than 421 million unused vacation days {each year]..

Before blaming your job for forcing you to surrender your precious time off, take a look at your own habits at work and home. The best way ensure that you don't forego a single well-deserved day on the beach, on the slopes or just relaxing at home, is to increase your personal productivity. By tweaking the way you work and structure your day, you can get more done in less time and feel good about it. Best of all, you will never have to say no to a vacation again. Here's your five-step game plan for seizing control of your time and boosting your personal productivity:

1. Draw a line in the sand
Creating boundaries is a crucial step in regaining control of your time and increasing your personal productivity. The hard part of setting boundaries is telling other people what's important to you in a way that doesn't compromise the relationship.

First of all, schedule everything in your planner: exercising, going to church, taking the kids to the zoo, having a date with your spouse, spending time with friends, etc. That way, when a coworker says, "Will you come help me raise money at this event?" you can open your calendar and honestly say, "Gee, I'm really sorry. I have something planned." If it's not written down, you might accidentally say, "Uh, no, I'm not doing anything on Saturday. I guess I can help you out."



2. Don't be so darn picky
Have you ever delegated a task to someone, then taken it back because the person didn't do it the "right way"? You may suffer from the disease of perfectionism. If you demand that people perform your way, according to your perfect standards, many people will be content to let you do things your way, leaving you wondering why you have so much on your plate! The bottom line is: distinguish between a high standard and an unrealistic expectation. Some things require high standards and have to be done "just so." Most expectations we impose on others, however, are simply picky-picky standards without merit.

3. Learn to trust your subordinates
You should always retain broader management duties such as overall planning, policy making, goal setting, and budget supervision, as well as work that involves confidential information or supervisor-subordinate relations. But if there is another person who is 80% as capable to doing a task as you are, then delegate.

Consider delegating the following types of work:

Decisions you make most frequently and repetitively
Assignments that will add variety to routine work
Functions you dislike
Work that will provide experience for employees
Tasks that someone else is capable of doing
Activities that will make a person more well-rounded
Tasks that will increase the number of people who can perform critical assignments
Opportunities to use and reinforce creative talents

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Related: 7 tips for leaving the office earlier

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4. Question job responsibilities and related tasks
Have you ever looked back on a completed task and realized that if it had gone undone, there would be no consequence? When you're faced with too much to do, assess the tasks by asking, "What would happen if I simply didn't handle this?" If the answer is "nothing," don't do it.
In order to create effective work objectives, you need to know where you are expected to invest your time, energy, talents, and company resources. If you are to be evaluated on your successful accomplishment of work objectives, do those performance objectives really match what you do during the day? The things you want to or should be working on aren't always the things you're being evaluated on.

5. Stick to your guns
Many of those people have a jam-packed calendar because they can't say "no." Others prey on them, because they know a people-pleaser can never refuse. Perhaps you're afraid of losing control on something you may eventually be responsible for. It's time to get realistic and determine if the demands on your time have exceeded your ability to handle them.
Saying "no" does NOT undermine your authority or competence. Your credibility is actually enhanced when you honestly tell people you lack the time or the interest. First, it makes you seem more desirable (we always want what we can't have). Second, you ensure that you don't perform tasks slipshod, making you appear less competent in the end. Three, you'll have more time to devote to the tasks that do return the highest value for your time. So flex that "no" muscle, create your rules, and make sure others stick to them.

Make it a productive day! ™

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© Copyright Laura Stack, MBA, CSP. All rights reserved.
Laura M. Stack, MBA, CSP, is "The Productivity Pro"® and the author of Leave the Office Earlier. She presents keynotes and seminars on time management, information overload, and personal productivity. Contact her at 303-471-7401 or Laura@TheProductivityPro.com."

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Success and failure

“Be prepared to ride the cycles and trends of life; success is never permanent and failure is never final.”

—Brian Tracy

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Achievement

"Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's levels of aspiration and expectation."

Jack Nicklaus

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The Power of Love. How to Overcome Fear

An easy method to keep your desk clear of ‘stuff’

Last week I spoke at the conference of a very busy multi-brand Marketing Department on how to manage their office environment and overload of paper and information. Since their Manager had read 'Getting a Grip on the Paper War - Managing information in the modern office' last year she'd been trying to convert her staff, but decided when the book got lost on someone's desk that she'd better get me in to help reinforce the message!

I asked: 'Who regards themselves as tidy and organised....' (before I'd finished the question, most hands went up) ... with their desks?'

A laugh went round the room, most hands went down, and some folk looked embarrassed.

That's a typical response. Most professionals, especially highly educated ones, haven't been taught simple methods to keep the desk tamed, and so that wonderful stress-reducer - a clear desk - is missed.
Seems to me it's so obvious that it's slipped under the radar.

Here, to help you get through the mass of 'stuff' waiting for your quick action, is one very simple desk-management technique, excerpted from the book.



Chunk your 'put-away' tasks
A very powerful desk-management behaviour to develop is a 'Put it away as you go' habit, but don't be ruled by it. Chunk it.
What do I mean by that? Imagine yourself working at the desk. You finish with a file, or a paper out of a file. You know it's a good habit to put away as you go, so you jump up, walk over to the filing cabinet, and replace it. Or you've borrowed scissors from the receptionist. She's threatened you with early death if you don't return them, so the minute you're finished you do as you were told. Then, (if you're lucky and don't get distracted), back you go to your desk to start on the next activity.
Two possible things can happen here.
1. You spend many minutes per day jumping up and down, interrupting the momentum you'd created at your desk.
2. Because you've completed something and not yet begun the next task there isn't as strong a subliminal pull back to your desk. You're therefore more liable to be distracted by some interesting little by-way, a file that catches your eye, or someone else walking past.
To overcome that scenario, try this one instead. You finish a task and put the completed materials either on the furthest away point of your desk out of your immediate visual range, or even better (as long as it doesn't cause a traffic jam!) put them on the floor beside or behind your chair. The next time you stand up, instead of stepping over the seeming clutter on the floor you ALWAYS bend down, pick it up, and put it away.
I learned this technique as a mother, trying to stay sane raising six children. (Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I'd share it with business people!).
Whilst the children were little, (and anyone who's lived with children knows they have a profound disregard for tidiness) I found that, in a drive to keep the house looking a few notches above a war zone, I seemed to spend all day putting things away! Eventually I learnt to make piles 'to be put away in another room' by the door of any room I was working in. Then, as I walked out the door I'd pick up the pile, quickly zip around the house by the shortest possible route (implementing my own time and motion exercise) and put everything away. It was vastly more efficient than running around the house with each separate item.

Apply the same technique in your office, no matter how large or small, and you'll gain great time-savings. It may seem a slightly untidy way of working but in fact it's very efficient.

Even though there is a slight delay, you are still putting things away as you go - whilst they're fresh in your mind. It's rarely longer than 30 minutes before you put away your current crop of 'stuff'. You never end up with an intimidating pile of filing (and I've seen some mountains!). Over a year many hours are saved - you don't walk around unnecessarily. If it's filing, you don't need to spend time re-familiarising yourself with the item or paper in hand, but it hasn't interrupted your flow of activity.

Bottom line - it saves you spending 'the rest of your natural life' majoring in minor things.

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Author: Robyn Pearce You can contact Robyn at robyn@gettingagrip.com and her website is http://www.gettingagrip.com You can check ou the back issues of these Top Time Tips or the Discussion Board.

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Learn from 12 of Australia’s finest coaches

Tap into the SPORTS WISDOM of 12 of Australia's finest coaches as they reveal their personal stories and success philosophies. 

Discover valuable lessons from sport and how to fast-track your child's personal and sporting development for a successful journey through life!

Their secrets can take you to the top of your sports parenting or coaching game!

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How to Master the Art of Doing it Now and Eliminate the Dread of Procrastination

Wouldn't it be nice if life came with an instruction book that told us how to overcome this problem? Well - guess what? It does and you are looking at the solution in this innovative online course.

The Procrastinator's Online Course

Start where ever you want – blast away procrastination, or learn strategies for the workplace or conquer your clutter or enjoy the section of lists (you will love them) or there even is a bonus section to help you if you have children who procrastinate

Work at your own pace

You can listen to audios or view video clips.

Read the text based on the best selling book, The Procrastinator’s Handbook

Write your thoughts and goals in confidential secured areas that will be kept on file for you -- or print out the lessons and keep them in a notebook for reading & writing

Check it out now at the website

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Character, commitment, faith, hope and discipline

"Character gets you out of bed; commitment moves you to action.
Faith, hope and discipline enable you to follow through to completion."
--Zig Ziglar

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“Success is deciding from the start what end result you want and creating the circumstances to realize that result.” 
—Mark Victor Hansen
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Each day opens a new account for you

Imagine a bank credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever balance you have failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course.

Each of us has such a bank, called "time." Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against "tomorrow." You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success. The clock is running. Make the most of today.




Whenever you think that time is not your most valuable commodity in life:
Ask a student who failed a grade, about the value of one year.
Ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby, about the value of one month.
Ask the editor of a weekly newspaper, about the value of one week.
Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet, about the value of one hour.
Ask a person who missed the train, about the value of one minute.
Ask a person who just avoided an accident, about the value of one second. Treasure every moment for the account will irrevocably clear out tonight, with no roll-over.

Remember that time waits for no one. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.

V/R,
Scott Sonnon
www.facebook.com/ScottSonnon
www.positiveatmosphere.com