Improve My Business

Every once in a while we take a day ‘off’ from writing our blog to inject some humor:  this month from a variety of sources.  Here’s one from Grinning Planet, and another from Unwind – enjoy.

Technorati Tags: efficiency jokes, humor

I found this interesting article on deadlines by Dorene Lehavi, Ph.D. Reading this article helped me realize it’s not enough to complete a task by a set deadline, but that you should plan ahead better to successfully reach your deadline without stressing. Here is the article from Woopidoo.com:

When I told my friend Maxim (pronounced Maxeem) that I was working against a deadline, he blurted in his adorable French accent, “Whazat mean?” He continued, “You gonna be dead if you don’t make it? The sun will stop shining? The birds will stop singing? The trees will stop growing?” Well, that certainly put me in my place, and as Maxim always does, he moved me from anxiety to laughter.

Maxim told me he knew of no other culture which uses such a severe word as DEADline to indicate the time when something is due. So I decided to check it out. I ran to my Larousse, which indeed seemed to struggle with a translation. It gave two words for deadline; date and limit. Eva from Argentina couldn’t come up with any Spanish word even close to deadline. And my friend, Radomir said in Serbian the word means “the ending time”. In Hebrew the translation was last season. Other cultures seem to take life easier than we do; they have softer words and concepts and give some leeway.

Maxim who is now retired, but had a career here in the US, says he never experienced a deadline. He never missed a day of work and never missed doing anything that was expected of him. He always arrived early to work and planned his day so that he finished early. And, I might add, I never met a person with a better sense of joie de vivre. He made sure good times were part of each day.

A friend needed to drive to San Francisco from Los Angeles to take care of some things for his mother one weekend. He left a lot of work on his desk before setting out, so he spent the trip there thinking about when he’d get to his mother’s (one deadline), and on the return trip he obsessed about the work left unfinished at home (more deadlines). He completely missed the journey because he remained in a state of anxiety by focusing all his attention on deadlines. What a shame as the Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most beautiful drives in the world.

How about reevaluating your deadlines?

Plan better. Think ahead about the deadlines you have and those you set for others. Is there a way you can soften them? Break them into smaller steps and write them in your calendar.

Reward yourself for the small steps you complete and show appreciation to others who complete the task you asked of them.

I invite you to have some fun with me! Ask everyone you know from another culture or who knows another language to tell you the translation of the word “deadline”. Email the answers to me and I’ll compile a list to share.

Don’t just email Dorene Lehavi, share your comments and translations right here as well!

Technorati Tags: deadlines, efficiency, Time Management

Here are the remaining 3 tips from Randy Pausch’s time management list from the “I’m on My Honeymoon, But If You Need Me…” chapter:

Rethink the telephone. I live in a culture where I spend a lot of time on hold, listening to “Your call is very important to us.” Yeah, right. That’s like a guy slapping a girl in the face on a first date and saying, “I actually do love you.” Yet that’s how modern customer service works. And I reject that. I make sure I am never on hold with a phone against my ear. I always use a speaker phone, so my hands are free to do something else.

I’ve also collected techniques for keeping unnecessary calls shorter. If I’m sitting while on the phone, I never put my feet up. In fact, it’s better to stand when you’re on the phone. You’re more apt to speed things along. I also like to have something in view on my desk that I want to do, so I have the urge to wrap things up with the caller.

Over the years, I’ve picked up other phone tips. Want to quickly dispatch telemarketers? Hang up while you’re doing the talking and they’re listening. They’ll assume your connection went bad and they’ll move on to their next call. Want to have a short phone call with someone? Call them at 11:55 a.m., right before lunch. They’ll talk fast. You may think you are interesting, but you are not more interesting than lunch.

Delegate. As a professor, I learned early on that I could trust bright, nineteen-year-old students with the keys to my kingdom, and most of the time, they were responsible and impressive. It’s never too early to delegate. My daughter, Chloe, is just eighteen months old, but two of my favorite photos are of her in my arms. In the first, I’ve giving her a bottle. In the second, I’ve delegated the task to her. She looks satisfied. Me, too.

Take a time out. It’s not a real vacation if you’re reading email or calling in for messages. When Jai and I went on our honeymoon, we wanted to be left alone. My boss, however, felt I needed to provide a way for people to contact me. So I came up with the perfect phone message:

“Hi, this is Randy. I waited until I was thirty-nine to get married, so my wife and I are going away for a month. I hope you don’t have a problem with that, but my boss does. Apparently, I have to be reachable.” I then gave the names of Jai’s parents and the city where they live. “If you cal directory assistance, you can get their number. And then, if you can convince my new in-laws that your emergency merits interrupting their only daughter’s honeymoon, they have our number.”

We didn’t get any calls.

Some of my time management tips are dead-on serious and some are a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I believe all of them are worth considering.

Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think.

That’s all for time management tips from Randy Pausch. If you enjoyed those, and want to read more of his stories and advice, they can be found in his book called “The Last Lecture.” Again, please feel free to add some of your own time management tips, and any other comments as well!

-Jenny

Technorati Tags: delegate, living your life, managing your time, telephone, Time Management, time out

Right now I’m reading this book called “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. It’s basically a collection of his life stories that he put together from his “last lecture” that he gave on “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” at Carnegie Mellon. Unlike many professors who give “The Last Lecture” talks, this really was going to be Randy’s last because he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and would only have several months left to live. Among many of his stories and advice, I ran across a section about time management-one of the characteristics and skills he emphasized with his graduate students and in own his life.

Excerpt on time management from the “I’m on My Honeymoon, But If You Need Me…” section by Randy Pausch:

All my life, I’ve been very aware that time is finite. I admit I’m overly logical about a lot of things, but I firmly believe that one of my most appropriate fixations has been to manage time well. I’ve railed about time management to my students. I’ve given lectures on it. And because I’ve gotten so good at it, I really do feel I was able to pack a whole lot of life into the shortened lifespan I’ve been handed.

Here’s what I know:

Time must be explicitly managed, like money. My students would sometimes roll their eyes at what they called “Pauschisms,” but I stand by them. Urging students not to invest time on irrelevant details, I’d tell them: “It doesn’t matter how well you polish the underside of the banister.”

You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I’m a big believer in to-do lists. It helps us break life into small steps. I once put “get tenure” on my to-do list. That was naive. The most useful to-do list breaks tasks into small steps. It’s like when I encourage Logan (his two-year old son) to clean his room by picking up one thing at a time.”

Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth pursuing? I’ve long held on to a clipping from a newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia. It featured a photo of a pregnant woman who had lodged a protest against a local construction site. She worried that the sound of jackhammers was injuring her unborn child. But get this: In the photo, the woman is holding a cigarette. If she cared about her unborn child, the time she spend railing again jackhammers would have been better spent putting out that cigarette.

Develop a good filing system. When I told Jai (his wife) I wanted to have a place in the house where we could file everything in alphabetical order, she said I sounded way too compulsive for her tastes. I told her: “Filing in alphabetical order is better than running around and saying, ‘I know it was blue and I know I was eating something when I had it.’ ”

There are 3 more tips from Randy’s list which will be posted on the next blog.

Please feel free to add some of your own time management tips, whether humorous or serious!

-Jenny

Technorati Tags: living your life, managing your time, Time Management

I came across this great youtube video - when you watch it, notice the faces of the babies:

Technorati Tags: babies, humor, Streamlining, systems, systems thinking