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INFORMATION WANTED… DEAD OR ALIVE How to Escape Captivity from Habits That Hurt Your Productivity

Guest post by: Leslie Shreve

Article Overview: Using the suggested practices I've listed below, you can free yourself from the wall of information rising high around you and you won't have to be a victim of a wild office or a wild work day. You can put your useful information to good use and let go of the rest, freeing you to get back to your priorities with a clear mind and a clear desk.

INFORMATION WANTED… DEAD OR ALIVE How to Escape Captivity from Habits That Hurt Your Productivity

Do you recognize these scenarios? A: You've just come back from a meeting. You put your pad and papers from the meeting on the credenza behind you and you sit down to your computer to read the latest e-mail. Six weeks later, the pad and papers are still sitting there on your credenza, untouched...

B: You've returned from an annual conference out of state and it's your first day back in the office. You bring in the bag of stuff you collected from the conference, including flyers, brochures, notes and business cards and you put it next to your credenza on the floor in the corner of your office. Six weeks later, the bag is still sitting there on the floor, getting dusty.

These are 2 scenarios - or habits - I see all the time when I work with my clients. It's the thrill of the capture, although you may be the one who's really captive instead. One who is enslaved by all the information you bring into your office, whether dead or alive - useless or useful. Why do you keep bringing all this stuff in and then never stop to review it to see how you'll use it?

Now you're surrounded. It's like the Old American Wild West and you're without your horse, your six-shooter or your lasso to take control or escape. But just like the real American West in the late 19th century, when law and order emerged and the U.S. expanded to the Pacific, fulfilling its belief in Manifest Destiny, you too can take control, bring back order and change your work day destiny.

Using the suggested practices I've listed below, you can free yourself from the wall of information rising high around you and you won't have to be a victim of a wild office or a wild work day. You can put your useful information to good use and let go of the rest, freeing you to get back to your priorities with a clear mind and a clear desk.

1. Scrutinize now, not later

Whether you created it, accepted it, picked it up or asked for it, the information you captured seemed great at the time. However, in the future, I want you to scrutinize what you're thinking about taking, writing, or accepting right away and decide if it's even worth capturing. Really think about it for a minute. After a little review you may discover that you don't need or want it at all and then it never hits your office desk.

2. Decide outside

Look through the things you pick up at conferences in your hotel room before it even makes it on the plane back home and before you bring it back to your office. Decide "out there" before information ever makes it back here, in your office. Think about how you're really going to USE it later.

3. Write less, manage less

Focus on taking quality notes and reduce the quantity of notes you write as you're sitting in meetings. Avoid taking notes just to stay awake. Try not taking notes at all, depending on the meeting. Also, write next action steps you're responsible for on a separate sheet of paper, or on the bottom or back of each note page. Or use a special marker to star or circle action steps, making it easier to locate and transfer them to your to-do list without further review of your notes.

If, after taking these steps, you still bring important materials back to your office, make time immediately to review what you have and place the information in its proper location. Reference materials go into your files, actionable items should be noted on your Task list, business card information goes into your contact system and great ideas go on an Ideas list for later action.

What's hard about putting things away is figuring out what's useful to you. That's why I want you to think about it and make more decisions more quickly as information and opportunities present themselves. It's way more productive than just bringing everything back to your office and piling it up... dead or alive.

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Article Tags: business, getting organized, leslie shreve, organization, productive day, productivity, task management, task management system, taskology
Referred by: http://affiliatepowercentral.com



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