August 17, 2004
Brought to you by:
Mike Hepburn / Editor of The Quickiebiztips Network
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?m8XSltScEk95MPDVa3G5Dg
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Phone: 1-888-758-7832
July 2004 Issue
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WHAT'S IN THIS ISSUE:
* Stress kills!
10 ways to reduce job stress
* Time Management
Includes a article and a link to a software I purchased this week
to completley manage your on-line business. Makes information
overload a thing of the past. I am very happy with it.
Fr*ee demo to download.
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?JKj2KM8LvguAuUXrNyuEAg
A list of resources, which are free or low cost,save for future
reference if you don't need them now.
* Bonus E-book to download.
"Web Traffic Secrets for 2004" (47 pages, PDF)
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?xFfl9THxdzIvz7wgQu.XRg
* A laugh or two - the Joke page
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?OnaDa1QBgtkFg0dncW3sGQ
* Subscribe/Unsubscribe Information
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I do publish only once a month, so newsletters tend to be a bit
long for some. I encourage you to save this text file and refer
back to it when you have time.
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Ten ways to reduce stress on the job
1/ Hobbies. The best way to take your mind off your work is with a
hobby that fills your free time. Pick something you can't get on
the job. For example, if you sit at a desk all day, try hiking,
camping, bicycle riding or some other physical activity. If you
feel your job doesn't provide an outlet for your creativity, take
up painting, music or another activity that satisfies your creative
side. A chemist should not restrict his leisure pursuits solely to
scientific and technical activities.
2/ Vacations. Many people boast of going years without a vacation.
But it's a mistake never to take one. Sitting on the beach, under
the sun. with the waves pounding at your feet is a marvelous way to
let off some of the pressure that's been building inside you. How
long should your vacation be? It depends on your personality. Some
people find they need at least a week or two to unwind fully.
Others say taking that much time off creates a backlog of work that
just adds to their stress when they return to the lab. Those people
may be better with several short vacations throughout the year.
3/ Screening. I feel that working alone, in long stretches, is far
more practical and productive than working in the corporate
environment, where your open door is an invitation for everyone to
interrupt you, at any time, regardless of how busy you are. If you
find these constant interruptions stressful, it may pay you to
screen calls and visitors. Take calls when you want to; if you're
busy, have someone take a message so you can return the call later.
4/ Unlisted phone number. Few things are as intrusive as a work
related phone calls received at home. If you are bothered by too
many such calls from subordinates or supervisors, consider getting
an unlisted number. If company policy dictates that people at work
must have access to your home number, you might want to buy a
telephone answering machine. The machine lets you monitor incoming
calls without picking up the phone.
5/ Privacy. Modular offices and open work spaces are popular with
managers who think constant employee interaction is a good thing.
But these setups deprive workers of privacy, and lack of privacy in
turn adds stress and reduces productivity. You should consider an
office setup in which all employees have small, private offices,
with doors they can shut, to give them a place to think.
6/ Dual offices. My Uncle Max, a college professor, has two
offices: his regular office and a small, "secret" office tucked
away in the basement of another department's building. Max goes
there to unwind, to work away from the crowds for a few hours, when
the pressures of students, faculty meetings and research overwhelm
him.
7/ Delegation. Do you have too much work to do? Delegate it. Don't
think you're the only one who can do your work. You'd be surprised
at what your co-workers can accomplish for you.
8/ Divide and conquer. If you're faced with a big task and a short
deadline, break the assignment up into many smaller segments and do
a part of the job every day. Having to write only one page a day
for ten days seems a lot less formidable a task than having to
produce a ten page paper in two weeks.
9/ Deep breathing. Psychologists have developed a number of
relaxation techniques that can help reduce stress on the job. All
can be performed easily at work. One of the most basic techniques
is deep breathing. It relieves tension by increasing your oxygen
intake. To practice it, sit in a comfortable position with your
hands on your stomach. Inhale deeply and slowly. Let your stomach
expand as much as possible. Hold your breath for five seconds. Then
exhale slowly through pursed lips, as if whistling. Repeat the
cycle three or four times.
10/ Visualizations. To escape from the stress of the "real world,"
close your door, sit back and spend the next 10 minutes in a
pleasant daydream. This short "mental vacation" provides a nice
tension reducing break.
********
If your not the boss, perhaps you should give him/her this list
Anonymously of course!
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No time!!! Sound familiar? This is the #1 complaint
I hear everywhere. Came across an interesting article
by Robert Bly
10 ways to get more done in less time
by Robert W. Bly
�I am always quarreling with time! It is so short to do
something and so long to do nothing.�
--Queen Charlotte
The ability to work faster and get more done in less time isn't
slavery; it's freedom. You're going to have the same big pile of
stuff to do every day whether you want it or not. If you can be
more efficient, you can get it done and still have some time left
over for yourself - whether it's to read the paper, hike, jog, or
play the piano.
Here are 10 ideas that can increase your personal productivity so
you can get more done in less time:
1.Master your PC. Every engineer or manager who wants to be more
productive should use a modern PC with the latest software. Doing
so can double, triple, or even quadruple your output.
Install on your PC the same software as your colleagues, other
departments within your organization, vendors, and business
partners use. The broader the range of your software, the more
easily you can open and read files from other sources.
Constantly upgrade your desktop to eliminate too-slow computer
processes that waste your time, such as slow downloading of files
or Web pages. If you use the Internet a lot, get the fastest access
you can. DSL is getting cheaper by the month and is well worth the
money at its current price levels.
2. Don't be a perfectionist. �I'm a non-perfectionist,� said Isaac
Asimov, author of 475 books. �I don't look back in regret or worry
at what I have written.� Be a careful worker, but don't agonize
over your work beyond the point where the extra effort no longer
produces a proportionately worthwhile improvement in your final
product.
Be excellent but not perfect. Customers do not have the time or
budget for perfection; for most projects, getting 95 to 98 percent
of the way to perfection is good enough. That doesn't mean you
deliberately make errors or give less than your best. It means you
stop polishing and fiddling with the job when it looks good to you
-- and you don't agonize over the fact you're not spending another
hundred hours on it. Create it, check it, then let it go.
Understand the exponential curve of excellence. Quality improves
with effort according to an exponential curve. That means early
effort yields the biggest results; subsequent efforts yield smaller
and smaller improvements, until eventually the miniscule return is
not worth the effort. Productive people stop at the point where the
investment in further effort on a task is no longer justified by
the tiny incremental improvement it would produce. Aim for 100
percent perfection, and you are unlikely to be productive or
profitable. Consistently hit within the 90 to 98 percent range, and
you will maximize both customer satisfaction as well as return on
your time investment.
�Perfection does not exist,� wrote Alfred De Musset. �To understand
this is the triumph of human intelligence; to expect to possess it
is the most dangerous kind of madness.�
3. Free yourself from the pressure to be an innovator. As publisher
Cameron Foote observes, �Clients are looking for good, not great.�
Do the best you can to meet the client's or your boss's
requirements. They will be happy. Do not feel pressured to reinvent
the wheel or create a masterpiece on every project you take on.
Don't be held up by the false notion that you must uncover some
great truth or present your boss with revolutionary ideas and
concepts. Most successful business solutions are just common sense
packaged to meet a specific need.
Eliminate performance pressure. Don't worry about whether what you
are doing is different or better than what others have done before
you. Just do the best you can. That will be enough.
4. Switch back and forth between different tasks. Even if you
consider yourself a specialist, do projects outside your specialty.
Inject variety into your project schedule. Arrange your daily
schedule so you switch off from one assignment to another at least
once or twice each day. Variety, as the saying goes, is indeed the
spice of life.
Approximately 70 to 90 percent of what I am doing at any time is in
familiar tasks within my area of expertise. This keeps me highly
productive. The other 10 to 30 percent is in new areas, markets,
industries, or disciplines outside my area of expertise. This keeps
me fresh and allows me to explore things that captivate my
imagination but are not in my usual schedule of assignments.
5. Don't waste time working on projects you don't have yet. Get
letters of agreement, contracts, purchase orders, and budget
sign-offs before proceeding. Don't waste time starting the work for
projects that may not come to fruition. An official approval or
go-ahead from your boss or customer makes the project real and
firm, so you can proceed at full speed, with the confidence and
enthusiasm that come from knowing you have been given the green
light.
6. Make deadlines firm but adequate. Of 150 executives surveyed by
AccounTemps, 37% rated the dependable meeting of deadlines as the
most important quality of a team player
Productive people set and meet deadlines. Without a deadline, the
motivation to do a task is small to nonexistent. Tasks without
assigned deadlines automatically go to the bottom of your priority
list. After all, if you have two reports to file - and one is due a
week from Thursday, and the other due �whenever you can get around
to it� - which do you suppose will get written first?
Often you will collaborate with your supervisor or customer in
determining deadlines. Set deadlines for a specific date and time,
not a time period. For example, �due June 23 by 3 pm or sooner,�
not �in about two weeks.� Having a specific date and time for
completion eliminates confusion and gives you motivation to get the
work done on time.
At the same time, don't make deadlines too tight. Try to build in a
few extra days for the unexpected, such as a missing piece of
information, a delay from a subcontractor, a last-minute change, or
a crisis on another project.
7. Protect and value your time. Productive people guard their time
more heavily than the gold in Fort Knox. They don't waste time.
They get right to the point. They may come off as abrupt or
dismissive to some people. But they realize they cannot give
everyone who contacts them all the time each person wants. They
choose who they spend time on and with. They make decisions. They
say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done - and then move
on.
Assign a dollar value to your time. If you work 40 hours a week, 50
weeks a year, that comes to 2,000 hours a year. To calculate your
hourly rate, divide your salary by 2,000. Example: $75,000 annual
salary divided by 2,000 hours comes to $37.50 an hour.
A productive person can tell you in an instant the worth of his or
her time, because he's already done this calculation and committed
the answer to memory. Productive people weigh the effort required
for specific activities - and the return it will produce - against
the cost of the time based on the dollar value of their hour.
For instance, if my time is worth $37.50, and I spend an hour
driving to a discount store to save $10 on supplies, I have not
used my time wisely -- I am $27.50 in the hole. On the other hand,
if I saved $1,000 on a new computer for the same trip, it obviously
was worth the time.
8. Stay focused. As Robert Ringer observed in his best-selling book
Looking Out for Number One, successful people apply themselves to
the task at hand. They work until the work gets done. They
concentrate on one or two things at a time. They don't go in a
hundred different directions. My experience is that people who are
big talkers - constantly spouting ideas or proposing deals and
ventures - are spread out in too many different directions to be
effective. Efficient people have a vision and focus their
activities to achieve that vision.
9. Set a production goal. Stephen King writes 1,500 words every day
except his birthday, Christmas, and the Fourth of July.
(Before his accident)
Steinway makes 800 pianos in its German plant every year.
Workers and organizations that want to meet deadlines and be
successful set a production goal and make it. An individual who
truly wants to be productive sets a production goal, meets it, and
then keeps going until he or she can do no more -- or runs out of
time -- for the day.
Joe Lansdale, author of Bad Chili and many other novels, says he
never misses his productivity goal of writing three pages a day,
five days a week. �I'm not in the mood, I don't feel like it, what
kind of an excuse is that?� Lansdale said in an interview with
Publisher's Weekly (September 29, 1997). �If I'm not in the mood,
do I not go to the chicken plant if I've got a job in the chicken
plant?�
10. Do work you enjoy. In advising people on choosing their life's
work, David Ogilvy, founder of the advertising agency Ogilvy &
Mather, quotes a Scottish proverb that says, �Be happy while you're
living; for you're a long time dead.� The Tao Te Ching says, �In
work, do what you enjoy.�
When you enjoy your work, it really isn't work. To me, success is
being able to make a good living while spending the workday in
pleasurable tasks. You won't love every project equally, of course.
But try to balance �must-do� mandatory tasks with things that are
more fun for you. Seek assignments that are exciting, interesting,
and fulfilling.
Can you train yourself to like work better and enjoy it more?
Motivational experts say we do have the ability to change our
attitudes and behavior. �Attitude is a trap or it is freedom.
Create your own,� writes Judy Crookes in Inner Realm magazine.
�Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans,� advised Max
Ehrmann in his 1927 essay �Desiderata.� �Keep interested in your
own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing
fortunes of time.�
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Usefull Resources
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?mxT95TFUT5WvqQaU97jluA
SiteProbe is a tool that checks the status of your website hourly,
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a weekly report in your mailbox. This is the site monitoring I use
and their service has been great.
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?zTlPjZ2edW46mGrv3qMlmA
Master Feedback Highly Recommended! : I've been looking online
everywhere for a decent feedback form that doesn't expose me to
spam emails. The problem is, most form scripts ask that you put
your email address inside the webpage code itself. Therefore, your
email address may be at risk of being picked up by spam bots. I'm
glad to have found William Bontrager's Master Feedback script,
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inside the webpage form code. Instead, it's put inside the CGI
script.
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BrainyQuote: You can always improve your writing (articles,
websites etc) and make yourself look like a pro by inserting some
famous quotes. This site offers free quote search. Keep this site
in your bookmark so that you can access it whenever you need a
quote or two to spice up your writing. :)
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?BS6e_ip9Hqz7TjXf_TYJHg
Creativity Pool: In need of some creative ideas? Pay a quick visit
to this site. It's a free database for anyone in need of a creative
idea. The ideas are submitted by users from all over the world. And
it's got a 'hot-o-meter' which tells you how 'hot' that particular
idea is.
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Don't forget to check out this awesome software. It will save you
time or your mon*ey back. Makes information overload a thing of the
past. I am very happy with it.
I hope you find this report informative.
Feedback allways appreciated
Please forward to anyone you think may benefit from this
information.
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Bonus E-Book
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?xFfl9THxdzIvz7wgQu.XRg
*************************************************************
No joke: Humor is good for you!!
Even faking it triggers the body's positive responses
Joke Page, please bring your over 18 sense of humor!
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?OnaDa1QBgtkFg0dncW3sGQ
Thanks for your time
Brought to you by:
Mike Hepburn / Editor of The Quickiebiztips Network
http://www.quickiebiztips.com
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: 1-888-758-7832
In Canada
http://www.quickiebiztips.ca
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: 1-888-758-7832
Mail / USA
Mike Hepburn
Plus-Tech Specialty Printing Inc.
4506 Main St.
Buffalo, New York 11623
Mail / Canada
Mike Hepburn
Plus-Tech Specialty Printing Inc.
643 Ossington Ave.
Toronto, Canada M6G 3T6
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