Time Management

Time Off for Reflection, Regrouping and Prioritizing

December 18, 2009
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Time Off for Reflection, Regrouping and Prioritizing

I am taking the next two weeks off. Your regularly scheduled blog posts will resume on January 4th 2010. Why? The short version – It’s the holidays, things are slow and it’s always good to take a break. The long version – I need time to regroup and realign my priorities.  Lately I’ve been scrambling like mad to keep up, I feel like I’m letting everyone around me down, including me. There are emails I haven’t returned, emails I haven’t written. I feel disconnected from my friends on Twitter and Facebook. Work takes up a large part of my personal time. I’m beginning to feel a little dazed and confused, like I’ll never be caught up. This is a red flag for me, time to take two steps back and regroup. I was already considering it when I downloaded What Matters Now from Seth’s blog. As I read through it this week so many passages struck a chord, professionally and personally. It confirmed what I was already thinking, I need to pause and regroup. I am publicly declaring my holiday for two reason, the first so regular readers will know I haven’t disappeared, I haven’t run out of things to

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For Those Who Are an Overnight Success and For Those Who Aren’t a Video Series From Chris Brogan

November 13, 2009
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These videos are from Chris Brogan’s Over Night Success Series. There are 9 videos total covering topics such as Grinding vs Clocking – Time and the Overnight Success, Pity Party, Small Talk is Big, Belief Systems, The Competition, What it Takes, No Excuses & A Call to Arms. These videos are great even if you aren’t an over night success, even if you aren’t a success. These 3 are my favorite (although it was hard to pick) Take time off – I’ve said it before you need your down time but I’m always happy to point out when others say the same thing.  :-) Don’t believe the hype – I included this one because Chris says – by over night success I mean 10 years of hard work. Here’s another bag of money – on excuses. We all make excuses that become between us and our goals. Decide what your priorities are. Stop making excuses. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Buzz it up Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend

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Managers – The Message You’re Sending About Time is Affecting Customer Service

October 19, 2009
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Managers – The Message You’re Sending About Time is Affecting Customer Service

The choice you need to make is will it affect it in a good way or a bad way? We are all busy. My to-do list is so long at this point I keep a master running list and a small list just for today, because looking at the long list inspires panic. As individuals, managers and organizations it can be easy to keep adding responsibilities, expectations and tasks to our list and to the lists of others. Especially at a time like this, when you may be short staffed, or just busier than normal (library usage goes up during a recession) or both. Unfortunately this attitude towards time can really hurt you in customer service. How staff feel about their time and the expectation from management affects how they interact with patrons. It’s the difference between handing someone a call number and vaguely gesturing towards the stacks and leaving the desk and walking the patron to the book. It’s the difference between hand the book over and walking away or asking if you can help them find anything else. It shows up in the type of greeting patrons receive in that minutes of extra chit-chat so many love, in

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Want to Innovate? Stop Working So Hard

October 14, 2009
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Putting in all those extra hours, either from the office or home, isn’t helping you. At least not with creativity, innovation or those ah-ha! moments. Some of our greatest moments of insight happen where we least expect them to. From the Wallstreet Journal: It happened to Archimedes in the bath. To Descartes it took place in bed while watching flies on his ceiling. And to Newton it occurred in an orchard, when he saw an apple fall. From the same article but even more interesting: Left to its own devices, our brain activates several areas associated with complex problem solving, which researchers had previously assumed were dormant during daydreams. Moreover, it appears to be the only time these areas work in unison. Of course it’s not as simple as just lounging about in your robe & fuzzy slippers.  You have to prepare in order to enable those insights to happen. From Fast Company: The researchers found support for the idea that blinding insights favor a prepared mind–that is, you’ve got to really internalize the problem at hand if you’re to find any sort of solution. But to actually bring those insights to life, you’ve got to step back. More Readings A Wandering

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Your Inbox Is Not a To-do List

August 3, 2009
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Your Inbox Is Not a To-do List

I’ve been talking and thinking about time management a lot lately (the fabulous Brenda Hough and I are doing a prefconference workshop about it at Internet Librarian) so when I saw this from Zen Habits I knew I had to share it Why Your Email Inbox Is NOT a Good To-do List: a very brief summary You can’t change the subject lines There might be multiple actions in each email You can’t re-order the emails (usually) You can’t prioritize your to-dos An email inbox contains distractions Go read the whole thing for explanations and suggestions on tools to use for a to-do lists. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Buzz it up Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend

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photo by Beth Tribe

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