Become More Productive and Successful - Rough Guider (moboreader .txt) 📗

past the CEO’s door.  In fact, pop your head in and say hello.  [Make sure you have something of interest to say beyond that!]

 

 Wear a suit for a day if everyone else typically wears casual clothes (but only if you want everyone to think that you have an interview lined up).

 

Leaving your worries behind.  You have been under a lot of pressure over the last few days and there are a number of issues that you need to think through and resolve before the week is out.  However, it is Tuesday morning and you have a 3 hour meetings to attend where your thoughts and opinions are going to be important.  The risk here of course is that you are unable to switch off.  You may spend most of those 3 hours with your eyes glazed over thinking about the problems at your desk.  Why are you thinking about them so much?  Well, the reason is that you have not brought them to a close, or had an effective mechanism for ‘parking’ the issues for the time being.  Perhaps then, one of the following could help your cause:

 

Write down the issues in enough detail so that when you get back to your desk you don’t have to either locate the relevant emails and documents or begin the cognitive process from scratch.  The act of placing the concerns and issues on a piece of paper (or email to self) may help you forget about them for the interim period.  You know that you have recorded them and hence they won’t be forgotten.  You are free to let them go for the time being.

 

Time permitting and if appropriate, identify a trusted member of staff that can gather some useful background information or relevant details (perhaps copies of agreements, contracts or policy documents) allowing you the freedom to add value at your meeting in the knowledge that the ground work is being done on the issues that sit in your in-tray.

 

Assess whether it would be appropriate and acceptable to request that the deadline for completion be pushed back if that would alleviate the underlying pressure and stress and allow you to regain comfort over your workload over the next few days.

 

Buzzwords and phrases.  To be clear I don’t recommend using the following but for completeness and for the sake of good humor I have included them within the book:

 

I’ll take that on board – translates as ‘I’ll consider that when putting together my plan of action’ but in reality it may translate to ‘I’ll forget about your comment as soon as I leave the room’ so tread carefully.

 

Get ahead of the curve – translates as ‘do something early on’ or ‘get a job or task done before the agreed deadline’.

 

Got it (usually by email) – means ‘I finally understand what you are saying’

 

Good catch – means that you have spotted something, often a hard to see mistake.

 

My bad – means that I made the error.

 

Continuous improvement – means ‘we will look to make things better every second of every day’.  With no target dates or specific action points this phrase is not particularly helpful. Imprint

Publication Date: 09-22-2014

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