Follow-up with peace of mind
Posted on | Januar 12, 2012 | No Comments
“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.”
Bill Bradley
If you want to succeed, you have to be amazing at follow-up. You can have the best ideas, and even start acting on them, but that most often does not produce the desired action by itself. At least not without some other person involved.
Chances are, you work for a corporation, and you are dependent on other people for information, work, or something else (even though that is really true for any type of work not happening on a deserted island). If you are ambitious, you keep several projects in the air at once, and in the midst of handling it all, you just forget about that email you sent, that call you made, that stuff you requested. And chances or, that other person has enough on her plate, to de-prioritize your stuff… more work for her anyway.
If you are already advanced, that stuff you are waiting for has a place on your todo list. You’re half a step ahead of the game. Problem being that every time you look at your todo list you stumble over something you have no control over. It just takes up mental capacity.
So to get rid of the problem, you need a system that reminds you of stuff needing follow-up in the future when it is appropriate. Not before, not after. Calendars are good for that, but not perfect, because they should be full of actual and hardly negotiable commitments of your time, not all sorts of reminders.
The solution you need is nudgemail. (Maybe there are other systems out there that I don’t know, but the point is, you just need one system that works, and that you are actually using). You can send your future self emails, and use simple commands in your subject line to tell the system when you want that reminder. And you can snooze reminders – how cool is that!? If you’re really advanced, send other people emails and add nudgemail in bcc, saves you one step.
If you know any other services, go ahead and use them, but use anything. Because you need to get rid of things that really shouldn’t take up your mental capacity… yet. And there is no better feeling than receiving a nudgemail long after you have forgotten that you wanted to remind your future self of something. You will love that feeling.
–> Think about how this advice can help you to become more effective today.
My recommendation: Set yourself up with nudgemail. Write “Nudgemail for email follow-up” on a post-it and stick it somewhere you can see it. For every project step that lies somewhen in the future, send yourself a nudgemail reminder and then forget about it. Your future self will thank you.
Remarkable – Wishing vs. Being
Posted on | Januar 9, 2012 | No Comments
“Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.”
William Shakespeare
If that is so, why are so few people remarkable?
Every day, it is hard to find remarkability. Mediocrity goes a long way…
I guess, many people think that it is hard to be remarkable. But when you think of it, it is probably not. I notice every day how small gestures can make people stand out. A fine error-free piece of work. A well-thought email. A task completed in time. A task completed until the end. An expectation managed properly. A concern taken off my mind without me having to express it. It’s like going the extra mile… which often can be walked in the extra minute.
In a see of mediocrity, remarkable acts stand out. Why don’t you try to stand out today and see what it does for you?
–> Think about how this advice can help you to become more effective today.
My recommendation: Write “Small acts of remarkability” on a post-it and stick it somewhere you can see it. For every thing that you do today, think about how you can make it stand out from the ordinary. Your future self will thank you.
Brevity is the soul of email
Posted on | Januar 8, 2012 | No Comments
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
Polonius (Hamlet – William Shakespeare)
We all drown in email. Dozens and dozens of messages every day, written with little attention to detail, and little thought to the recipient.
While this affects all of us who receive that endless stream of jibber-jabber it also means it is relatively easy to stand out from the crowd. If you want to get your message across, your todo’s executed, and your requests taken care of, just follow a couple of simple rules (no guarantees, though)
- Be concise
- Start with what is most important
- Highlight what the recipient needs to know or do
- Save all the lengthy explanations for the end, or just leave them out
Think about all those emails you write without consideration – invest some minutes (maybe seconds), make your recipient adore your message style, and get your stuff done.
–> Think about how this advice can help you to become more effective today.
My recommendation: Write “Brevity is the soul of email” on a post-it and stick it somewhere where you can see it. For every email that you write today, think about how you can make it more to the point. Your future self will thank you.
What do YOU want?
Posted on | Januar 7, 2012 | No Comments
“People respond well to people who are sure of what they want”
Anna Wintour
What do YOU want?
Several times in my life, I have been asked that question by other people. When they wanted to help me make a decision, or when they were involved in a common decision. I am not known to be a great decision maker, even though I have become better in the past, based on a number of simple rules and questions I ask myself (more on that later). But deciding is hard. Almost impossible if you don’t know what you want. What your goal is, your target, your dream outcome. Other people become frustrated when they sense I don’t know what I want.
In the end, it is often not that difficult to figure what you want. Often, you know it all along and are just afraid to admit it because your fear other people’s reactions or that you might loose options. But when you close your eyes and listen to your stomach, you often have the answer at hand. Don’t worry about options, worry about not getting what or where you truly want to be.
Then decide.
