Pretty much everyone has a huge stack of items that they need to do. When seeing the amount of confusion that this can cause it raises the question of how do you remember everything that you have to do. At most people's disosal are existing systems that can be used to capture all of this information. Whether this is a CRM system, email, paper or something else there is one thing that is certainly true. If we keep it only in our heads thenwe risk a continuous state of confusion. If this situation applies to you then the following considerations may help you to enjoy more productive days: - find a way to get your list of tasks out of your head on an ongoing basis. - decide how you are going to prioritise your activities. - keep your lists up to date and maintain a flow within your list, flush tasks when they stagnate (either do them or remove them from your list if no longer relevant). Keep your brain working at full tilt through better organisation of your list of tasks

When faced with a massive list of tasks that need to be completed, and let's say that some of them will affect the ability to improve your businesses, how do you choose the right task to start with? I have seen many justifications for people choosing what is considered a real priority - that one thing that must be completed first, and in many cases there was no rationale behind the choice. If you ever find yourself in this situation then I offer a simple consideration to help you find the most important activity to focus on. Evaluating your task list in terms of urgency (or deadlines) and impact (the benefit of doing the work versus consequences of not doing the work) can make the top task stand out, hence making it an easier decision. Try it and see how you get on. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

Have you ever been to that meeting where various issues get discussed and consensus is achieved, yet the actions don’t seem to reflect what was discussed? What is the reason for this, and how do we overcome this problem in the future? In many cases the level of information is not sufficient. Time that passes between the agreement of the action and its execution can be too long, allowing the gist of the action to change. Having a slightly higher level of information can make a difference in that the accuracy of the action can be improved. We’re not talking about huge increases in information, just that little bit more that can help give the exact outcome you’re looking for. So how can you proceed if you are faced with this situation? Confirm the action with the people responsible so that clarity is present (so that only one outcome can occur) and help them to schedule their activity so that the task gets done sooner rather than later. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For W

With so many day to day tasks required to complete our jobs it is hardly surprising that some items don’t get completed when urgent projects appear on our desks instead. The day to day gives way to the fire fighting and unique most times. The use of a timetable is one way to coping with your daily (or routine) tasks, but often the rigid nature of a timetable means that it can be discarded in a matter of days when the other items get in the way (that spur of the moment meeting, that customer complaint, that colleague who has phoned in sick etc..). How can we create a way forward that is more flexible to cope with both the erratic demands on our time and the stability of routine tasks? You could consider a ‘start of shift’ approach with a list of tasks that need to be completed and an ‘end of shift’ slot so the tasks that didn’t get completed at the start of the day could be completed at the end. You could timetable parts of the week into our diaries, once we had worked out which

There are so many things you can do with your business software and yet how many of us can really make the software work for our business? Just as so many people leave their formal education and don’t continue learning we do the same with our computer programs. We learn enough to get by, in most cases, and then don’t progress. Occasionally we could dip into the help menus and see what stood out as interesting, ask other people how they use the software (for tasks that take a long period of time for example) or search the web for ideas to improve what we do by researching better methods. If you used a small portion of your time at work to find better ways to use your software you could face a big improvement in productivity over the longer term (if not immediately), so why not start today?   Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk/

When we sit back in our chair in the office and review what has been taking place during the day we sometimes find ourselves wondering how much better we could have done things – don’t we? One of the tried and tested ways to make the working day more effective and more efficient is the use of checklists. Whilst we have probably realised this for ourselves the issue of concern is how we (and our colleagues) stop following the checklists so easily – how do we make checklists that stick? The simple answer is to create more effective and more meaningful checklists than we had previously. If you recall the continuous improvement cycle you can see how this fits in – we tried it one way and it didn’t work – so let’s try it a bit differently. If you start with areas of your organisation that keep failing you will be able to create checklists that may be warmly greeted. If it helps people to reduce their running around and reduce hassle from customers then there may well be an inc

There is a lot of talk (constantly) about what is your USP. This is an important marketing concept about the uniqueness of your service offering, but an observation is that most businesses state what is currently the most unique thing about them. What about the service as it could be? What about the niggles that people face when engaging with your type of service? Could a revised approach to how you deliver your service set you apart from the competition? What could be your USP? Can you engineer a new way of delivering your service and become even more unique? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk