Category: 1-Minute Strategy

If your “later” piles or files keep mounting, set a time on your schedule each day or once a week to go through them.

If your only choices were to tackle the dreaded assignment or lose the job, you’d do it. While you may not be fired for not completing the filing today, your career will suffer if you continually slack off. Make every task a do-it or lose-it proposition.

When you’re in a funk, you don’t need negative people dragging you down, so limit your contact with constant complainers and whiners.

Follow the “daily” rule: If you don’t use an item every day, store it out of sight.

Leave 20% of your schedule clear for unexpected interruptions.

If you are unable to concentrate because of fatigue, anger or illness, ask a colleague to double-check important work.

Entice people to arrive on time for meetings by putting the important items first on the agenda.

For personal errands you can’t schedule on Saturday or Sunday, periodically take a day to take care of them all. That’s less disruptive than rushing from the office and back several times.

If you need something, tell, don’t ask. Say, “I need the budget figures by 2 p.m.,” not “Could you have the budget figures by 2 p.m.?”

Avoid apologizing unnecessarily. Don’t say “sorry” when you ask that someone do his or her job. If you have a reason to apologize (you misplaced the file and need another copy), do it once and move on.