3 things you should focus on every day
Instead of worrying about what direction your life will take in one year or five years, keep your focus on three things—today. Ask yourself:
Year: 2011
Training someone? Don’t forget the autonomy
Daniel Pink writes in Drive, “Whether you’re fixing sinks, ringing up groceries, selling cars or writing a lesson plan, you and I need autonomy just a deeply as a great painter.” But encouraging autonomy doesn’t mean discouraging accountability. Pink says, rather than hovering, trainers and managers should presume people want to be accountable and then […]
When you’ve made a mistake . . .
Thanks to our increasingly online (and visible) lives, it’s more important than ever to know how to apologize well. When you wrong someone—a colleague or a customer—apologize by doing three things:
Lead co-workers to clean up their acts
Messy co-workers can make you feel like you’re living in a college dorm. What do you do when others don’t clean up after themselves? You could turn cleaning up into a game. Two suggestions from Get-It-Done-Guy Stever Robbins:
Take stock of your worth to the company
Protect your job—or set yourself up for a promotion—by communicating your quantifiable on-the-job results at a moment’s notice. Warm up with this exercise:
Stop ‘me, me, me!’ before I get fired–again
Question: “I have been fired from almost every job I have ever had. I’m 22 years old and have been working since I was 16. I see a pattern in my behavior, but don’t know how to change it. As soon as I’m comfortable in a job, my emotional needs take over, and I involve everyone in my issues. Although I’m not a complainer, I seem to need a lot of attention. I did have a rough childhood, but I’m a smart person. I know what I’m doing when I’m doing it. I just can’t seem to stop. Do you have any advice?” —Desperate
Resolve conflict in person, not in email
The co-worker in the next cubicle hums all day. Yesterday your boss dressed you down in front of the entire team. Another admin has been griping about the same issue for a week. In every case, it would be all too easy to ignore the problem, or avoid confrontation by sending an email. But in every case, a live conversation is the better solution.
Tools to help travel warriors
Turlytag.com: Lessen the dread of lost baggage by signing up for this service. Boomerangit.com: Like TurlyTag, this service helps retrieve lost bags via labels. TripIt.com: Admins can keep track of everyone’s travel schedules by forwarding confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com. Autoslash.com: It hunts down the best rental-car deal for your trip.
Ask the crowd
One of the great things about social media is the access it brings to the collective wisdom of the crowd. If you’re stuck, pose your question to the crowd to help you out. If you’re wrestling with a problem that you’d like to see AdminProToday write about, pose your question or suggestion to the editors […]
Why do I feel so chained to the job?
A working mom writes that she likes her job and feels lucky to have it. But, she says, “I feel chained to the job and out of the loop at home and everywhere … Working part time is not an option. Any advice for finding a better balance?”