1-Minute Strategies: July ’12
Inject some fitness into your summer by incorporating exercise into your workday … Offer to be the “fresh eyes” for your boss and to sit in on important project meetings … Compose email using this rule.
Year: 2012
Motivate with the right phrase
Your word choice influences whether people warm up to you, put up a fight or ignore you. Notice the difference between the following lively phrases and their uninspiring counterparts.
What If Analysis in Excel: Goal Seek
You’ve plugged in the values for a PMT (payment) function to determine how much the payment will be only to find that the payment is a bit too much for your budget. You could keep plugging in numbers until you get the right answer, or find out the exact answer in a couple of clicks with one of the “What If” analysis tools in Excel.
What to do when colleagues ignore emails
Question: How should I handle a co-worker who will not respond to emails? I often need her input when I have to make a decision. In the past, I would finally just walk over and ask her for the information. However, I don’t think I should have to do this. Tired of Waiting
Creating those light-bulb moments
The next time you need a creative approach or solution, nix the disciplined mental focus and instead let your mind wander. In his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, Jonah Lehrer says that laser-like focus actually inhibits creative thinking.
Could your ethics be at risk?
Psychologists have shown how our minds often fail to see what’s right in front of us. That means any of us could fail to see the ethical big picture and almost unknowingly make an unethical choice. How to make sure you don’t fall into that trap?
Latest medical advice: Log off email
Office workers who take an email hiatus focus on a single task for longer stretches of time and have lower stress levels, according to a new study by the University of California and U.S. Army researchers.
4 techniques to nudge your memory
Who needs a good memory, with all the tech gadgets to help you? Technology helps, but a good memory will serve you well when you need to recall someone’s name, or make a mental to-do list. Here are four memory techniques to practice and improve upon:
Avoid ‘text neck’
Hold a mobile device at eye level to avoid “text neck.” Dr. Dean Fishman adopted the phrase after seeing a huge influx of younger patients visiting his chiropractor facility–complaining of neck, back, arm and shoulder pain.
A ‘sledgehammer’ to social media policies
Even if you included a new social media policy in your employee handbook recently, it’s time to review it again. The NLRB issued a report recently that called into question the legality of some of the wording employers commonly use in their social media policies.