The reason for this is fairly simple, I would get far more stressed going home dead on time knowing that the stacks of work are still piling up and I haven’t made any headway into them than I could ever even dream of getting by sitting at my desk for a couple of extra hours to try to make a dent in them. Granted, this would probably be very different if I had kids at home who I had to get back to and feed, or if I had a partner who I had plans with on a night but as things stand it’s very rare that I have anything on at night that can’t be put back an hour or two and providing I’m home for Neighbours at the 7pm showing then I’m all right Jack.

I know that everyone is different and for some the piles of paperwork on their own would be enough to get thoroughly stressed over but providing I have everything organised in my head as to what I need to do next then I’m fine. Even if I am getting tempted to start squirrelling stuff under my desk… For others the fact that the work load requires them to work the extra hours would be stressful as they have things to do and people to see as soon as the work day is over, or just the fact that they really don’t want to be in the office for longer than is absolutely necessary. But as far as I’m concerned as long as I’m making headway, there’s an organisation to the work I’m doing and I’m not completely drowned in paperwork then I’m absolutely fine.

I’d far prefer to get in at sometime after seven sit at the desk, work through til six or seven and go home knowing that there’s nothing more I could have done, than get in at half past eight take my full lunch and go home at half past four and then spent the entirety of the rest of the evening stressing over what needs to be done and what could have been done. At the end of the day I’m getting hired and therefore paid to do a job, and yes, I could play the hours card and only work the hours that I specifically get paid for but at that point I find it highly unlikely that I’d be able to actually do my job, or at the very least I’d be buried under so much paper that I’d be unable to find my computer in order to do my job. And that would stress me out!

Yep, I’m probably strange but that’s nothing new to me either.

On the other hand for what to during meetings when you don’t understand what on earth’s going on I have a solution.

Please see here for a Tribute to a man who can only be counted as one of a kind.

I have no excuses for allowing these small, yet important, bits of card cluttering up my desk; it is a task that should have been completed months ago. Action must be taken now!

The Impact of a Mess

According to Lisa Johnson Mandell desktop clutter can cut careers. She suggests that “messy work spaces may be shaping the way your co-workers and supervisors perceive you.” I guess that having no co-workers has allowed me to become sloppy over the last few months. Apparently as many as 66% of us admit that our organisational skills are lacking – quite a damning figure if you think about it. Yet if I think about those cards taking 5 minutes after a meeting to record the information into my electronic contacts file and place them into the plastic file then I would feel much more organised today.

Trouble is we invent every excuse under the sun why we should not do that right now. Well this stops here and now. By the end of today each one will be recorded and filed correctly and there will be no future build up.

Lisa Johnson Mandell also “If you have piles of paper and a to-do list filled with items that keep getting perpetually pushed back, think about how these examples of procrastination impact your productivity” I agree that procrastination is a killer in the work environment. It is important to make a decision whether to take an action or not, then move on – put the papers away (preferably into the round file in the corner of your workspace) and get on with the next task.

Do Computer Programs Assist in De-cluttering your Desktop?

There are several applications that are supposed to reduce desktop clutter. They allow you to scan you work and hold electronic copies of the various things that you have on your desk. Trouble is that you could simply be moving the clutter from one location to another, not a wise idea!

Ideally the computer program will not only record the item either as text or as an image but also tell you when you need to complete associated actions (even if that is a year from now). Ultimately the only reason to keep something is:

• for historical significance
• because it will assist in a future project, or
• bacause we like it.

Part of the problem we face today is that in addition to the physical clutter we also have a large amount of electronic clutter, that in some respects is hidden in the inner recesses of your computer’s hard drive, to be ignored forever.

Organisation Tips

Having performed several Google searches in researching this article I do recommend that readers take a look at the following two sites:

• 12 Tips for an Organized Desk by Mark Shead

• 30 Day Cut the Clutter Challenge: My Desk by Jo-Lynn Shane.

I like the idea of getting rid of the pens and pencils that you do not need, so basic yet so important.

Decisions

Ultimately if you are not going to use something, then chances are it is clutter and should be placed in the garbage pile. Trouble is we tend to want to cling onto things, like trophies of past successes and the offchance that it may be of some use in the future. Chances are if you are inclined to throw it out then you don’t need it.

In the same way as physical clutter, electronic or virtual clutter is taking up valuable space on your computer. if you don’t need it then delete it. However I think that there are greater opportunities to record past histories through our computers. Generally in the electronic world there are too many copies of a document floating around our hard drives – it is these we need to tidy up first. You can safely delete an email becasue usually someone else will have a copy if they believe it to have some importance.

The point is that you need to decide whether to keep an item or not. Once you no longer need it then dispose of it, or delete it.

Call to Action

So now it is time for you to take a look around your desk and ask if you really need it. Resulting actions should be to file each item or dispose of it. The end result should be a tidy desk.

LOOK AT STEP 6 IF YOU HAVE MORE TIME TO CLEAN THAT ANYTHING ELSE BECAUSE THAT IS BONUS STEP

Step 1

Stop moving around your stuff around the table and read this

Step 2

Prepare to do some cleaning so watch out!

Step 3

Take your uneeeded items that you truly will never use and put it in a place (drawer, basket, box) where you can find it again so that if you actually need it, you can take it back. 

Step 4

If you have any cords or lines, try to bind them together with a steal piece or rubber band. If you think it looks bad, color it black or spray paint it. If you still think it’s bad or you’re pretty lazy, move the cords off the table. Push off the access cords so there is more space and table looks more empy. 

Step 5

If you have any eraser crumbs or hair, sweep it off. 

*Step 6 (optional)

If you want to, you could take out everything, reorganize it. But before reorganizing, WIPE THAT TABLE SO THAT IT IS CLEAN AGAIN

starting fresh with a clean desk is the best thing anyone could have

If this article or how to do isn’t the right thing for you, look at my other articles below: PLEASE LIKE COMMENT AND TELL OTHERS ABOUT THIS

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• I write all essays the night before they’re due. It saves time; if I write it all at once, I don’t waste time reminding myself of what I was writing and getting back into the groove.
• I always get A’s. The thing is, if you are an A student, extra time will only hurt you. If you start early, you change it constantly and think about all the things you should do to it throughout the week or month in which you are writing it. It’s stressful. Just like on multiple choice tests, your first instinct is often right, so let it be.
• Useless information does not need to be retained. If you care about the subject, stay up all night studying, taking notes, and saving any information that you pick up on. If you don’t, memorize it in the morning and forget it. You won’t need it later; save time and learn about things you like.
• I like to write in my spare time. However, AP classes don’t like to give me spare time, so I have to make my own. When I’m at school, I don’t have access to a computer. This is the time to do homework and study. What else is school for?
• Study Hall and that required standard class are your friends. Don’t waste time attempting a social life here; text on the ride home and make plans to actually do something with those losers. Use your free school time to catch up or get ahead on homework, so you’ll have time for a life later when you need one.
• Utilize mornings. Everyone is tired and surprisingly focused in the morning. No one gets excited, (except my nextdoor neighbor), at six a.m. That is the time to do your homework without missing out on anything fun.
• If you understand it and the teacher is not taking up the homework, do a problem from the beginning and the end to make sure, and pay attention when they go over it in class.

Now I’m not suggesting never doing your work; turn it in when it’s due. Unless you have enough extra credit to make up for the loss, that is. In that case, don’t do it if you don’t want to. Work on the things that matter, and start thinking about your future. We all have dreams that we need to chase after, and Algebra should not get in the way of that.

So, what to do? Here are some tips for passing the time:

Take quizzes
There are a infinite number of tests and quizzes online. My favorite have to do with your personality traits and interests. This can be insightful and might even lead to finding a passion that you can pursue.

Make a penpal, or two
There are websites that legitimately set you up with a foreign pen pal, like interpals.com. This can afford hours of conversation. I have three pen pals now, from Bangkok, Russia, and France. Each gives me insight into another culture, and another person’s life. A pen pal can give perspective to life that you might not have gotten any other way.

Take a class
In the days of Internet education, there are an infinite number of classes you can take online. Want to work on your master’s degree, just want to learn more about bee keeping? Take a class! You can also listen to podcasts of classes, or you can read transcripts of classes from major universities.

Write
Have you ever wanted to be published? Now is your chance. Think of all the things you are interested in, and write articles about them. You have time for the research! There are many websites that will publish your articles, and will even pay you for them. Try Triond.com or constantcontent.com. Or you can take the time to set up and contribute to a blog.

Learn a new language
Take the time to learn to read in another language. You probably can’t sit at your desk and talk to yourself in French, but you can learn to conjugate French verbs.

Learn geography
You know that daily there is a country on the news that you have no idea where it is located. Why not brush up on the little known European and Asian countries. Which is bigger, Mongolia or Saudi Arabia? Which is farther north, Malaysia or Korea? Find out!

Read, read, read
Start to read wikipedia.com. Pick a subject area, choose an article, then read every link in that article. Really understand what happened in the mortgage crisis, learn more about the civil war, or learn more about the royal family. The options are endless. The trap is not committing to a subject and feeling overwhelmed by the options. Commit and become an expert.

Create a family tree
There are websites that record family history in the form of a family tree, like ancestry.com. This can involve your whole family in adding to the tree. Be the instigator of this family activity, and manage the project. See how much your family knows about their own history.

Create a budget
Find a website that allows you to manage your money, like mint.com. Create a detailed budget for your income and expenses. All the time you have at work can contribute to a strong understanding of where you sit financially.

The secret to surviving a slow time at work is to find an interest, and pursue it. With the Internet, there is hardly any limit to what you can accomplish at a computer. Make use of all that time and better yourself!

Finding Customers on the high seas for a call center start-up is a difficult task.  The real challenge, however, comes later – delivery and meet customer expectations!

But first – how to find the first customers?  The first question to ask is why an organization should outsource the job for you?  For them, outsourcing certainly interesting, but high-risk proposition.  It is interesting not only because they can focus on their core business, but also by reduced costs.  Your risk is mainly associated with quality and reliability.  As a first step must be prepared to address these risks successfully.

To begin, you should be able to make a copy of the quality and reliability of their service.  This can be done in several ways: we’ll try to get as many people as possible.  A core team that ensures quality and reliability is a Service Level Agreement (SLA).  You must develop a set of criteria for ALS industry standard for your company.

They must also show evidence of some perspective of its history (eg, customer list and testimonials) on operation of call centers.  Firstly, you can not have such evidence.  In this case, there are experienced Call Centre related to your key team members.

customers prefer to call center specialists in general.  Try to choose a niche for themselves, for example, take orders, help desk, telemarketing, etc., and trying to build its sales around this niche.

Before making a pitch to potential customers, trying to understand how their businesses operate and are willing to tell you this: how can earn more money, or save more money or contracts more or better-off their services and improve their  products by outsourcing their call center function for you?

Do not tell them about the processes that are performed to check the quality of their services.  The certification standard of quality in the industry will be valuable in this regard.  Do not develop a disaster recovery plan and share it with potential customers.

Here are some suggestions: keep in touch with their country of foreigners in the country of destination for drivers and other assistance.  List your business with the organizations specific to each country (NASSCOM as India, Pakistan, PSEB) and international portals offshorexperts.com.  Write to other offshore outsourcing companies powers like India, Philippines and Canada and see if they want to develop a relationship with you.

Image by steve-and-diane via Flickr

The Traditional Single Office or Study.

Image via Wikipedia

This image of a writer, staring out across the delicately prepared garden is very common, in fiction. In reality, few of us can afford a room full of books (all leather bound of course!) and a mighty oak desk with a leather inlay workspace. Classic, sophisticated, but a dream for many of your more impoverished writers.

It has the feeling of seclusion and freedom from the world. It’s a quiet thinking space where few are willing to enter uninvited. Perhaps a dream for many writers is to one day afford such a place.

There is also a danger of isolation and then getting lazy. Those who would sit a room on their own all the time will become distracted and not a person who writes. You become a hermit.

Kitchen Table.

When you have little time or money to find a secluded spot to call your own, many enterprising writers work from the Kitchen Table. With Wifi technology, the computer is no longer attached to a cable creeping around the house but can be anywhere in the house.

So why not move to kitchen? It’s the nerve center of any living house. If you are part-timing with a family to look after, it may be the best place to locate yourself. Similarly, the writing fuels of drinks and snacks are only an arms length away in the refrigerator or larder.

Down side is the massive distraction that this nerve center can create. Few people can work hard when distracted. Perhaps it is best to work in the kitchen when people are out, and you can be assured of no distracting ‘Just getting a coffee’ comments or ‘what’s that you’re writing?’

The Open Plan look.

Image by steve-and-diane via Flickr

When some people write, it’s during their lunch breaks in a company and they utilise the internet access to write. They are thus in a very open space on a desk which is not private. Surely this must affect their writing output, making it more cagey, perhaps less lucid than someone who can write without the ‘Man’ breathing down their back.

Coffee Shoppin’ it.

More people are going to coffee shops today because of the free internet access offered. You can take a bit of a break with a swill of Joe and then back to work. Sometimes people go to these places to be seem to ‘work’ while infact surfing the net ‘researching’ or typing random letters into the keyboard. If you want to go and work in a cafe, go and do that. Don’t just pose.

So we have to be careful about working in any environment. It can affect us for better or for worse in different ways.

And the minute we give an answer, we are in trouble.  If a person were to say $:50,000. and the employer has an $80,000 position in mind, the individual  is considered to be incapable of handling it.  If the employer has a $45,000 position in mind, then in most cases he will not insult the candidate by offering it.  At the very least, he might think, the person will be unhappy to start with, and that wouldn’t be good for either party.  

This points up several necessities for the person who wants to approach the so-called job market openly, competitively and with complete professionalism.  It is important to present ourselves as we are, without either party dwelling on past experience, so that we will not be stereotyped nor will the employer preconceive what we can or cannot do:  Avoiding the presentation of background information in a way that is perceived to be acceptable, inoffensive…. impressive, and beyond that, is completely honest, requires very careful handling.  It is a professional approach which can be learned, and once learned, will be used the rest of the individuals life, both in the career context, and also in  one personal life.

One article said, the founder, chairman of the board and CEO of one of our major Northwest manufacturing firms once said to one of clients at their first meeting: ” John, I  don’t know what you’re doing to me,  but I like it.”  He hired that client within a month as a vice president of the firm.  The client stayed more than five years, then left on good terms as he proceeded to the next stage in his career plan.  What that client was “doing to” the chairman was controlling the interview in a way that was at one and the same time acceptable, inoffensive, gracious and, above all, impressive.

I teach my clients how to control the interviews they set up so that they accomplish two essential things:

1.    Credibly demonstrate their internal talents and illustrate how those abilities can apply to the identifiable needs of a particular employer.

2.    Selectively buy what they have predetermined is important to them: Is this their kind of company, ethics, professionalism, structure, management style, and are these the kind of people and corporate personality they can be comfortable with?.

Doing those two things – professionally presenting and demonstrating internal talents as they apply to a particular employers needs, and selectively buying what has been predetermined as  important to the candidate – is a new  professional capability which has not been  learned in school by any of us.  It is the direct reversal of the standard approach we have been taught to take. 

Submit a resume and allow it to be analyzed the some one else.  A teacher will spend years studying subject matter and education courses – including practice teaching under supervision.  Yet, in spite of the fact that the teacher has age and education over the students and a school system supporting him or her, the first year or so of teaching is something of an ordeal.  A lawyer spends years preparing for the practice of law, but, in spit of that and the legal system he or she enters into, the first trial (and many succeeding ones) are extremely stressful.

It is a remarkable thought that when we face the challenge of presenting the essence of the most complex subject matter on earth – ourselves – in a setting much  more difficult than a classroom or a court of law (across a managerial desk where we have neither age or education nor a support system behind us) we do not study the  subject matter, nor do study how to present ourselves.  We are taught the one system: Write down your past training or in person and let someone who knows very little about it analyze the information and make judgments about us.

Those judgments are terribly incomplete (there is no way a human being can be contained on a piece of paper or in a book) and are almost certainly erroneous.  The standard job hunt process can be likened to teaching a course in automotive mechanics.  In that analogy, the teacher can use diagrams, models and even an actual car for the students to work on.

A professional method of presenting ones talents and abilities, and of acquiring the necessary information to make a reasonable decision, can be likened to the teaching of a course in philosophy.  The presentation of abstractions does not lend  itself to the use of graphs, charts and models it requires an entirely different approach.  A highly sophisticated method of presenting the abstractions which are our internal talents and of identifying the companies and situations which will fulfill our hopes, aspirations and values, and use our talents, can be learned by anyone.  It is an approach which permits us to present ourselves as we are now and can become, rather than being limited simply to what we have done.  Property done, this is a major benefit to the individual, and if  everyone could do it, would be of significant benefit to the business and organization world..

• Stamps so you do not have to worry about having something to send and having no stamps.

• Favorite Pens but only have a few and use only one at a time.
• Mechanical Pencils so you do not have to have a sharpener.
• Black Permanent marker for addressing packages and writing your name on objects.
• Silver Permanent marker for writing on dark paper.
• Highlighter preferably angled tip.
• Personal Stationary for heartfelt notes.
• Classic Stapler in a bright color not black so you can easily spot it.
• Weighted Tape Dispenser that holds a fat roll of tape.
• Small and Large Sticky Notes for reminders, shopping lists, and epiphanies.
• Paper Clips in various sizes
• Titanium Scissors because they stay sharp for years.

Image via Wikipedia

Try cleaning up your desk drawer by keeping just these few things in your drawer.

Research has now been carried out into how many man hours are lost due to these breaks and this has brought up some remarkable results!

According to T6 who carried out a survey of 1,000 people, the average British worker spends almost half an hour a day getting tea and coffee and at least four out of 10 workers makes a hot drink for more than one of their office pals each day which equates to about 190 days when they’re not productive over their lifetime. This daily ritual is costing the employer, on average, £400 a year in lost man hours.

Older workers still enjoy their trips to the kitchen and making hot drinks whereas the younger generation, the under 30s, prefer to go out to coffee chains like Starbucks to collect theirs rather than go to the effort of making it.  So it may not be good as far as the employer is concerned, but what about the employee?

The UK Tea Council say that our daily ritual ensures that we remain sociable and caring towards co-workers and this is backed up by an occupational psychologist, Cary Cooper, who maintains that it’s an essential part of coping with general office life.

Much of our time is spent these days just sitting at our work stations, staring at our computer monitors and tapping on our keyboards which isolates us from other employees and, as we’re supposed to be “social animals” it’s not a good route to be taking, so Cary Cooper suggests that companies, at the very least, should allow coffee breaks twice a week so people can leave their desks and chat to their colleagues over a hot drink.

It has, however, long been said that caffeine is an addictive drug and not necessarily good for the health; the British populace, on average, get through 235 million cups of tea and coffee a day!  This probably isn’t considered particularly high in the US but bearing in mind we’re such a small island with a population of around just 61,000,000, it’s an incredible amount. 

Many workers justify their trips to the staff kitchen by maintaining they can’t work efficiently  without a “caffeine fix” two or three times a day but they may be deluding themselves!  Peter Rogers, a professor of biological psychology, has indicated that there’s little evidence available to show that caffeine improves mental awareness.

He’s been studying caffeine for years and says that workers perform equally as well if they don’t drink caffeine based drinks although, if they’re drinking high quantities of tea or coffee and then withdrawing from it, they may well feel tired and their mental performance may not be as acute.  High doses of caffeine can make employees more panicky too which isn’t good if you’re in a stressful job, although, much like other drugs – legal or illegal! – users can become resistant to the effects.

Needless to say, caffeine isn’t the only chemical in tea and coffee and some of the other chemicals can have a beneficial effect.  Tea contains theanine which has been shown to reduce blood pressure for instance which again shows that a couple of tea breaks a day may be helpful in maintaining work standards.

But one of the most important things about tea and coffee is that it’s comforting.  Having struggled into the office through the ice and snow and gale force winds, or being up close and personal with strangers on public transport, there’s nothing quite as comforting as heading for the staff kitchen, meeting like-minded work mates and having a good old moan while leaning against the cupboards, and wrapping your freezing hands around a mug of steaming and beautifully aromatic cup of coffee!  This in itself sets you up for a less stressful day at your work station.

Therefore, the general consensus is that it’s beneficial to the work force of Great Britain to imbibe in communal tea or coffee breaks as they raise the spirit and this in turn feeds its way back into the standard of work and the pace at which it’s conducted.

So, all you employers out there who are concerned you’re losing almost half an hour a day of productivity, without these intermittent breaks you could be losing far more in the long run due to low employee morale, and stress!

Low morale plus stress equals less productivity and more sick leave!  It’s a no brainer!!