Team Taskmaster

Dear readers,

Today marks the final installment of Team Taskmaster. I’ve enjoyed writing for you for the past year and a half, and as I’ve endeavored to share my insights and discoveries with you, I’ve also learned a lot along the way.

I’ve seen that being effective at work is about more than making lists, that flexibility can improve productivity when it comes to your workday (or your mindset), and that a job is, well, just a job.

I’ve learned that rewarding and engaging your team should be about more than money, and that a literal or figurative pat on the back and a heartfelt “Thank you” can have a far greater impact than a few extra dollars.

I’ve discovered that a slavish adherence to productivity tools and systems can backfire, and that procrastination is not only normal but manageable (and perhaps even beatable).

More than anything, I’ve learned that there are a lot of smart, insightful people out there who read this blog, and who are willing to share their tips and tricks for getting more done with less stress, for being a better manager, and for finding work-life balance.

To all of you, I offer my sincerest thanks and appreciation. And although I won’t be penning Team Taskmaster here on BNET any longer, I do hope to make occasional guest appearances as a contributing writer, either for other BNET blogs or by authoring feature articles.

I wish you all the best — and again, thanks for all the support and inspiration.

With warmest regards,

C.C.

p.s.: If you’ve missed out on some of my Team Taskmaster posts, here’s a list of topics I’ve covered in the past. Enjoy!

• Collaboration
• Employment
• Engagement
• Leadership
• Management
• Mental Health
• Motivation
• Office humor
• Organization
• Procrastination
• Productivity
• Strategy
• Stress
• Success
• Technology
• Time Management
• Tips
• Wellness
• Wisdom
• Work Life

It’s the last week of Team Taskmaster’s run, and I’m rounding up some of the most helpful and popular posts from the past year and a half. On today’s agenda: How to survive — and even thrive — when dealing with workplace meetings.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know my top pet peeve is wasteful or inefficient meetings, especially when they start stacking up like planes on a congested runway.

One way to avoid the curse of the adjacent booking is to end each meeting 10 minutes early. If Outlook makes you schedule a meeting for an hour, end the meeting at the 50-minute mark to give attendees time to “commute” to their next engagement.

If you find your attention slipping during a meeting, don’t beat yourself up; just break out your sketching skills. Why? Because doodling can improve your concentration.

Don’t forget your Emily Post guidelines even in a less-than-fab confab, of course; mind your meeting manners to help things go smoothly. (My number-one faux pas? Don’t multitask in a meeting!) Avoid using corporate jargon — it obscures clarity and makes it harder for everyone to understand what you’re really saying.

Whenever possible, avoid subjecting your meeting invitees to death by PowerPoint. But if you must present a slide deck, check out these four scientific rules for improving your PowerPoint

And finally, observe these eight ways to avoid meeting hell. Your team will thank you.

Have any other suggestions for making your meetings better? Add them in the comments section!

(image by markhillary via Flickr, CC 2.0)

The final days of Team Taskmaster are nigh, so I’m resurfacing some of the past year and a half’s most popular or on-point posts. Today, I want to talk about procrastination. (Yes, right now!)

I’m a fabulous procrastinator. In fact, that’s probably at least in part why I chose journalism as a career: Without drop-dead deadlines looming over me, I’d never get any writing done.

Since I recognize this tendency in myself, I’m also constantly on the lookout for ways to battle my “I’ll get to it later” syndrome.

Luckily, there’s plenty of fodder out there. I’ve discovered, for instance, that procrastination is an expensive habit. And that when I’m facing an onerous task, the best way to begin is to start small.

Keeping track of what you’re doing, and when you’re doing it, can help minimize distractions and detours, so check out these 10 ways to manage your time better. Viewing an Internet outage as an opportunity (or voluntarily turning off your connection) can also help keep you on track.

Plenty of people are fans of the two-minute rule for clearing out the small tasks that can derail your larger projects. You’d also do well to minimize distractions, especially when working from home — where it’s oh-so-easy to get led astray.

But don’t forget, while procrastination inevitably involves delays, not all delays are procrastination. And sometimes, procrastination can signal some hidden truths. And don’t feel as if your procrastination is a character flaw; turns out we can blame our brains.

In the end, while it’s great to work on minimizing your procrastination tendencies, work shouldn’t be a long, humorless to-do list. So don’t beat yourself up too much. After all, you always get more done when you’re having fun.

(image by der sich den wolf tanzt via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Folks, I have an announcement to make: Team Taskmaster is taking its final bows this week.

After a year and a half of sharing with you my take on productivity, leadership, and management, I’ve decided it’s time for me to move on. But I don’t want to leave you all high and dry, so for the next few days I’m going to recap some of the most helpful and/or popular Team Taskmaster posts.

First up: hacking your career.

• You already know you need a killer resume, right? Well, there’s plenty of fine-tuning you can do to really make it sing. First, decide if your CV should be one page or two (the experts like one). Next, apply five simple tips for improving your resume. Finally, make your resume kick ass by making it reflect who you are and what you do.
• When that resume is all spiffed out, it’s time to put it to good use. Start by using the rule of thirds for job-hunting. Be shrewd and get the most out of a headhunter. Be creative, but don’t try stupid job-seeking tactics that brand you as desperate. Play hard-to-get in your job search, at least a little bit. And when you land that coveted interview, make sure you ace the dreaded “What’s your weakness?” question.
• Hired? Great! Now get ready to put your career on the fast track. Take a page from recent research and try to think and act tall to get ahead in the workplace. Work hard to win over your new boss. Do five things to make your boss and colleagues love you. And think of strategies to maximize your productivity, like shifting your work hours or even working remotely.
• But be careful. For some people, a job can literally be life or death — just look at the rise in workplace suicides. You don’t want to get in that deep. If you hate your new job, it’s okay to quit. And remember your perspective: it’s only a job, after all. There are more important things in life.

Got anything to add? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Gizmodo had a post today about Powermat, a wireless charger for up to three electronic devices. I heard the buzz on this product while it was in development and was interested to see what kind of press its debut has been getting.

Gizmodo’s take? “Wireless charging is still in its infancy, but the idea is great: you have a lil’ mat or platform onto which you can toss your gadgets and let them charge. No tangled wires and fumbling around.”

Rachel Metz of the Associated Press likes the Powermat, too: “There’s something thrilling about cutting (most of) the cords.”

Sounds good, and I’m all about simplifying and streamlining and boosting efficiency. But I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid quite yet.

First of all, it’s pricey: $100 for the mat and an additional $30 to $40 for the special case for each device you’ll be charging. Do I really want to shell out $220 when I can just plug in for free?

Second, would I prefer to travel with a big mat (and its attendant cord, which of course needs to be plugged into an outlet) rather than bring my device chargers — some of which are pretty low-profile USB connectors?

A big ad blitz for Powermat (estimated at $10 to $15 million) kicked off this week, so I’m sure you’ll start seeing it everywhere. And it’ll be retailing at Target and Best Buy in a month or so. In the meantime, check out this admittedly clever commercial for the product.

Food for thought: Your procrastination habit isn’t your fault. Your brain is to blame.

That’s right — we’re hard-wired for it. That because our brains trick us into procrastinating, saysTimothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. Pychyl notes that five innate quirks of the brain (as described by David Rock, in a posting about why all self-help books sound the same) create a perfect storm for procrastination.

• Quirk 1: The brain is built to firstly minimize danger, before maximizing rewards.
  Procrastination Effect: We avoid tasks that threaten the self, and we discount future rewards in favor of immediate gratification.
• Quirk 2: Too much uncertainty feels dangerous. It feels like possible pain so we avoid it.
  Procrastination Effect: Uncertainty — not knowing what to do next — is scary. Delaying a task becomes a way of coping with or avoiding that fear.
• Quirk 3: Our conscious processing capacity is small, which makes us terrible at a lot of things, including predicting what might make us happy.
  Procrastination Effect: It’s difficult for us to set realistic goals — or stick to them.

For the other two quirks, read Pychyl’s full post on Psychology Today.

And if you choose to do that later or not at all, remember: It’s not your fault. Blame your brain.

(image by brunosan via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Are you trying to cut costs by bringing, rather than buying, your workday lunch? Kudos to you. It’s definitely a money-saver — in fact, you could save over $1,000 per year just by brown-bagging it three times a week. You can even calculate the cost of your homemade sandwich to prove the savings to yourself.

But let’s face it: Bringing your own lunch can get boring, not to mention tedious. After all, you have to do the grocery shopping, engineer your meal every morning (or night before, if you’re a planner), and hope your goodies don’t get squashed on the commute.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Here are some ideas on how to hack your DIY lunch so your meal is a daily treat, not a trial.

Start a lunch pool. Find four other colleagues willing to participate, and have each one pick a day to make lunch for the group. It’s a great way to add some variety to the mix and skip four out of five days of prep work.

Spice up your spreads. If a sandwich is your stand-by, add a little sizzle with gourmet mustard, cilantro mayonnaise, sun-dried tomato spread, horseradish, hummus, spreadable cheese, or even salad dressing.

Up the crunch factor. Add seeds or nuts to your soups, salads, and pastas — even to your sandwiches. The texture will make your food more satisfying and seem more filling.

Warm up to the microwave. Even a boring sandwich takes on more personality when it’s got warm, melted cheese inside. And toasty leftovers beats cold sliced chicken any day.

Banish the sog. Wilted salads? Not any more. Just separate your ingredients into plastic containers (or plastic baggies) and assemble your salad at the office. Or invest in a special container, like the Fit & Fresh Salad Shaker, that lets you keep the dressing separate and the salad nicely chilled.

Recycle your dinners. Cook a little extra in the evening and voila — you’ll have tasty leftovers to bring to work in the morning.

Don’t skip the soup. A hearty soup can be incredibly satisfying on a cold (or tough) day in the office. Homemade rocks, but there are plenty of “just add water” packaged versions out there that’ll do the trick, too.

Go gourmet. If you can cook, there’s no reason not to make your bagged lunch a fine-dining experience. Build a panini, create a gorgeous pesto pasta, or grill up some seasoned veggies. Need inspiration? Check out these recipes for a better brown bag lunch from three New York chefs.

Think outside the (sandwich) box. Tired of two slices of whole wheat, mayo, mustard, ham, cheese, and tomato? Sandwiches come in infinite varieties. Try a different kind of bread - baguette, sourdough roll, ciabbata, focaccia, pita, tortilla. Swap out your American cheese for some brie, Havarti, or goat’s cheese. How about sun-dried tomatoes instead of fresh? Or turn to the doyenne of food for ideas: Martha Stewart offers 25 great sandwich ideas, plus new takes on salads and lunchbox treats.

If you’ve got other ideas for improving your brown-bag lunch, share them with the Team Taskmaster readers in the comments section.

(image by Melyviz via Flickr, CC 2.0)

If you see a co-worker in a neighboring cubicle contorting into a strange pose, relax. She’s probably not having a convulsion. Rather, it’s more likely that she has embraced the latest workplace stressbuster: yoga.

A pilot study published in the journal Health Education & Behavior found that 20 minutes per day of guided workplace meditation and yoga, combined with six weekly group sessions, can lower feelings of stress by more than 10 percent in sedentary office employees.

Researchers from Ohio State found that yoga and meditation combined reduced participants’ stress, improved their awareness of external stressors, and helped them sleep better. In addition to 20 minutes of practice at their desks, participants attended a weekly, one-hour session during their lunch breaks.

Since lowering stress can increase productivity, adding yoga to the mix can be a win-win for the workplace. Want to put this into practice in your office? Learn some simple yoga moves you can do at your desk or in your office, try a little meditation — the approach used in the study was mindfulness-based stress reduction, or MBSR, but any type can help — and try to attend a weekly yoga class.

(image by enfad via Flickr, CC 2.0)

When it comes to our brethren in Europe, we tend to have a love-hate relationship with the French. I’m a Francophile myself, having lived in Paris once upon a time, but I have plenty of friends who jumped on the Freedom Fries train and consider the French to be rude, snobby, and generally insufferable.

(Of course, I have French friends who consider Americans crude, slobby, and generally unutterable, so I guess we’re even.)

So I thought it was funny to see some recent statistics that indicated that the French may be both lazier than Americans — and simultaneously more productive.

A survey from UBS has shown that the French continue to work the least amount of hours per year in the world. The average in surveyed cities was about 1,900 hours per year, but workers in Paris and Lyon are logging only about 1,600. (Most hours worked? Cairo, at 2,373 per year.)

However, point out Vincent Fernando and John Carney of The Business Insider, the real message here isn’t about laziness — it’s that the French are likely some of the most productive people in the world.

Think about it. Nationmaster ranks France as #18 in terms of GDP per capita, at $36,500 per person, yet France works much less than most developed nations. They achieve their high standard of living while working 16% less hours than the average world citizen…Plus, if you visit France you’ll also realize that their actual standard of living is probably much higher than GDP numbers would indicate.

Thus, if one were to divide France’s GDP per capita by actual hours worked, you’d probably find that the French are achieving some of the highest returns on work-hours invested. Labor Alpha, if you will.

In fact, crunch the numbers and you’ll find that the French Labor Alpha is about $0.50 GDP/capita/hour over the U.S.

It may sound small at first, but add that up across millions of people, and a few decades. Now you’ve built a lesson for the rest of the world to learn.

The message? Work smarter, not harder. And maybe revisit your assumptions about the French work ethic.

(image by mabel flores via Flickr, CC 2.0)

If you’re looking to get ahead in your career, you already know you need to bring solid skills and savvy to the table. But what really separates the go-getters from the complacent are the so-called soft skills: traits and qualities that make good people great.

Amit Gupta, writing on Dumb Little Man, came up with a list of nine soft skills that can rock your career. Among them:

• Take ownership. When no one is willing to step up as a leader, it’s time for you to step in. A process with a good leader, input from others, and true direction has a much better chance of success than a project with multiple stakeholders.
• Have a solution-seeking mindset. It’s easy to complain or point out problems, but much harder to suggest solutions. Don’t take the easy way out. A positive mindset can garner you good attention, especially if you offer ideas to solve issues and put out fires.
• Be willing to help. Yes, you’re busy, but the business world works on a give-and-take system. Be ready to offer or provide help to others when asked — and they’re more likely to return the favor when you need it.

For the other half-dozen traits, read Gupta’s full post. And tell me if there are other qualities that can help make you a workplace superstar.