Month: March 2014

How To Make Time To Network

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Making time to Network“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” We’ve all heard that phrase before and understand why it’s important. Networking can get us a job, an internship, more business, new business, and expand our professional circle. But who has the time? Cultivating new relationships seems time consuming and when we’re already busy, it seems like one extra thing that can’t fit in our schedule. Try these three tips for more effective networking:

1. Network everywhere

A 3 day conference, a weekly networking lunch, or a monthly mixer are all great ways to meet new people, but if your schedule is tight, network wherever you are! Talk to the person sitting next to you on the airplane, chat with the person in front of you at Starbucks, or say hello to that lady you always end up next to in your 7am yoga class. Networking in an informal setting is a time-saving way to meet new people.

2. Follow up

When you take the time to meet new people, unless you also make room in your schedule to follow up with them, you’re not maximizing your effort. I recently attended a workshop with business coach Mary Cravets, who pointed out that unless you make time to follow up, you haven’t actually made time to network. Reach out to the people you meet with either a quick email, note, or phone call. This isn’t the time to say, “…and by the way, can you help get me a job?” This is the time to lay the foundation for a relationship that you’ll keep up over time.

3. Be patient

Networking doesn’t produce results overnight. If you don’t see results right away, don’t assume your networking isn’t working. Be patient. Building relationships doesn’t take a lot of time all at once, it takes a little bit of time consistently over a while.

Networking is an important skill that requires practice. What steps will you take this week to expand your network?

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How Night Owls Can Work With Morning People

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Time Management Morning PersonTime management is difficult enough when we’re just keeping track of ourselves. When you have two or more people collaborating on a project together, planning can seem next to impossible. That’s because each person has an individual working style that may or may not match with the others on the team.  Here are the three most common working style conflicts that come up between collaborators and how to address them.

The Night Owl and the Morning Person

You’re ready to go first thing in the morning. Your collaborator needs 6 cups of coffee to get the day started and prefers to stay after hours when he’s most productive. You each think the other simply needs to “will themselves” to do their best work at the “right” time of day.

The first step to overcoming the night/morning disparity is recognizing that you each work differently and that’s OK. There is no magic rule stating that everyone must reach their optimal productivity zone at the same time. Then, try to find a way to work independently as much as possible. Meet together at a time mid-day, and then complete independent work whenever works best for you.

Priority A and Priority B

When two team members fight, sometimes it’s because their priorities weren’t lined up from the beginning. Team member A might view team member B as a lazy slacker who isn’t pulling his weight, when in reality, team member B is just devoting time to the tasks he feels are most important.

At the beginning of a project, be sure to make everyone’s goals and priorities clear so that everyone begins on the same page and is working toward the same thing. Be sure to listen to each other and be aware that others may bring a different set of experiences to the table that justify different goals and priorities.

Details vs. Big Picture

Another common reason that collaboration breaks down is when one person is focused on the details, the other person is focused on the big picture, and neither one realizes the difference. The Big Picture person will view the Detail person as wasting time on frivolous tasks, while the Detail person will view the Big Picture person as lazy and in danger of letting things slip through the cracks.

Recognize these differences and embrace them. Instead of changing your expectations for the other person, use your knowledge of your skills to better divide the workload. Let the Big Picture person take care of tasks related to the more broad vision, and the Detail person can take care of nitty gritty tasks the other person doesn’t care about.

The most important step in all three of these situations is recognizing that people work differently and there is no one “right” way we should demand of everyone!

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When the Malaysian Plane is Found, I Can Stop Watching The News

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Malaysia.airlinesI usually have a fairly healthy relationship with current events. I read enough to stay informed, but not so much as to become entrenched in the 24-hour news cycle. However, every so often an event comes along that strikes a chord with me and I become obsessed. This week I found that concern and worry about a current event can quickly turn into a consuming problem that affects day-to-day work and peace of mind. I’d like to share the strategies I used to tune it out.

A Shocking Story

When news of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 first broke last weekend, I was shocked, worried, saddened and frustrated. As somebody who struggles with worrying, and had to overcome a dislike of flying to be a traveling speaker, I have spent countless hours convincing myself that air travel is not something to worry about. “It’s safer than driving a car. Planes are inspected every day. They are designed to keep gliding even after engine failure.”

Now that this plane had gone completely missing, I just couldn’t accept that there were no answers. “What happened to all those people? What about their families? Will they get answers? I have a computer that fits in my pocket, a car that senses rain water, but we can’t find a giant airplane?”

My New Obsession

I dealt with this frustration and sadness by reading news articles, EVERY news article that came out. I checked Twitter constantly, I read the USA Today blog updates every few hours. I even read conspiracy theories, wild hypotheses, and crazy speculation. I found myself interrupting my work to check these “updates.” Then I realized three things:

1. There is always something new to read

When our only source of news was newspapers, there was a finite end to the day’s current events. Now, we have the ability to keep reading forever. There will always be a new perspective, new article, or the same article with a new headline. At some point, you just have to stop.

2. Speculation hides as information

When there is no new news to report, people still have to write about something so they speculate. They write about facts that probably don’t really matter, but it fills up a page (er…screen). While I first felt more informed because of my news obsession, I quickly realized I had just spent more time on the internet.

3. News makes distraction seem OK

At first I didn’t feel guilty for allowing myself to be distracted by these stories. This is important! I told myself. Then, I realized that I was just making excuses for my lack of focus. The news had become my new Time Killer, and it needed to stop. I wasn’t doing anything to help and my worry was getting the best of me.

I have decided that I’m no longer going to check on this story every hour. What is your Time Killer you need to let go of this week?

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Must Focus, Must Focus…Oh Look, Something Shiny!

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Time Management Excited PuppyDo you manage your time like a hyper puppy? You know the feeling. You have a great idea, a sudden surge of inspiration and throw yourself full throttle into a task…until you get distracted by something shiny in a different direction and abruptly change course. Then it happens again. And again. Pretty soon your week is over and you have a bunch of half-completed projects, you’re exhausted, and feel you’ve achieved nothing. Let’s examine this phenomenon…

First of all, don’t be so hard on yourself. There are some definite up sides to the “shiny object” approach.

The Upside: You get things started. Sometimes half the time management battle is finding the motivation to begin a task. If you find a sudden surge of inspiration to begin, you definitely don’t have that problem! You’ve gotten further than the people who let a task linger on their, list making excuses about why they simply must wait for “later” or “someday.”

The Downside: You never finish. When we jump quickly from one task to the next with no focus, we lose all the benefits we gained with our quick and motivated beginning. Instead of capitalizing on that motivation and pushing through to the finish, we let it go.

I’ll admit that starting a project is exponentially more exciting than finishing one. (The three half-written book projects I have on my hard drive right now are proof positive of that statement, though I think I’ve finally settled on one I like.) The trick is to keep in touch with that initial excitement as you drive toward the finish line.

Defining your focus can help keep you on track. Too much planning in the beginning can restrict a great idea, or cause a bad case of “analysis paralysis” which means you never really start. However, as you get further into your project, it’s important to start narrowing down where you see it going and define some goals.

Finishing a project becomes much easier once you can define where a finish line actually is.

Graduation is coming up! Do you have a present for your niece? nephew? neighbor? friend? Why not take care of it now?

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3 Benefits Gained From Backing Away

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Time Management Do Not DisturbWhen we’re committed to finishing an important task by a deadline, working non-stop seems like the responsible option, but it isn’t always the most productive. This week, I took a whole 7 days off from my dissertation. I couldn’t look at it anymore. The words were starting to blur together and I was not making the progress that needed to happen.

Coming back to it after the hiatus has been a wonderful experience. Here is what we can all gain from backing away from a task for a while.

1. Excitement

It’s much easier to work on a project when we’re excited and motivated to do so. Unfortunately, we quickly lose that motivation when we allow ourselves to burn out. If you’re concerned that backing away from a task will cause your progress to slow, consider the time you’ll gain in the long run from your ability to work faster when you start back up again with renewed motivation from the time away.

2. Perspective

If you’re stuck in a rut with a project, stepping away can allow your perspective to shift as you suddenly see things differently and come up with new ideas. Creativity research suggests that time away is a critical step in achieving an “a ha!” moment of creative brilliance. It’s why some of our best ideas happen in the shower, or just as we’re about to fall asleep.

3. Mistakes

Time away allows us to see mistakes we may have missed before. When we’re too close to a project, we start to gloss over mistakes and only see what we want to see. Don’t allow your proximity to a task to interfere with your ability to look at it objectively.

Time away doesn’t always seem like the best option, but I was so glad I stepped back this week. What can you step back from that will help your long term productivity?

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