I used to work through lunch. By the end of the day, I’d be worn
out, but I needed that hour to get through all the work that I had
ahead of me… Or did I? Remaining committed to our goals—
whether it means walking away from the desk or following through to
handle a customer’s request—continues to build our reputation and
credibility, and thus impacts our success relative to our organization
and time management. I started to commit to reserving my lunch time
for non-work activity. The actual time may vary each day, but I make
sure that I get away.

I typically like to go for a run to clear my head, but the message here
is to commit to doing what you want to do. I find that when I come
back to the desk, I have a fresh perspective and new energy to drive
through the rest of the day productively. Running is just one example
of keeping a clear head by balancing my personal and professional
needs. The key is to move your focus away from work, even for a
short period of time, and to bring back a laser-focused approach upon
your return. Today’s professional environment and all the technology
therein mean that work and life are interlaced. As much as we want to
separate the two, it’s almost impossible. So instead of fighting it, it’s
time to embrace it.

You can start by blending your personal and professional schedules
together. If it’s not permitted at work, then at least counterbalance
them, and view them side by side to ensure that you are looking at
both worlds together. Your commitment to balancing work and life
will bring more control to both. Schedule your lunches, or they will
never happen. Block off time for dentist appointments or they will
be forgotten. Include time on your calendar needed to pick up your
children from school or let the dog out so that you won’t schedule one
event to inadvertently create a conflict with the other.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I set an alarm to wake up in the morning, but it rarely goes off since
my internal clock always wakes me up about fifteen minutes before
the scheduled time. On the few days it does beep in my ear, my
day usually doesn’t start out calmly because I’ve learned to rely on the
extra fifteen minutes. I become rushed and stressed, and find that this
mentality carries over into the rest of the day.

I’ve watched colleagues rush through the door late for work while
carrying a bag of donuts or a cup of coffee. Although I understand that
breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, I personally
wondered about the decision to make the extra stop if they knew they
were close to their start time and would most likely be late. But let’s not
harp on that. The important thing to focus on is that this rushed and
harried feeling sets the tone for each of us, and influences how clearly
we think, how productive we are, and yes, our organizational skills for
the rest of the day.

As king of the obvious, I want you to get up earlier—base the new
time on how it fits in your schedule, but buy at least fifteen minutes
of fluff time. If it means going to bed earlier, then work that piece into
your overall schedule as well. Give yourself some breathing room before
your shift or day starts so that you aren’t rushed. Try to set a calming
tone to your day. For those individuals who like to play games with
themselves by setting a clock or watch earlier or later, I recommend
against it. Besides the fact that you’re no longer synchronized with the
rest of the people in your time zone, you’re actually self-initiating stress
as you are constantly converting to the real time.

It’s important to start our day right with an easy wake-up and
plenty of time to get ready. Our starting attitudes and productivity as
we calmly walk through the door with plenty of time to spare will send
positive messages to your brain that you intend to handle the day in a
fully capable manner!

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

According to bizcommunity.com, it was estimated that 294
billion emails are sent each day, with about seventy-five
percent considered spam, per estimates by the Radicati
Group (2010). Getting through the seventy-five percent, plus the twenty-
five percent you need for actual work, takes up valuable time. Now,
imagine that every time you receive a new message, a bell sounds or a
preview notice of incoming mail comes into view. When that happens,
it grabs your attention and starts to pull you toward multitasking. We
live in a very reactive work environment now. Sending and receiving
emails has made us slaves to this form of communication, and keeps us
leashed to whatever device gets us that information. Take back control
and be proactive in dealing with ancillary email impacts. Let’s start to
implement concrete email strategies.

• Block off and dedicate time to manage your email. Whether
you do it in the morning, before lunch, late afternoon, or all of
the above, you should have dedicated time for it and not take
them on one at a time, throughout the day.
• Ignore new messages. Rather than behaving like Pavlov’s dog
and responding to every bell that rings telling you that “You
have mail,” become proactive and take control of when you
choose to spend time reading email.
• Deal with it one time. Remember to touch an email once. Take
action on the emails such as moving it to another location or
scheduling a meeting or a phone call, but don’t read it and keep
it there. This causes you to read it multiple times.
• Resist the immediate temptation to grab your smart phone.
Don’t read emails immediately when you wake up. This will
create an instant heavy workload and frustrated state of mind.
Give yourself a chance to adjust to your day prior to checking
your email.
• Turn off the feature that confirms you have a new email or
provides a preview; you don’t want the distraction of knowing
that an email came in. If you’re blocking off time and have set
expectations with those you work with, you don’t need these
features.
• Avoid unnecessary ‘thank you’ emails. They often create an
avalanche of somewhat meaningless emails that go back and
forth. If it is truly worthy, call or write a heartfelt note. In
my first six months at a new job, I had over thirteen hundred
emails saying some version of thank you. There were some that
were heartfelt, but there were others that were less sincere and
simply read “thx.” The emails caught my attention and forced
me to stop what I was doing to delete them.
• Simplify your organization. I recommend against setting up
auto-filtering to organize emails by categories, senders, etc. It
creates the need to look in multiple places when researching or
looking for something. You should do your organizing through
file management, since you get information from many sources,
not just email. Build strong online file management systems to
assist in searching for pertinent material.

Taking a proactive, methodical, and strategic approach to email
management will allow you to take back your day and become a more
productive professional.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

There was a peer of mine whom I would often call and have to
leave messages. She would never return my calls. As soon as
I sent her an instant message, she was prompt with her communication
and we were always able to get things done. By tailoring
our communication styles to her preferences, we were both more efficient.

Who you’re communicating with, what you’re communicating,
and how you’re communicating it will positively or negatively impact
your time. Confidence, influencing others, persuasion skills, setting
clear expectations, being clear and concise—all are tied to effective
communication and time management. All are a must when it comes
to being productive, not to mention building stronger relationships.
If you sit in meetings that have consistently been a waste of time,
are you confident enough to offer solutions to make them more
effective, or strong enough to say they should be held less frequently,
or even stopped altogether? Whether it is speaking up during the
meeting or after it to let the host know, communication does drive
time management.

How effective are your listening skills? Are you truly paying
attention and listening to people? Think back to the number of times
when questions had to unnecessarily be addressed again because
one person wasn’t listening? Listening is another key component of
communication and, again, time management.

I can’t state it enough: communication is an extremely important
facet of effective time management. Assess your communication
strategies, then go out and commit to and share best practices around
communication and time management. Take time to:

• Understand communication preferences for those you work
with the most. If you don’t know, then ask.
• Use the right channel based on priority. Is an email and instant
message (IM) the right channel based on the urgency or
expected actions? Don’t send an email to deal with fire drills
needing immediate attention—you can’t expect everyone to be
on email at all times of the day. You might send an instant
message to get someone’s attention, but you want to avoid
ping-ponging the message back and forth when details can be
discussed quickly on the phone.
• Be conscientious of the audience when sending emails. Give
summaries and highpoints, if necessary, and details to only
those who really need them. It saves you time in writing and
other people’s time in reading. Also, be concise by not writing
the email version of War and Peace to ask a simple question.
• Know who needs and wants to know. Don’t reply to everyone
on the email distribution (reply all) unless it is truly needed
and impacts all—it cuts down on potential unnecessary email
return responses.

Communication plays an important role when establishing
priorities and making all of us conscientious about being productive
and not wasting time. Looking at how you’ve chosen to communicate
in the past and establishing new reliable strategies will enhance your
efficiency.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Have you ever been on a conference call and waited several
minutes after the start time of the meeting to actually begin?
What if each time a person joins late, the host stops
and provides a catch-up summary? Is that fair to people who joined on
time? How about meetings that extend beyond the scheduled end time
with no regard for what anyone else may have scheduled next? I’ve been
in all of the above, in each of these roles: on time, late, host, and guest.
As the host, I finally made a commitment to start the meeting on time
and end on time. Commitment is a critical skill in time management. I
realized I needed to be more committed with several factors of my time
management. By committing myself to building better habits, I found
that others started to practice similar techniques.

Understand your own commitment level. Be fully invested in
improving your time management skills, and be respectful of others’
time, as well. Think of examples in which you must commit and start
to create the right actions and habits. Here are some examples:

• Commit to start and end times you set for yourself. If you said
you would spend an hour on a project, stick to that time. If
you’re not done with a task, set up a new time to complete it.
• The same holds true as the host of a meeting. Start on time
and end on time. In a meeting, you may want to say, “Out of
respect for everyone’s time, we’re going to get started.” It’s not
always easy, but many times we enable the process. With every
new late attendee who joins, we do a quick recap. As much
as we want everyone on the same page, it makes the meeting
inefficient and is disrespectful to those who did join on time.
You can offer to catch them up after the call or have them
read the meeting minutes, but it’s important to try to limit the
constant recaps for the late arrivers.
• As the end of a meeting approaches, you may want to say, “I see
we only have a few minutes remaining. We’ll end the meeting
and cover the rest at the next meeting,” or set up a new time
to finish that works for everyone. Going beyond the end time
has a downstream effect for many. Showing respect for other
people’s calendars builds the right habits for everyone. Be
committed to making it happen.

Stay focused on doing what you set out to do, starting by sticking to
what you allotted for time on your calendar. This will keep you on task,
build a strong time management reputation for you, and ultimately
save time for not only yourself, but others. Looking back at incidents
when you let time drift or found yourself not committing to what you
set out to do will provide you with a good snapshot of what needs to
change and what new habits to establish.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I have been involved in many meetings, especially conference calls,
in which people were obviously not engaged. The disengaged population
is often multitasking. Besides the people who readily admit
that they are multitasking (you would be surprised at the number of
people who come right out and tell me), there are the people who don’t
say a word during the entire meeting, other than to say hello in the beginning
and goodbye at the end. The multitaskers also are the obvious
ones who say, “Huh?” or, “Can you please repeat the question?” when
they hear their name directly. Some are bold enough to say, “Johnny
and I were just instant messaging and I didn’t catch all that.”

In 2009, Ryan Buxton referenced a new study from the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences that found multitasking may
do more harm than good. Citing the study’s findings, the article
states, “Multitaskers are more susceptible to memory interference by
irrelevant details.” The effort to move from one topic to another and the
exertion required to return where you were impacts the true retention
of information for multitaskers. What does this have to do with time
management? Everything. Anything that takes your concentration
away from the present will create extra work for you. Stop kidding
yourself by thinking that multitasking saves time. It actually does the
opposite.

I recently saw a presenter request the audience to write out their
first name and last name. He asked them to write out the first letter of
their first name followed by the first letter of their last name, and so
on. It obviously took much longer than simply writing their names out
normally. The point was powerful.

Start an exercise over the next three days at work. I want it to be based
on true experiential facts, not by looking at the past and creating a time
study—you want facts, not subjectivity. Start to monitor the number
of times that you try to multitask in a day. By being conscientious of it,
you will reduce the pull to do it. Mark down the number of attempts,
even if you went back to concentrating on the first item. The goal is to
improve this by ten percent each day.

I won’t be a hypocrite and say that I have never done it. However,
since I’ve limited my multitasking, I have found myself asking What
just happened? in a meeting much less frequently than I had in the
past. Additionally, I will say that my concentration level and my
engagement has grown substantially since I made a concerted effort to
concentrate on one task, one meeting, and one conversation at a time.
A conversation that only needs to happen once—thus saving everyone
time.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

In an ironic twist on the previous chapter, I want to share the power
of mindless checklists. As I was packing for a summer vacation, I
was scrambling around and getting stressed over whether or not I
was forgetting something. As I was digging through my junk drawer, in
the back of a notebook I found last year’s list. There it was; everything
I needed to bring—including a swimsuit, sunscreen, and sunglasses.

The burdensome task of packing turned from a budding stressful situation
to a quick to-do. I have since made a winter vacation list, and a
business trip list. Each of the lists has matured and changed over time,
but the basics remain the same. Routines—or doing the same thing
over again with predictability—can make you a better organizer and
time manager if they enhance your productivity and reduce your stress
levels.

Determine what checklists and routines personally and professionally
can work for you. Are there standard operating procedures that need
to be made up? Are there morning opening or closing tasks that can
be made holistic and easier for you to follow? What regular reference
points or routines can you establish and create both personally and
professionally? You might even want to establish a routine to have time
each week, or even daily, for no electronic disruptions so that you can
commit to doing nothing but what is in front of you. To put the last
two chapters to work, you can have an appointment for today to review
the specific checklist that will be used (e.g., “Use packing list to pack
for vacation”).

Checklists and routines reduce unpredictability and consistently
let everyone know ahead of time what is expected. If it’s a standing
meeting or a common task that makes you more productive and
reduces unnecessary stress, then checklists and routines can and should
be implemented.
 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only) purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I used to work with an individual who carried her calendar with her
everywhere. Within the calendar was her personal checklist for the
day. Each morning, I would see her flipping the pages back and
forth from yesterday to today and transferring the items not finished
yesterday to the new day. After several days of watching her do this, I
finally asked her two questions: First, how long does it take each day to
transfer the new items over? Second, how important were the tasks in
the first place if they kept getting moved? The answers were, that it took
longer than she liked and the tasks transferred each day were probably
not as important as she had originally thought. She was hurting her
ability to manage time effectively in an attempt to organize each day.

The use of checklists always starts with the best intentions.
Unfortunately, people often like to see them to check off their completed
items and turn it into an accomplishments list. Checklists shouldn’t
be used as an accomplishments list to tick off the little victories, or
as an exercise in procrastination. Checklists should be used to drive
execution of the tasks, but too often we start to migrate to the easier
and quicker tasks. If you want an accomplishments list, then keep one,
but don’t combine it with your checklist. A checklist should be about
getting things done. On it should be all items needing to be addressed
today: important, not important, urgent, and not urgent. It should be
a complete list dedicated to today.

Assess your own checklist usage. Whether it is a literal checklist or a
figurative set of tasks that you keep online, take the time to understand
how often you move tasks regularly. You should stop using a checklist
if you constantly shift tasks from day to day—this isn’t productive.
Consider the following when conducting your assessment, some of
which is reinforcement of past chapters:
• If you have moved a task for consecutive days, you must ask
yourself, “How important is it?” If it is important, take action
on it. If it is important but not urgent, don’t schedule it for
tomorrow, schedule it for a week from now, when you know
you can get to it.
• If you are proactively staying ahead of your day, week, and
month as stated in an earlier chapter, then you should be on
top of this and simply be making tweaks along the way.
• Checklists, if kept, must be comprised of the least amount of
work you expect to get done and still consider the day a success.
Specifically, this is the “I can’t leave until this gets done” list. Be
very realistic.
• Build in daily events and habits. What do you do at eight a.m.
every morning? Are there calls you have to return, administrative
tasks that need to be done (e.g., paperwork to process)? If so,
build it in. Account for the time you are using.

When it comes to checklists, the important key is to not write it
down or add it to your online to-do list today if you are not going
to do it today. Your checklist assessment should enable you to turn a
potential time management hindrance into a time management tool.

To use a sports analogy, if you run with a ball on your own
from point A to point B, it will take you longer than simply
kicking it or throwing it to another person already at point
B. We try to do too much on our own. Whether we want all the glory,
think we can do it better, or simply just want it done, there is value
in getting others involved. This chapter isn’t about dumping, or even
delegating. It’s about teamwork. Depending on your position, you may
still have to supervise, validate the work, or make sure it gets done, but
you should find opportunities to avoid doing everything on your own.

Think about the expertise you have surrounding you. Do you
have the right people working on the right tasks? Start to keep a
list of contacts with their specific expertise so that you can quickly
reference it. If you are part of a team effort, schedule time with your
peers or co-workers, particularly if you’re all depending on each other’s
contributions. The benefit of a routine get-together is that it allows
people to obtain consolidated information in one sitting as opposed to
communications going back and forth with “reply all” emails that can
take up valuable time.

It’s important to have a meaningful and added-value manner for
people to get updates. If it’s not a meeting, at least create a consistent
Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
time each week for a progress summary with everyone’s contributions.
The goal is to create a routine in which people know when and where
updates and answers will be given, which reduces surprises and questions
like, “Where do we stand on project A?” If you do set up a progress
report email, be sensitive to the amount of time it’s taking everyone.
You want meaningful content, but not time wasted for emails that go
unread or administrative tasks that take away from actually completing
the real work.

Once a routine meeting or progress report is established, clearly
define roles and responsibilities. This will hold people, including you,
accountable to meeting the deadlines and keeping people informed
of status updates. Knowing who is doing what and when is a critical
component of time management.

When dealing in team situations, it’s also important to divide and
conquer. Not everyone needs to be at every meeting. Have someone
who attended the meeting provide an update and any key deliverables
to the collective group. Also, it’s important for you to schedule actual
work time for yourself and/or sub-group to ensure time is not all spent
in meetings relating to what is being asked of you. As for meetings
taking up all of your day, you have the right and obligation, whether
you are the organizer or not, to question when meetings have run
their course and are no longer valuable. Don’t have meetings to set up
meetings. Look to get rid of time-wasting tasks.

Understand the importance of working as a team. A group of
people can get more done in less time than one person if the process and
roles are managed well. It is obvious, but is not always done effectively.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

To use a sports analogy, if you run with a ball on your own
from point A to point B, it will take you longer than simply
kicking it or throwing it to another person already at point
B. We try to do too much on our own. Whether we want all the glory,
think we can do it better, or simply just want it done, there is value
in getting others involved. This chapter isn’t about dumping, or even
delegating. It’s about teamwork. Depending on your position, you may
still have to supervise, validate the work, or make sure it gets done, but
you should find opportunities to avoid doing everything on your own.

Think about the expertise you have surrounding you. Do you
have the right people working on the right tasks? Start to keep a
list of contacts with their specific expertise so that you can quickly
reference it. If you are part of a team effort, schedule time with your
peers or co-workers, particularly if you’re all depending on each other’s
contributions. The benefit of a routine get-together is that it allows
people to obtain consolidated information in one sitting as opposed to
communications going back and forth with “reply all” emails that can
take up valuable time.

It’s important to have a meaningful and added-value manner for
people to get updates. If it’s not a meeting, at least create a consistent
time each week for a progress summary with everyone’s contributions.
The goal is to create a routine in which people know when and where
updates and answers will be given, which reduces surprises and questions
like, “Where do we stand on project A?” If you do set up a progress
report email, be sensitive to the amount of time it’s taking everyone.
You want meaningful content, but not time wasted for emails that go
unread or administrative tasks that take away from actually completing
the real work.

Once a routine meeting or progress report is established, clearly
define roles and responsibilities. This will hold people, including you,
accountable to meeting the deadlines and keeping people informed
of status updates. Knowing who is doing what and when is a critical
component of time management.

When dealing in team situations, it’s also important to divide and
conquer. Not everyone needs to be at every meeting. Have someone
who attended the meeting provide an update and any key deliverables
to the collective group. Also, it’s important for you to schedule actual
work time for yourself and/or sub-group to ensure time is not all spent
in meetings relating to what is being asked of you. As for meetings
taking up all of your day, you have the right and obligation, whether
you are the organizer or not, to question when meetings have run
their course and are no longer valuable. Don’t have meetings to set up
meetings. Look to get rid of time-wasting tasks.

Understand the importance of working as a team. A group of
people can get more done in less time than one person if the process and
roles are managed well. It is obvious, but is not always done effectively.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

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MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby