What Makes a Good Manager?

A manager is judged by a different set of criteria for different people. Each time you come into contact with a person, be it your boss, a colleague, a prospect contact or a client, you will be assessed on how you handle the situation. While it is not always possible to please everyone, it is vital to develop a strong set of skills necessary to make decisions, manage your time and employees successfully and give value to the company in order to promote yourself. So how do different groups judge a person as a manager? What skills make a good manager?

From the top down, success is likely to be judged as how much value a manager is adding to the company. For example a manager of a sales team may be judged primarily on the amount of sales revenue brought in by the team he/she manages. While other considerations are important such as sticking to the available budgets and staff turnaround levels, the figures that upper management will regularly review are pie charts indicating sales revenue. This will often be done in comparison to sales managers from other areas. Other areas of review may only be looked at if there is a problem. For example, if the manager runs over budget then this issue will be addressed.

From the bottom up the manager is judged by many different skill areas. 'People skills' are vitally important. This can be broken down into communication and the success at building relationships with people. A team will judge their manager on the way he/she communicates with them on a daily basis and how various situations are handled. A good manager will have good listening and communication skills and will build a rapport with staff. Employees will feel respected, satisfied with their positions in the company and confident that they have the skills necessary to complete their work. There are therefore many talents a manager needs to become successful.

Communication skills are vital and can help with the full range of people a manager comes into contact with. Being able to communicate instructions and ideas to staff while in return listening to them is the backbone of good management. Without this skill communication will break down on all levels, misunderstandings will occur and mistakes will be made. Good communication skills will allow your staff to develop a high level of trust in the manager. This is important since they will feel able to communicate ideas and issues that will benefit the company and strengthen the manager's position.

When communicating with staff it may become apparent that some of them feel that they lack the skills necessary to complete some tasks well or would like to advance their skill set. A good manager recognises that training staff is necessary to ensure that the company get the best value from the employee and the employee will feel fulfilled in the role. Investing in the people that work for you makes sense since you and the company will reap the rewards in quality and varied work. This will mean a lower staff turnaround that will keep recruitment and training new staff member costs to a minimum.

An expert manager also recognises that Information Technology is an important issue. It is vital that data is clean and up to date which can be overlooked until a crisis occurs. Learning to deal with data through software is important since this can include contact lists for existing customer base along with prospects. Once the database become clogged with errors, duplicates and out-of-date information, real problems can occur. You will need to know all relevant information of existing customers including what products they are using, if for example you are a manager in a software house. For sales information the data is important to get accurate statistics for financial decisions. For prospects, it is a waste of time, energy and money to be sending marketing information to the wrong people. Most managers will be in charge of some kind of database of information.

A good manager will therefore take an active interest in what technology is being used to store and protect the data and how this can be improved. Since any problems are ultimately the managers responsibility, it is good practice to know exactly what is happening with the data that your team rely on to do their jobs and which you will rely on to justify your own position. At some point you will be asked to provide reports and statistics for your team and it will look very unprofessional if you cannot provide solid, accurate statistics.

While reviewing the data, it is also worth reviewing the procedures and methods of the team as a whole. Is everything running as efficiently as possible? Get feedback from all members of staff and make improvements where possible, but make changes sensitively. Be aware that some people are wary of change. A good manager will not be afraid to praise and congratulate staff on a job well done. When people feel encouraged and recognised for their good work, they are more likely to strive for further encouragement by working harder and accepting changes you wish to make. A simple gesture such as a box of donuts after a hard week can go a long way to making your staff feel appreciated.

As demonstrated, becoming a great and successful manager requires a variety of complex skills. As a manager you are responsible for all things and should take that responsibility seriously. It is sometimes a juggling act between keeping your staff and your own boss happy while ensuring all the work is done on time, in budget and preferably with a smile! Do not underestimate the importance of learning to manage your time to fit everything in. The best managers are those that can successfully juggle all this responsibility with an active social and home life.

Managing Your Money the Easy Way - Step by Step

Managing your money is no harder than organizing your toolbox. The only reason that it sounds so complicated for many people is the misconception that money is just a number in your bank account. Actually, money is different from money, just like a piece of tools is different from each other. Also, money is not just something so you can exchange for stuff. It is your tool to organize your life, and your bank account is like your toolbox. Once you realize this, managing your money is as easy as organizing your toolbox.

Managing money easy way step 1 - categorization

This step answers what you need.

Just like organizing toolbox, we need to find out how many tools we have or need. Anyone can list why we need money, including shelter, food, living expense, emergency reserve, family protection, liability, retirement, children's education, entertainment, charity, your dream. The list can go on and on and on...

Managing money easy way step 2 - prioritization

This step answers what you need first and how much you need.

How you prioritize your money says a lot about who you are. This part should be unique to you. Don't let your neighbours, your relatives or your financial advisors take away your value in life. The common suggest is:

1. Emergency reserve

At least 3 months of your living expense is recommended. Cash is the best for this purpose. It should be highly accessible, such as savings account in a bank without being locked in for long term. An alternative way is to have enough personal line of credit or credit card limit, but be aware that you will have to pay interest if you have to use it when circumstance arises.

2. Insurance

This is to protect the most precious you have, yourself and your family, against unexpected event like death, critical illness and disability. The main purpose for insurance is to replace your income, so that you or your family will not suffer from dramatic financial setback due to any disastrous incidents.

3. Living expenses and financial liability

This section should be strictly necessity of living only, including rent/mortgage, grocery, clothes and other living rated bills. It should not include your takeout food or movie tickets. You will have a pretty good idea how much it would be by adding up all the bills you receive every month. The money should come out of your daily chequing account. If you would like to use credit card, make sure you pay the balance before the due date. A easy way is to setup auto payment schedule so you don't have to worry about it.

4. Plan ahead

This is the things we label as very important but not urgent. It could be your retirement, or your children's education. Depending on amount you need and when you need it, you can put them in conservative or moderate investment vehicle for longer term. The main purpose should be maintaining the purchase value against inflation and gaining decent return without taking on too much risk.

5. Your lifestyle

Movies, restaurants, hobbies, or some causes that dear to your heart. Life should be joyful. Again, you should prioritize your life in your own way. Some people decide to put certain cause on the top, and live the other part of their lives around it. In some culture, parents would put their children's education before their own food. You are the decision maker of how you should live, as long as you are fully aware the consequences of your decision.

Managing your money easy way step 3 - Action

The final step requires your action.

Once you have finished the first two steps, this one is rather simple. All you have to do is to arrange the things that you need, just like you put the tools in the appropriate section in the toolbox. Setup accounts with different purposes with your bank or investment institution and shop for needed insurance.

Simple Exercises, Body Weight Management, And Training Tips

These days, more and more people are striving to incorporate physical fitness into their daily routines. Doing so not only keeps your body in top condition, it has great benefits health-wise. When it comes to specific exercises, body weight management is one area that many have difficulty in mastering. However, with basic information and practice, anyone can learn how to put together the proper workout for their needs.

What is Body Weight Management?

When it comes to body weight management, there are typically two reasons why people use exercise to control this aspect of their life. The first scenario applies to those that have recently shed unwanted pounds and met their weight loss goals. By performing certain exercises, body weight can be maintained so that they can focus on staying at their goal weight. The second scenario deals with individuals that are currently happy with their weight and wish to use exercise to prevent weight gain or loss.

Although body weight management also requires maintaining a healthy and nutritious daily eating regimen, staying in peak physical condition by performing certain exercises is a necessary factor in preventing a person from experiencing fluctuations with their weight. This type of management is regularly practiced by both men and women.

Your Workout

When it comes to exercises, body weight workouts should be tailored to meet not only an individual's fitness goals but their preferences as well. There are a variety of exercises that target different areas of the body and over time it will be easy to see which types are ideal for producing favorable results.

Core & Abs

Strengthening the core and sculpting your abs are a great way to maintain a flat and tight stomach. For effective core/ab exercises, body weight workouts should include the vertical leg crunch.

To perform the vertical leg crunch, lie on the floor and extend your legs, keeping your knees crossed (your body should be similar to an L shape). Your hands can be interlocked behind your head or flat on the floor for support. Lift your shoulders off the floor, bringing your chest towards your feet and slowly lower yourself back down to the floor. Repeat 1-3 sets for up to 12 repetitions.

Legs

Looking for exercises, body weight workouts or routines that target the legs? Then you'll want to try combining the squat with an exercise ball. Using a medium to large size exercise ball, place this item against the wall so that it is between the wall and the curve of your lower back. With feet shoulder width apart, slowly bend your knees and lower yourself a few inches from the ground. Hold this position for three seconds and make sure your shoulders are level and that your hips are square. Now gradually stand back up to your original position. Repeat as needed.

Muscle Building

Need muscle building exercises, body weight programs or workout ideas? There are numerous exercises that fall under this category. Bench presses are one of the most popular. Start by lying face up on the bench. Grab the barbell using an overhand grip. While inhaling, lower the barbell to your chest slowly until it lightly touches your lower pectorals. Next, exhale and push the barbell back up to starting position and repeat.

Convenient exercises, body weight workouts and training routines are those that can be done right in the comfort of a person's home, which is ideal for individuals that do not have the time, money or flexibility in their schedules to join the local gym.

Effective Time Management For Working Students - Calendar, a Necessity

At last you are now in college! Only a few more years and the career you have been dreaming to achieve for years is already within your grasp.

However, the path is not easy and wreath with beds of roses. Lack of financial means to pay for your tuition, books and other necessary expenses can be an aspect to make your college student life miserable. Of course, you can get a part time job to and support yourself, but it will be precious time away from your studies.

You need accomplish also other college activities in successfully finishing your course. Notwithstanding old and new friends which will surely invite you to social events.

Well then, you need to hone up your time management skills and draw up a time management calendar. Having a Calendar of your activities will help you get through the difficulty of balancing your time between study and work, extra-curricular and social activities with friends.

More and more State Universities and Community Colleges are aware of the fact that college students have to work in order to survive and finance their college education. Because of this insight, these schools adjust their class schedules to meet every student's needs.

However, administrators and advisors in the office find a hard time of scheduling and managing classes for working college students. This is because there are too many people to schedule and manage and few people to draw up the class schedules.

College working students like you who practice effective time management strategies can be a big help. You can assist university and community colleges administrators in drawing up class schedules that are effective for working students. Professionals at college need your definite schedules so that they can draw up a fair enough class schedules.

You can work out by yourself an efficient time management schedule, which takes into consideration your studies, and part time job schedules. In the end, with an effective time student calendar time management plan, you also save money.

Here is a great method of setting up your calendar of time management schedule:

1. First off, you must have a semester calendar. Universities and other colleges provide students with blank semester calendars. You can obtain one through online or create one according to your own liking.

2. In the semester calendars, enter your class schedules, project due dates, registration dates and other important dates. These important dates may come from your class syllabi and the school timetables provided in their brochures and announcements. Enter each date as you find them into your semester calendar.

Set up your own due dates for each phase of a big project, like term papers and projects. You can also add personal commitments to social and personal events.

Maintaining a semester calendar as your time management method will give you a view of what commitments you need to fulfill. It will help you plan before a given schedule. This way, you will avoid last minute disasters.

3. You can also set up a weekly planner. There are available weekly planners provided by institutions you can obtain them online or get them at the registration office during enrollment. If you want to, you can also buy or create your own.

In the weekly planner, you need to enter your regular class schedule and other obligations on a weekly basis, like work, club or church meetings and assembly. Make it a point that you insert ample time for review and reading before and following each class lecture you attend.

Take note of it in your planner. If you are wondering the enough time to put in for a review, have a general rule to plan two hours of study for each hour a lecture transpired.

Plan your regular time off from work and school. Enter bed and wake up times in your planner. Meanwhile, for projects, exams and other personal commitments, leave off blank slots.

4. Tally out your weekly planner and semester calendar every Friday night or late afternoon. This will enable you to check out the things you have accomplished for that week and adjust on the activities that you still need to do for the following week.

Incorporating these other commitments can be done by placing them in the blank time schedule you have on your weekly planner. Then add new items you are committed in for the incoming week. Enter new things and schedules as new obligations, commitments and engagements come up.

You can have your weekly planner to check out before saying your affirmation to a commitment or engagement. If you find you have a previous entry on the said date and time, then it is best to turn down the invitation early on.

5. Every night create a daily "action list" for the following day. Use your weekly and semester calendar to do this. You can even put in categories to set your priorities straight.

Having a calendar for effective time management will reveal its importance when you reach your goals. The main purpose of maintaining it is that it will help remind you of the key goals you have set forth to achieve.

Money Management In Forex Trading

Money management in Forex trading and market isn't your usual way of budgeting your daily cash. While it does involve allotting how much to which, it's certainly more complicated and there are different money management strategies that a Forex trader could adopt.

Money Management DEFINED: This is a subsystem in the Forex trading industry. Depending on the strategy you adopt, money management tells you how much you should risk when you get an entry signal from the trading system. It also tells you the money you need to put on a single trade. With a lot of financial strategists spending every waking moment of their lives to find a way to 'tip the balance to their favor', it's natural that you would find different strategies for money management. However, all of them have one central theme; to prevent exposure to high risk.

Money Management Strategy 1: Martingale

You can ask any gambler around and, believe me, they know what this strategy is about like they would know their ABC's. The idea is straight forward and simple: as you lose more, you increase your risk. For example, if you risk $50 and lose, you need to bet $100 on the next turn. If that doesn't quite work, bet $200. After a long enough losing streak, theoretically and statistically, you will win. And, if you have doubled your risk right from the onset, that single win could recoup your initial loses and, if you are fortunate enough, even gain some profit.

The question, however, is this: do you have enough to finally win and make it back? Unless you have an unlimited amount of money to spend, this is hardly a reliable strategy. There are a lot of newbie Forex traders who adopt this strategy. Unsurprisingly, it leads not only to great losses but, much worse, to wipe-outs!

Money Management Strategy 2: Anti-Martingale

The anti-Martingale is the opposite of the above money management strategy. The idea is to increase your risk when you are winning and tone it down when you are losing. Like the Martingale strategy, this is high-risk, but it's perfect for traders who want higher returns while still keeping their initial balance. There are many experienced Forex traders who adopt this money management strategies, and with good results!

Money Management Strategy 3: One Percent Risk Rule

This system has saved many traders from total bankruptcy and wipeouts. The beauty in this strategy is that it's simple and effective. The name says it all: for every trade, you should adjust your risk to roughly 1 percent of your account's balance. Here's an example: let's say your account has $1,000,000. One percent of it is equal to $10,000. That means your Stop Loss should be tweaked so that, for every trade you go into, you will not lose more than $10,000. Simple and effective, indeed, but why is it that only a handful of traders adopt this? The answer is that they are not looking for moderate profits. They want to hit it big in as little time as possible.

Six Money Management Tips For Successful Forex Trading

In Forex it is difficult to earn money and even more difficult to manage the invested money. Once traders learn to manage and control their losses, the probability to earn profits increases. Money management is all about the amount of money you are putting in a trade and the degree of risk you are taking.

Risking a small percentage of your account

Experts of the Forex trade advise to invest a mere 1% to 2% of the total account so as to be able to accept loss of the trade if at all it occurs. The purpose is to be able to survive a loss and learn from your mistake. You must remember that with each loss, your core equity gets depleted and thus your chances to remain in the business for long reduce.

Regaining the lost money to break even your account

It is essential to keep a track of the amount of money lying in your core equity after each lost trade. In addition to this, it is vital to calculate the amount of money you need to earn in order to bring your account back to the break even point. This has to be kept in mind while trading further because if you keep losing, the percentage of return money keeps expanding making it even more difficult to bring your account back to the original size.

Hedging

When the currency exchange rates move unfavorably, you need to adopt the policy of hedging in order to protect your stock position. You declare to future sell your holdings at a set price so as to free yourself from market fluctuations. This is helpful to survive unpredictable price changes.

Diversify your trade

Trading in only one currency pair provides few trading opportunities. Thus it is advised to diversify and trade in different currency pairs. Each time you pick up a new trade, the base of your calculations is your core equity and not the starting balance, which means that you have lesser money to stake. The trick here is to switch to a currency pair with a lower correlation coefficient so that your risk percentage is reduced. For example, if you were trading in EUR/USD, your next currency pair should be USD/CHF because these two pairs have a high negative correlation such that when one pair goes up, the other falls down.

Martingale/Anti Martingale strategy

According to the Martingale strategy, traders increase the stake when they are losing with the intention to be able to cover-up for the losses with one big win. On the other hand, according to Anti Martingale strategy, traders reduce the stake when they are losing and increase it when they are winning.

Risk/Reward ratio

A good trader will enter a trade if he can foresee a reward that is 3 times the risk involved. This 3:1 reward/risk ration ensures profits in the long run.

In order to stay in the forex business for long it is vital to protect your account. Once you ensure your stay, you can then focus on growth prospects. Therefore, before you aim for profits, learn how to cope with losses. Money management teaches you all of this.

Why Good Employee Training is Essential For Business Success

Employees are the lifeblood of any company, as all business owners and managers are well aware of: good ones know what their job responsibilities are, how to use their time effectively, and what their bosses expect them to accomplish on a daily basis. But good employees don't usually happen by accident: they are made good through effective employee training.

Unfortunately, many companies choose to cut fiscal corners in their training departments, hoping that their employees will simply learn as they go. This is a risky strategy, however, and many workers simply fall through the cracks: bosses assume they know what to do, when the employees' performance clearly indicates otherwise. Here are some ideas to help jump start a training program for small business employees.

-- Put training back into the company budget. If training becomes a priority, Human Resources will have the freedom it needs to develop a strategy that will see to it that workers get the training they need to perform more effectively. The owner and managers all need to be supportive of those in charge of developing a training program, and need to make sure that there is money earmarked for this purpose and this purpose alone.

-- There must be a consensus on what the needs are when it comes to training, and because funds are no doubt limited, the program should focus on these needs first.

-- Do not implement any large-scale training program before testing it out on a small group first. This just makes good common sense: something may look great on paper but end up being a disaster in practice. Small-scale testing will provide the feedback necessary to fine-tune the program or overhaul it altogether.

-- Choose your training methods and accountability system carefully. There are plenty of ways to train employees: you can run a mentoring program, bring in a professional trainer, or set up online training classes that can put them through a graduated skills acquisition program. Many businesses choose a combination of the above, to give their employees a variety.

-- Make sure that the training each employee receives is relevant to his or her duties: putting everyone through the same program may not be appropriate and employees will tune out if they feel like they are being made to learn skills or knowledge they will never use.

-- Follow up with training by employing a measurement system to assess the effectiveness of what employees are learning. You may also want to implement a computerized system that can track the successful completion of training, both online and through other methods, by individual employees.

Having well-trained employees means lower worker turnover rates, a more content work force that has an investment in the successful accomplishment of their daily tasks, and a more professional environment overall. Employee training is well worth the effort.

Money Management - You Are Broke Because You Want to Be

How many times have you seen this "I Make $20,000 a Month Using...."? The internet is full of money making schemes. We are bombarded daily with spam email, popup advertising, Google Adsense ads and the like. It seems like 90% are announcing the next big Internet money making extravaganza. That or advertisements for porn. Either way, 90% of these are probably a waste of time and very likely a scam to milk every last dollar out of your bank account that they can. So why do these annoying tactics work? They must work right? Someone is making money or they wouldn't be everywhere.

The real issue is WHY they work. All of us want to be financially free. We are all looking for the way out of our paycheck to paycheck lives. The problem is most of us never really take the time to first figure out why we live this way. Second, we fail to figure out how we really want to live. What is really important to us. We see the big house and the fancy car and we think "this is what I need."

I read an article the other day. It was about families making over $250,000 a year that are broke. They are afraid that the new tax laws are going to push them over the edge into financial ruin. I don't want to get into the new tax issues in this article. Whether it's fair or unfair is not the point. The point is that if you are making $250,000 a year and bringing in $12,000 a month how can you be broke? The answer?

BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BE.

I understand that the cost of living is high in many areas. I understand that families have obligations such as college funds and electric bills. I understand all too well. But I also understand that this is America. And in this country we are blessed with the right to make choices. If you choose to live in an area where your 1500 square foot house costs you $300,000+ it's your choice. If you choose to drive a $45,000 car it's your choice.

So what if you only make $40,000 a year? Or less? You still have choices. I have heard it said that the most costly item in the world is an excuse. No matter what your income level you still have choices. Some of them may be difficult. Some may require more work. But you still have a choice.

So here is the key to financial freedom, actually there are three:

First, you must understand that you do not become wealthy because of the money you earn.

You become wealthy because of the money you spend.

If you spend less than you make you can become rich. Period, end of story. It may take you longer if you only make $40,000 a year but you can become wealthy if you spend less than you make. So you must first understand what you spend your money on. Down to the penny.

I challenge you to track every cent you spend for the next thirty days. I would bet that most of you would be shocked at the money you spend on things like eating out, snacks and other crap you really don't need.

Second, you have to decide what wealth is. Is it a big house and a fancy car? If so, you need to understand exactly what this will cost you. The average American does not understand the real cost of buying ìstuffî. Here is a hint: If you are not paying cash for that new car you are paying too much.

Financing has ruined this country. Not because financing is a bad thing but because most consumers do not understand principal and interest. Once you understand that interest is an incredible force when it is working for you (in the form of investments) instead of working against you (in the form of mortgage payments, credit cards etc.) you can start to see that all that crap you are financing is actually robbing you every month. Until you understand this you will NEVER be financially free.

For me wealth is time. I know how much my time cost. And what I am willing to pay for it. Surprisingly, once you strip away all the stuff that can steal your money and your time it is easy to see that financial freedom does not cost as much as you might think. For me it's much less than $250,000, much less. For you it might be more. Either way must understand that it is possible to become wealthy without these principles but impossible to remain wealthy without them.

The third thing you need is a plan. Now you know where you spend your money (or what you are throwing it away on). You know what wealth is to you.

Now you need to figure out how you can pay for it. More on this next time, until then I suggest you start with Rule 1 and stop the bleeding. You can do it. If you really want it!

Using Cash Management Services For Improved Business Money Management

No matter what type of financial management responsibilities you might be undertaking, whether for a small business a corporation, or just for your own family, one essential element that must be properly managed is the cash flow of the organization. Cash management is especially important in businesses that have a lot of cash coming in the door, such as bars, restaurants and other types of retail establishments that deal in cash. For these kinds of enterprises, professional cash management services are crucial.

Banks provide many different types of financial management services, financial management solutions and financial management systems to their customers of all sizes, but especially to businesses who typically rely on the more sophisticated and powerful business financial management offerings. Business cash management is one of the many essential services that are offered.

Cash management services for organizations from small businesses to large corporations can help assure that the business has the cash on hand that is needed to conduct transaction for their customers. This keeps the customers happy and returning to the business because they are able to make their purchases without problems.

At the same time, the financial services that banks offer their business customers help to make their routine banking needs simpler, faster, more efficient and cost effective. Making the business financial management solutions and systems easy to operate and manage helps to assure that business owners and managers can focus their time and attention more on running their businesses effectively and profitably, and less on dealing with the business financial management issues.

Cash flow is crucial to a smoothly running business operation and so the purpose of these financial services is to make sure that the cash that is required for the daily business operations is properly balanced. This means having enough cash on hand each day in order to conduct business as needed and yet also minimize the amount of cash that is in use so that the maximum available assets can be invested to earn a return.

There are a number of different cash management products and systems available these days from banks and other financial services companies. These various financial services and solutions vary widely and the best solution will primarily depend on the particular business, the industry it is operating in, how the business overall is being managed, and what the business financial management goals are.

Many companies go to great lengths to carefully keep track of cash flow, both incoming and outgoing, and providing that cash flow data to one of their financial managers. This person, in turn, can then take this information, analyze it and generate accurate predictions about the future cash needs of the business and pass these findings along to the cash management services in order to produce the best business cash management plan possible.

Stress Management Training - What's Effective?

Stress Management

In the businesses, NGOs and government organisations I work with there are two kinds of people -those who admit there is stress in their lives and those in denial. Both may suffer but the latter cannot address what is a crucial workplace issue (in the UK the Health and Safety Executive make it a legal requirement for employers to address it is considered so important irrespective). Happily macho attitudes are dying out as people realise the impact stress can have on health (most of the Western World killers are stress related), efficiency/productivity (studies show that stressed people DO NOT work well) and relationships at work and at home.

Stress training is becoming recognised by businesses as valuable as if done well it decreases staff turnover (churn-rate), increases effectiveness and reduces absenteeism. As well as being an ethical stance, providing stress management saves organisations money. What then are some of the barriers relating to stress training? Aside from prejudicial attitudes that stress can make one weak there is also a misconception that people work well stressed. Some positive arousal or eustress can of course be beneficial - but most people in modern organisations that I see are well beyond this daily and working on adrenaline and heading towards burnout. The concept of "sustainable working" is often a useful one for managing stress, as is the distinction between "live relaxation" (like an athlete) and "dead relaxation" (like a unconscious drunk).

Other barriers to stress management include time and cost. Short targeted courses funded by government grants can help with both of these.

What Makes Stress Training Effective?

Some stress training is effective and some is not (as measured by participants in feedback or by "hard measures" like staff sick days). Here are some of the things that make workplace stress management training courses effective if included:

Choose an Experienced Provider

Would you do dentistry "in house" or ask your mechanic to o it? Of course not, it pays to get a specialist in to address stress at work and the same is true of investing in an experienced and specialist stress training provider. Of course I am biased but the real test is that paying customers agree.

Adequate Pre Course Assessment Was Done

Stress training will only work if it is targeted to the organisations needs. Public stress courses are possible but if the trainer is talking directly to the concerns of delegates after having done thorough research this is superior. A pre-course stress management questionnaire would be a minimal measure.

Stress Course Has an Embodied and Integral Perspective

Talking about theories of stress is not enough as stress is an embodied phenomena and this much be addressed. Similarly looking at any one angle on stress is insufficient as psychological, biological, social, cultural, environmental and organisational aspects must all be considered for effectiveness as these elements are all involved. Ken Wilber's integral model is the most complete theoretical overview I know of.

Stress Training is Interactive and Fun!

Interactive and experiential training will alleviate the problem of tired or bored delegates not taking anything in, and gain crucial buy-in.

Stress Management Training Enables "Real-World Transfer"

Training often has a bad reputation as in many organisations people will go on a course, then promptly forget everything they have learned. It is important that stress training embeds learning in real-world applications. Follow-up e-mails and revision sessions are also effective.

This article is of course just a brief introduction to stress training and what makes stress management effective, but I hope it has been a helpful start. There are several government grants for stress training currently available in the UK so please get in contact to benefit your productivity, health and relationships.

Sales Motivation Training - 3 Step Process To Achieving Targets

Sales motivation training is for individuals that want to get themselves focused on being successful, and managers that want to help their teams achieve the best results possible. When you add motivation to sales skills training and good product knowledge you have all the key elements that any sales professional or small business owners needs to hit their targets. This 3 step motivation technique will show you how to look at your target in a new way and relate it to the actions focused on achieving it. This is a great way for individuals or sales managers to really get focused on the daily actions that will lead to success in a sales role.

The idea looks simplistic and basic when you first read it. The basic principle behind it is very simple, all the best sales and motivation training is. But look at the individual actions, and consider the ways that you can use them, and you soon find that there are lots more actions that you can add to the basic framework. So here is the motivation technique to achieving sales targets and how to put it into action.

Step 1. Understand your sales target and chunk it down

Some sales organisation set very complicated sales targets, and some small businesses do not understand what their real targets are and how they relate to the business objectives. How can sales people be motivated to hit targets if they are too complicated or not easy to understand? The first step is to make sure you fully understand what you have to sell each sales period, month or quarter, to achieve your sales target. When you know what your sales target is chunk it down into smaller targets for shorter time periods. For example: If you have a target of 20 units a month you could chunk it down into 5 units a week, or 1 unit per working day. Then you have a simple daily target to aim for and that helps you get motivated.

Step 2. Actions to achieve your chunked down target

Now work out how many prospects you will need to see to achieve this smaller chunked down target. Example: If you convert 1 out of every 3 prospects, and each converted prospect buys on average 1 unit, you will need to see a minimum of 3 prospects a day to reach the target in the example in step 1. If you want to take this further look at how many prospects you see compared to how many planned appointments you have. You could find that 1 out of every 4 appointments fails to go ahead or gets postponed. That means you have to plan 4 a day to make sure you complete the 3 you need. Having a target of how many prospects to see over a small time period means that you can get focused on achieving that time-bound objective and motivated to hit it.

You can look deeper into this step by assessing the types of prospects that yield the highest sales. Example: If B2B prospects on average buy 2 units and direct sales to the public are usually 1 unit. When planning your appointments per day you would need more meetings if all your prospects were members of the public and less if they were all business customers. You can narrow down this method of forecasting potential sales from different types of prospects and make really good use of it when planning your selling time.

Step 3. Monitor where actions are needed

When you have completed your sales appointments for the sales period give yourself, or your sales team, some feedback. Look at what worked well and plan to do some more of it. What didn't work and what can you change to get the results you want. Look at the results you achieved and compare them to steps 1 & 2. Ask yourself the questions: Have I hit target. Were all my sales and appointments focused on achieving my target or did I complete less effective actions. Did I make the best use of the research I did into which types of prospects convert into the best sales. Then put this sales motivation training technique into action again for next month.

Daily Money Online - Secret Internet Business Pays Everyday

You can make money on the Internet without a web site or selling any products. Thousands of people make money everyday, in this unique online business. The referral trading business is a fast way to make money. This unusual business will give you the opportunity to work from home and make money on the Internet. People will pay you to do a sponsor offer on a freebie web site. These people need a certain number of referrals to qualify for a free product. They will pay you twenty to seventy-five dollars for each sponsor offer you complete.

You have to live in the USA or Canada and be 18 years or older. You have to have a Pay Pal account and a visa or master card credit card. After you complete an offer, the trader will send a payment to your Pay Pal account. You can transfer the money into your checking account and receive money everyday from different freebie traders. The sponsor offers will be a trial offer from a large company. Keep a record of the offers completed, web sites joined, traders and cancel information.

Join a referral trading web site or community forum to find freebie traders. Read the forum rules and visit the trading area. Traders will advertise how much money they will pay for each offer. Contact a trader for the link information on an offer being advertise. The trader will give you their referral link. Click on the link and sign up for the site. Clear cookies and disable pop up blockers on your computer before doing an offer. Click on the offer you want to complete and fill out the information.

You will received a confirmation page from the freebie site. The trader will verify you did get credit for the offer and send a payment to your Pay Pal account. You can transfer the money into your checking account and received the money the same day you completed an offer.

The fast way to make money on the Internet is by being a referral for a freebie trader. You will complete trial offers from large companies. The trader will verify that you did get credit for the offer and send a payment to your Pay Pal account the same day you complete the offer. This is an easy way to make money everyday.

The Importance Of Sales Training On A Daily Basis

Sales professionals of all ages would rather hit the streets to speak with potential clients than sit in a long seminar on sales technique. Managers and executives place a high premium on results but corporations want sales people to have the information needed to use intuition in a reasonable manner. Your experience with sales training sessions will go smoothly when you understand how your daily work and professional livelihood are influenced.

The first lesson learned by many sales professionals is effective communication with diverse populations. Sales people come in contact with budget-conscious consumers, busy executives and individuals who have never considered purchasing a company's products. You may feel that speaking about effective communication is no substitute for getting out and learning to speak with people. Training sessions about interpersonal communications and conflict management provide a checklist for your daily sales calls. You can tick down the list of steps including eye contact, presenting the virtues of your product and offering an opening for questions to close a deal.

Sales professionals learn lessons about expense management and administration that seem boring at the outset. Your desire to increase your sales numbers will lead you away from paper work and toward your call sheet. Employers provide administrative lessons throughout sales training sessions as a way to maintain accurate files while helping employees avoid backtracking on paper work. The key to using administrative training on a daily basis is the use of proprietary software and forms. You may be familiar with a general way of managing expense accounts but each employer has its own unique documentation system.

One of the overlooked aspects of corporate sales training comes during sessions with research and development representatives. A sales professional relies entirely on product knowledge in order to build trust with a client. In a global economy with narrow margins, the knowledge and communications skills of a sales person can mean the different between success and failure for a company. Retailers that sell vacuum cleaners need sales people who not only know upcoming products but competing products. You need to pay close attention to product information sessions in order to compete with your colleagues.

There are simple ways for a sales professional to get the most out of training sessions on a daily basis. A regular review of corporate training materials will refresh your memory on nuances of company policy regarding sales. You can spend some time with trainers on a regular basis to learn changes in training for incoming sales professionals. There is no substitute for taking notes, asking questions and bringing a positive attitude to corporate sales training.

Successfully Managing the Daily Operations of Your B and B

Running a bed and breakfast can be like directing an 8-ring circus. The innkeeper keeps the show moving, a constant and simultaneous set of activities, making your business a huge success. The better you do your job as an innkeeper the easier your job looks to your guests. I feel it's the "back-stage" elements of planning, inn policies, organization, and training that create the look of effortless-ness. Those same elements do make the job easier for you and your assistants.

However, no amount of preparation makes this job effortless. You can't begin to fathom how the simultaneous demands on your time and energy can drain you, as well as invigorate you. No matter how I stress this aspect of innkeeping, people can't comprehend my message until they are in the middle of "the circus". I have had clients call me several months after beginning their innkeeping careers, either as owners or managers, to comment on their realization of the workload that I had tried to describe and explain to them. It's not any one activity that makes this difficult, it is the entire set of activities happening all at once that makes this career challenging.

Part of the trick of managing your bed and breakfast is assigning different circus rings to assistants. Don't relinquish is your obligation to oversee their work though. You will be busy and involved at all times. Can you handle the "attention tugs" that will come from different directions at the same time and still love your work? Can you be an effective innkeeper under those circumstances?

Innkeeping is a wonderfully gratifying lifestyle for most people. Is it for you? Will you thrive or shrivel in this environment, will you be invigorated or driven crazy? Let's look at the circus rings and discuss what is involved.

The different circus rings include Innkeeper, Maintenance, Cleaning, Breakfast, Training, Check-in and -out, Bookkeeping, Reservations, and Marketing. Each department or activity is like a circus ring, but I also think of each as a juggled ball. The order I'm discussing the rings, or balls, indicates the order in which I feel you can give away that task. To help you understand my theory better think about each department, circus ring, or juggled ball as having a different price/hour value. Your mission is to give away the lower priced balls so you can focus on the higher valued balls.

The Innkeeper supervises all that happens in each department. Stay ever vigilant to your brand so the guest experience is everything you want it to be.

Maintenance should be an ongoing and regular activity. It's one way to protect your investment. I've seen too many innkeepers who deferred their maintenance because of lack of time or money, only to find they were so far behind the task was monumental. For example, not keeping the wood trim on your windows painted can cause the wood to rot so when you do get to the window project you have to repair the wood before you can paint. Pay attention to your locks, paint, carpet and flooring, HVAC, the grounds, and the roof -- for starters.

Cleaning is another ongoing, regular activity -- daily, in fact. Even if you don't have guests on a given night, it's prudent to still dust the common areas and double check the guest rooms. The common areas are what people see first upon entering your B&B, and their first impression should be a good one. A clean house creates that first good impression. If a surface is dusty, the guest has to wonder if other things, like the toilet or shower, are clean. After having been the housekeeper for a period of time you will be prepared to train your employees to do the job the way you want it done.

Breakfast is a great time for you to interact with your guests. It's one of the three important times to spend time with them. That doesn't mean you need to be cooking or doing the primary serving. Serve coffee as you chat with your guests. Again, doing this job yourself better helps you train your staff and understand what goes into the job.

Training requires a constant effort because the details are so important. Up to now, you've performed the various tasks at your inn, you've trained others to take over some of the tasks, and now it's time for you to give the job of training to someone else. Training is a more time-consuming job than the jobs discussed above because it's critical to the quality of your inn and the guest experience. By having someone you trust as a trainer you focus more of your attention on the jobs you can do best.

Checking guests in and out is an important job that's can be overlooked. These are the other important times to interact with your guests. That interaction doesn't have to be done by you, the owner/innkeeper, but it does need to be done by a person who cares about the inn and the guest's experience. One reason these tasks are important is because of the opportunity to set the tone for this or the next stay and to find out what they need now or next time they visit.

Bookkeeping is an incredibly important job because you are tracking the money through the business. By doing the books yourself for several years you develop a knowing about the numbers so when things aren't right you have a better idea of what the problem is. The problem could be a data entry error, a departmental problem, or a theft. To this point theft from B&B's is a minimal problem, but it could happen, More often than not it's a math or data entry problem and one you can "fix" with your strong background in your inn's bookkeeping.

Taking reservations is one of the most important jobs in the inn because it's the task that shows your guests more about your inn than your marketing ever can or will. This is a guest's first interaction with you and the way you handle it will show them how they will be treated when they arrive. The person who takes reservations needs to be knowledgeable about the inn, policies, and even the activities of your community. That kind of knowledge helps you guide a guest's experience both at your inn but also in the area. Taking a reservation can take about five minutes, time you can better spend elsewhere once you have both the background and the employees to fill in for you. It's a very important task and can make or break your business. Don't give it away lightly, quickly, or easily. Train your replacement carefully and watch them closely so that reservations are done "right".

Marketing, the task of getting the word out about your inn, is the one circus ring you never give away. Nobody can market your inn the way you can. The main reason you've been slowly giving the other balls away is so you have time and energy to focus on marketing. Marketing is the more than your web site, brochures, advertising, and promotions, it's also your guest interactions and customer service -- your hospitality. The way you treat your guests may be the most important marketing you do. If you treat them well they will return and tell their friends, family, and associates about you. If you treat them badly, or in a way that disappoints them, they will also tell everyone -- just more often. If you are too busy working the inn you don't have the energy or focus for your guests. Don't forget part of "marketing to your guests" is making sure your employees are doing their jobs right; your management of them is part of marketing to your guests.

The focus of this discussion has been to underline the importance of you working the inn, not having it work you. You should manage it, not the other way around. Your challenge is to work on the business, not in the business.

Managing the bed and breakfast's daily operations is an involved, multi-dimensional job. You can't do it all, unless you have only a couple of rooms, so learn how to manage the people who will help you maintain a fantastic operation at your B&B. You'll enjoy the business more, and probably make more money too.

Growing from Entrepreneur to Manager

Small business is hardly small when it involves 5.6 million enterprises, employs more than 60,000,000 and accounts for 80% of new job creation. Small business is the heart and lifeblood of our economy.

Great democratic and capitalist experiments worldwide continue to produce a record number of new business start ups year after year. Never in history have so many entrepreneurs emerged to start new ventures.

Unfortunately, there are a record number of small business failures each year also. Failures are harder to track but, in the U.S.A. alone, some followers place the new business failure rate as high as 80% in the first two years. The statistical basis for this extraordinary claim is a mystery. The most conservative estimates, however, based on government records of tax returns, place the new business failure rate at approximately 50% within the first five years, a number which is still shocking.

Add to this the many small businesses that are under-performing. These are businesses scraping by, surviving year to year, but producing profit rates so low as to make certificates of deposit and money market investments attractive alternatives to the work they do.

There is a Pattern to Small Business Failure

Entrepreneurs tend to get into trouble or fail for reasons that are repetitive and common among businesses, no matter what type of endeavor is involved. Only infrequently is failure related directly to market factors beyond business owners’ control.

Underperformance has much more to do with how we run our business daily or, more specifically, what we don’t do to manage the business. Entrepreneurs are, more often than not, technical experts at what they do. They have either practiced their trade for years in another company or learned it growing up in a family business. But often, entrepreneurs’ formidable technical expertise is accompanied by a great naiveté in management principles and skills.

It’s about the management “thing”. It's about the business of running a business. It's about basic management skills that are weak or absent. It's about not installing and using sound administrative skills, management techniques and operating systems. (I'm being redundant here for effect)

Most entrepreneurs run into difficulty when their business reaches annual sales levels in the $1-2 million range or their total employee count exceeds five. There is no hard and fast rule to these numbers but they are typically problem milestones for many small businesses. It’s at this level that business owners must grow themselves from doers into strategic thinkers, managers of things to managers of people. In short entrepreneurs must transition into professional managers or stagnate, even fail.

Failure to make the growth transition from Entrepreneur to Manager is the primary cause of failure in small business.

Entrepreneur versus Manager

Here’s how my dictionary defines the difference:

Entrepreneur: “A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. A risk-taker who has the skills and initiative to establish a business.”

Manager: “One who handles, controls, or directs, especially: a. one who directs a business or other enterprise or b. one who controls resources and expenditures.

Entrepreneur and manager are not only different job functions; they demand different personalities, even diametrically opposed personalities. Free spirit versus controller. This explains the general dislike courageous entrepreneurs have for administration and the trepidation many good managers have for starting ventures.

Nevertheless, both personalities are needed in a company and this becomes more and more obvious as the company grows in sales and number of people.

It’s Not as Hard as You Think

Many technically competent business owners are not business school grads nor have they had formal management training. Busy managing and nurturing their companies, they don’t have the time to pursue formal training in pursuit of an associate, bachelor’s or MBA degree in business. And even if the time and treasure were to be expended for formal education, are the skills learned in advanced academic programs the ones that are needed in a small business environment? Having pursued an MBA myself, I believe the answer to that question is emphatically "no".

My own experience as a business owner told me I needed simple solutions and quick answers to the initially weak management structure in my first business. I didn’t need to understand macro economics to realize I needed a systematic method for managing cash flow. I didn’t need to understand the statistical difference between 1.0 and 2.5 sigma levels but I did need a simple way of relating my pricing method to bottom line profits.

No one is born with basic management skills. They are learned behaviors based on principles and techniques readily available to small business owners and managers. Basic systems, tools and procedures can be installed in your business as pre-designed, plug-in spreadsheet systems or Word templates. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel. I also found there are many training and mentoring opportunities available today online.

Many of these systems, tools, procedures and training opportunities are available to small business owners at relatively low cost compared to on-site management consulting, which often runs more than $15,000 per week. And they are available from a variety of sources, including the internet. One such source is [http://www.isbminc],com, where a full range of management tools, systems, procedures, guides and training are available for a fraction of the cost of on-site consulting.

It’s Time to Change

Someone once told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. If you find yourself working long hours but getting little profit in return; if you find it difficult to manage your people or feel they’re in the wrong jobs; if you run into periodic cash deficits that threaten the future of your business; if you feel you haven’t developed a “corporate soul” in your enterprise, them it’s time to change, change you.

What’s needed is to make the transition from Entrepreneur to Professional Manager.

The good news is, with today’s amazing accessibility to information, you have plenty of low cost help readily available to you.

Currency Exchange Trading - 3 Tips For Money Management

Whenever you trade in the currency markets, or any market for that matter, solid money management is always required, not only to keep your investment safe but for peace of mind too. Below we look at some basic but detrimental tips to keep in mind for currency exchange trading. Remember your chances of success and profits rely largely on how well you manage your bank and by doing so minimizing your liabilities.

Tip 1 - Risks - Each trade should be accessed individually for the potential risk that entails. Ensure that you only have a small percentage of your bank at stake, for example 5% to allow for a negative trade. This should be more than adequate especially if you are already using a solid strategy.

Tip 2 - Stake Size - It is imperative that you trade with a stake per pip relative to your bank size. So for example of your bank is $400 then you should trade with points of about $1. The risk is too high with this size bank if you are using $3 per pip for example.

Tip 3 - Realism - Professional and profitable traders understand both the risks that are involved in the markets as well how to cope with the eventual losing trades as they occur. Your bank will be at some risk at some point and it is impossible to win every trade so as soon as you accept this and be realistic about the daily outcomes, your bank should benefit in the long run.

I hope this is a good start in order to outline how you should to properly manage your trades as well as profit on a daily and weekly basis and how important money management is in currency exchange trading.

Horse Racing Handicapping Money Management - Progressive and Regressive Betting

The subject of money management is often not a welcome one to people who bet on horse racing, but it may be the single most important factor in your success. Good money management will get you through times of bad handicapping better than good handicapping will get you through times of poor money management. It is not one of the essentials to success, it is the essential factor.

Though it is important, how you distribute your bankroll over your wagers doesn't have to be complicated. As long as you keep the first rule in mind, which is that you must protect your bankroll. Without it, obviously, you're out of business. So minimizing losses and capitalizing on wins seems to be the order of the day, but just how do you go about doing that?

Progressive betting schemes are based on two very different criteria. In the first progressive scheme, wager amounts are increased as you lose. The phrase, "The law of averages," is often bandied about as if such a law actually existed. Betting more just because you lost your last bet is a recipe for disaster. On the other hand, betting in increments of your total bankroll, sometimes called, "Kelly Betting," does make some sense.

For instance, you start with a bankroll of $1,000 that you divide into ten days which you figure will get you through the longest, meanest losing streak possible. Your daily allowance is $100 and have 10 possible bets (this, of course, will depend on the odds at post time). Therefore, your betting units are $10 per wager. That is 1% of your total bankroll.

Let's say you are very fortunate and hit a nice winner on the first bet and now have a total of $180. You have 9 possible bets left. You divide 9 into $180 and find that your betting unit is now $20. For the rest of the day, unless your bankroll is increased, you will wager no more than $20 on any one race. This keeps it simple and you work on a day to day basis.

Another variation, of course is to add the winning amount to your entire bankroll. You had $1,000 to start with and had allocated $100 of it as your daily bank. That gives you ten days of play. After hitting that big winner, however, you now have a total for the day of $180, but your entire bankroll is $1,080. If you wish to increase your bets, but in a more conservative fashion, then you may still take one tenth of your entire bankroll as your daily allowance.

That means that you actually have $108 for the day. You can divide that over the remaining 9 possible wagers. Admittedly, it is a modest increase, but on the other hand, it will increase any future wins. The most you will possibly lose for the day is $100, but now you have a greater chance of profiting off any more wins.

Regressive betting would work in the opposite fashion. Let's say that you originally set your wager limits or units to $10. Lady Luck doesn't smile on you and you wind up with $80 after two wagers. At this point you may decide to go with a regressive scheme and reduce your wagers. One method is to add the $80 to your total bankroll of $900 and you wind up with $980. Dividing that into wagers based on a percentage of your entire bankroll would look like this...

$980 / 1% = 9.80. That would mean your base bet is now $9.80, but since you can't make a bet for that amount you may round it down to $9. That is a slight decrease but if you keep working like this it means that in theory, you will never go broke, though you will reach a point where you no longer have enough to make a minimum bet.

My personal favorite is the daily scheme and I like progressively increasing bets up until my last two wagers of the day. Yes, you will go home broke on occasions, but you'll also have some very good days. Just remember, betting on horse races is gambling and therefore, very risky. You could lose everything that you start with. It happens quite often. Therefore, never risk money that you cannot afford to lose.

Personal Money Management: What Schools Are Not Teaching Your Children

One of the best life skills we can teach our children is that of personal money management. I don't mean just teaching them to balance a check book and pay bills on time. I mean how to invest money wisely and creating wealth even when the economy is already down and headed for a future crash. I'm talking about how to make money when no method of investing seems reliable or safe especially when done the traditional way.

Take investing in real estate, for example. The real estate industry has imploded, yet there are investors killing it in real estate because they are working off of advice from financial experts who have proven track records in their own personal money management as well as the predictions they publicly make.

Before you even attempt to teach your children how to effectively invest money as they reach an age when they will start working part-time, you need to know how to wisely invest yourself. More importantly, you need to know how the ultra-wealthy are investing and how you can get access to the information they are privy to.

Most of us fit into the "common hard-working" American category, but that doesn't mean we can't learn how to create substantial wealth regardless of what the economy's daily or yearly mood swings are. What is important to know is that a good comprehensive education in personal money management isn't going to come from the traditional investment resources that the generation before us used or even the investment strategies that are being taught in our educational systems today.

Why not? Because what is considered typical Wall Street strategies actually run counter intuitive to what the real experts are teaching to the uber wealthy. They understand how money really works; they forecast future economic trends; and they understand the current economic situation. What they teach is to essentially forget what you think you know about investing and take off your "Wall Street" blinders.

One of the best personal money management tips is to start following some of the leading financial minds and learning all you can about how you can protect and grow your assets in the unstable economic climate we are currently in. Experts such as Kip Herriage and his Vertical Research Advisory (VRA) investment newsletter and Gerald Celente, author of Trends Journal, the leading trends research source for the past 30 years.

So back to what we started with...if you really want to teach your children about how to create lasting wealth irregardless of what the economy is doing, educate yourself first and get your own finances in order. Personal money management is not an option anymore in this day and age; it's the only way to survive the coming crash.

Time Management Skills - The Keys to Success

The blessed few seem to glide through their working day, ticking off their daily tasks and contentedly dealing with all the interruptions that come their way. These were the kids who always handed in their science homework a day ahead of schedule, and never forgot their calculator for maths.

Most of us aren't like this. Most of us have to work at our time management skills, training ourselves to organize, prioritize and get stuff done.

What's wrong with bad time-management?

Time-management skills are essential for anybody who wants to succeed in the modern workplace.

Gone are the days when you could calculate lunchtime by the position of the sun and plod along behind your oxen without a ringing mobile, a bulging in-box and a spider's web of a calendar.

If you don't learn to manage your time effectively then you risk forgetting meetings, deadlines and responsibilities, over-committing yourself, rushing work and dying young of too much stress.

What causes bad time-management?

Two extreme opposites lie behind bad time-management: over-committing and procrastination.

Some people just love to have too much to do. They might complain occasionally (or regularly) that they never have time to relax, or that everybody expects too much of them, or that they are never fully-appreciated, but the truth is that they cannot survive without a diary full of jobs to do and events to organize.

If you are one of these people, then you might be jeopardising your effectiveness by giving in to the challenge and adrenaline of taking on more than one person can possibly achieve. Stepping back once in a while and reviewing what you have to do and how you ended up promising to do it can work wonders for your time-management.

Others are prone to procrastination. If this is you, then you'll recognise the symptoms straight away: dawdling over e-mails, making yet another cup of tea (which, twenty minutes later will require a bathroom run), always aware of the elephantine deadline that is looming close, but which you don't have to deal with ... just yet.

The problem with procrastination is that, sooner or later, the deadlines catch up, work has to be rushed, and nobody is happy with the end result. Learning to prioritize your tasks and to stick to your schedule will improve your performance and your job satisfaction.

What can you do about it?

- Make a list of all the things you've got to do.

Do include everything: the 30-page report you've been hoping would go away; buying ham for your husband's lunch; taking your dog to the dentist; finishing off the database you started last month.

Do not make this list on the back of an old envelope. Invest in a diary or a notebook. Scraps of paper will only end up in the bin.

- Prioritize your tasks.

Put fire-fighting and foundational tasks at the top of your list. Delegate the distractions. Eliminate time-wasting.

- Schedule.

For long-term scheduling, you definitely need a calendar. You can use a computer-based organizer, a wall calendar, or a personal diary. You can buy a leather-bound diary with gold edging, you can invest in a simple wall-chart, or you can even make a calendar yourself.

Whatever you choose, what you need is a way to divide the year, the month, the week and the day into manageable portions of time. In each time-slot, you must allocate yourself a task.

Bear in mind the importance and urgency of each task and the time taken for successful completion. Under-estimating how much time you need will lead to unnecessary stress, while over-estimation will leave you twiddling your thumbs.

- Reward system.

If you are a procrastinator, then sometimes you'll need a motivation boost. Make yourself a star-chart, promise yourself a chocolate biscuit or a trip to the cinema or even sometime as simple as a short tea break for the completion of major tasks.

- Delegation

The most important skill that the over-committer will ever learn is delegation. Allow your colleagues to share the workload. Be generous enough to let somebody else try their hand at producing a plan or a presentation or a spreadsheet.

If you try to do everything yourself, then others will end up either resenting you or taking you for granted. Improve the performance of yourself and everybody else in your office by sharing around the tasks!

And finally -

Taking the time to review your goals and appointments will ease stress and make the time you spend working far more effective. At the end of each day, allow yourself a couple of minutes to think about what you have achieved in the past few hours. The satisfaction of meeting your goals will be the best stimulus to continued time-management.

Effective Time Management Skills For Today's Managers - Life Lessons

Effective Time Management

Effectively managing your time will enable you to work more efficiently and do more to further the bottom-line objectives of your company. As a manager, the use of your time is critical in order to carry out your many duties and responsibilities. This Origami Warrior Life Lessons - Basic Management Skill article on Time Management will enable you to become a more effective manager for yourself, and for your organization. You will learn how to better manage your time, which will help you achieve your overall goals.

What Should You Expect We will not be able to explore every facet and component of time management. Rather, we will focus on the major principles of effective time management including planning and organizational skills, that apply to most situations. We will use only as much "theory" as needed to gain basic understanding of time management issues. Primarily, we will discuss what you can do to better manage your time. 

Learning Objectives

Upon completion, you will be able to:

1)    Understand the role that planning plays in time management.

2)    Understand how organizational skills can help you better manage your time.

3)    State how effective delegation, communication, and training can save you time in the long run.

4)    Implement specific techniques for better handling accumulating paperwork, crisis, and "overwhelming" projects.

Format

This information is designed to do more than just give you information on time management. Rather, it is set up to teach you skills which you can apply in your day to day job. This will be accomplished by the use of exercises that require your involvement. Active participation will enable you to learn "what to do and how to do it" better than passively sitting back and being an observer. Keep this in mind as we proceed.

Managing Your Time

Planning

All time management begins with planning. Planning means thinking about what you want and how you are going to accomplish it; determining in advance what is to be done; and preparing for the future by making decisions now.

Defining Your Work Load

In order to plan your time; you must evaluate your work load. Although not a difficult task, it takes time to reflect upon your duties and responsibilities. Make time for this. It will save you time in the long run. Begin all new projects, responsibilities, or tasks with a planning session. Ask yourself:

o    What tasks need to be done.

o    When should they be completed.

o    Besides myself, who else will need to be involved, can this be delegated, if so to whom, etc.

o    How much time will each project require.

o    What part of my duties and responsibilities are fixed and routine.

o    What intermediate steps need to be completed.

Not only should new work begin with a planning session, but all on-going work needs to be reviewed, evaluated, and re-planned. Schedule planning time every day. Plan your day the first thing in the morning, as soon as you arrive at work or the previous day the last thing you do at work before leaving for home. When defining your work load, be aware of four points:

First, is the task really your responsibility? Don't fall into the trap of taking on others responsibilities. You may be able to route the task or project to those who are more responsible for it in the first place, thereby freeing up time for those tasks and projects you are definitely held responsible for. At the very least, you may be able to share the project with others, thereby splitting the work load in half. Channel projects to others who have responsibility for them by being appropriately assertive and using clear and concise communication. At times, compromise and negotiation may be needed to result in a collaborative effort on a project. Remember, your responsibilities come first and require the majority of your time.

Secondly, when defining your work load, ask whether you have "bitten off more than you can chew". It is entirely possible that you have a larger work load than any person can realistically handle in the available time. Push yourself hard, but if the quality of your work begins to decline in order for you to take on an additional quantity of work, then an unhealthy habit may be forming. The success of any company is built upon quality services, quality products, and quality management action. Do not ever allow this standard to decline as a shortcut to getting another task completed. It is your responsibility to communicate to your immediate supervisor if you assess that you have taken on more than any "mere mortal can handle". Planning includes knowing your limits, as well as problem solving, brainstorming, and communicating when those limits have been exceeded.  Be the first to ask for help, a true sign of strength not weakness.

Thirdly, be realistic when estimating the time it will take you to complete each of your responsibilities or projects. Effective planning is built upon reality. Underestimating the time required to do a task may result in disrupting other people's time schedule when you are not able to deliver as you had estimated. Consequently, it will be a poor reflection upon you. Similarly, overestimating the time it will take you to complete a project is poor practice. Although it may appear to make you look more efficient, it can also disrupt others who are not ready to receive your report or completed task at the unexpected earlier time. As a result, your prematurely completed work may "sit around" until others are ready for it. Proper planning requires accurate and realistic time estimates.

Lastly, proper planning also includes the planning of lunch, breaks, and personal events. It has long been recognized that total, sustained, and intense focus on high pressure tasks and responsibilities can lead to stress and deterioration of one's working capacity. It is your responsibility to plan appropriate action to prevent yourself from becoming "burnt-out". It is legitimate to plan a lunch. Breaks can be interspersed within long periods of intense concentration. Planning for these events are carried out with the same legitimacy and in the same manner as other important duties and responsibilities.

Time Management Worksheet 1

Defining Your Work Load

Choose an objective on your current Performance Appraisal Review form. With it in mind, answer the following questions.  

1. Briefly, what project, activity, or program are you currently doing to help you attain the objective? 

2. What is the deadline for completing the project, activity, or program? 

3. Roughly estimate how many uninterrupted work hours it will take you to achieve the project, activity, or program. How long with interruptions? 

4. List the names of people you will need to involve or meet with in order to successfully complete the project, activity, or program. 

5. Will completing the project, activity, or program require you to perform fixed and routine duties on a weekly or daily basis. What are these duties? 

Objectives and Goals

Planning should naturally result in goals or objectives. A goal or objective is simply a task we desire to accomplish. Goals direct our behavior. They help us follow a straight-line path to our ultimate objective. They prevent us from being like leaves being blown helplessly in the wind. Goals play a major role in helping us decide how to manage our time. All actions that help us accomplish our goals warrants our time. All actions that do not help us achieve our goals, are a waste of our time.

Many of your objectives or long term goals are identified by the Objective Setting and Performance Appraisal Review System. Often, these objectives are too broad in scope to strive for "all at once". Objectives or long term goals need to be broken down into intermediate goals. Intermediate goals need to be broken down into goals that can be attained in one week. Finally, you can set a goal for each day of the week that, when completed, will result in the achievement of the weekly goal. It is the completion of many very small goals on a daily basis that result in the completion of a performance appraisal review objective.

Planning and setting goals result in more efficient time management when several conditions are met. These rules of goal setting will automatically force you to make better use of your time.

o        Set goals once a day: either first thing in the morning or for the following day, last thing before going home.     Set the goals one day at a time, keeping in mind what you want to accomplish by the end of the week

o        Daily goals should be specific. What, where, when, and with whom should be included.

o        Daily goals should be attainable. Make it reasonable and realistic. There should be a very good chance of accomplishing it.

o        If involving others, the goal should be mutually developed. This does not need to be complicated. For example, state "...then we agree that at the conclusion of this meeting, we will have made decisions on the following four issues".    

o        Good goals should be measurable. Although you  may not always want to record the progress you made toward your goal; the point is, if you wanted to - you could.

o                The best use of your time each day is in accomplishing your daily goals set that morning (or the previous evening).    

Time Management Worksheet 2

Developing Monthly and Daily Goals

Using the same objective that you used for Worksheet 1, develop goals for meeting the objective by answering the following questions.

1.         "Break-down" the objective into its major parts. 

2.     Take one major part of the objective identified in Question 1, and "break it down" further by listing three tasks that must be accomplished in order to achieve the major part of the objective.

    Task 1:

    Task 2:

    Task 3: 

3.    Write a goal to correspond to each identified task listed in Question 2 above, using the format presented.

Goal I:

I need to (what):________________________________________________________________________________ 

By (date):______________________________________________________________________________

I may need to involve (who):________________________________________________________________________________ 

Is this goal attainable?____________________________________________________________________________

I may need to divide this goal into the following sub-goals:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Progress toward attaining this goal can be measured by:    

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Goal 2:

I need to (what):________________________________________________________________________________

By (date):______________________________________________________________________________

I may need to involve (who):________________________________________________________________________________ 

Is this goal attainable:_____________________________________________________________________________ 

I may need to divide this goal into the following sub-goals:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Progress toward attaining this goal can be measured by:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Goal 3:

I need to (what):________________________________________________________________________________

By (date):______________________________________________________________________________ may need to involve (who):_________________________________________________________________________________ 

Is this goal attainable:______________________________________________________________________________ 

I may need to divide this goal into the following sub-goals:

______________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

Progress toward attaining this goal can be measured by:

______________________________________________________________________________________

Time Management Worksheet 3

Reasons Why Plans Often Fail

Think of a major objective, in which you were involved, that did not "come off" as planned. Briefly jot down the plan to reach the objective. 

Place a check by the main reasons why the plan failed.

1.    ______Feasibility of the specific details of the plan was not assessed at every level.             

2.    ______Plan was "unrealistic".                                       

3.    ______Objectives for the plan were not clear or specific.                            

4.    ______Key people were not involved before the plan was finalized.                        

5.   ______ Assumptions were made, but not checked out, about critical elements of the plan, availability of           essential supplies, items needed and when to be delivered, manpower, etc.                      

6.    ______Plan was idealistic; too "tight"; too little room or margin for error or "trouble-shooting".        

7.    ______Plan created a high degree of friction and resistance in people which was either not anticipated          or not explored by consulting them-so they failed to give essential cooperation required for  successful         implementation of the plan.                                    

8.    ______Planning was started only after problem was acute and "a crisis".

9.    ______You thought planning takes too much time - Let's have action!                       

10.  ______Parameters within which planning was done was not fully understood (such as budget limitation,      availability of key people, etc).                                        

11.    _____Objectives and plan details were not communicated properly to all who were to be involved in              the planning as well as the implementation.                                    

12. ______Planners failed to familiarize themselves with the situation within which planning had to be done.        

13. ______Failure to get all pertinent facts necessary for success of the plan.                   

14. ______Failure to consider alternative plans and options.                                

15. ______Failure to plan for the training of people to implement a plan.                        

16. ______Failure to plan for the delegation of parts of the plan.                            

17. ______Failure to anticipate trouble and establish mechanisms for "re-planning" and/or contingency plans.       No mechanisms for monitoring or controls.                               

18. ______Failure to allocate sufficient time to "get the job done right".                   

Organization

Planning is not complete without organization. Proper organization insures that plans are carried out, goals are attained, and your time is used most efficiently. Two factors of organization that must be considered are prioritizing and scheduling.

Prioritizing

Prioritizing simply means ranking a list of items according to their importance. The most important item becomes the highest priority and automatically becomes the first item to be worked on. The second priority is second in importance and becomes the next item to be focused on after the first priority is completed.

One good way to think of priorities is in association to poker chips. As you recall from poker, three colors of chips are frequently employed. Blue chips are usually worth a lot of money each, and are, therefore, the most important. With blue chips, the stakes are high, a loss of a blue chip is a failure; achieving one is success.

Red chips are not as important as blue chips but cannot be ignored. You need to be concerned with them, but only after attending to your blue chips. The loss or gain of one red chip does not bring failure or success but the loss or gain of many red chips can add up to failure or success.

Lastly, there is a white chip. The white chip is not nearly as important as the blue or red chips. Failing to achieve white chips does not worry you. Sometimes, in fact, you will need to purposely sacrifice white chips in order to achieve a blue or red chip.

In terms of priorities, all blue chip goals are top priority; all red chip goals are medium in priority and all white chip goals are low in priority. You can have several goals as one color chip. The point you must realize is that not all of your goals are blue chip goals. In fact, many of your goals are only red or even white chip goals.

All of your objectives on the Objective Setting - Performance Appraisal form are blue chip. Your weekly and even daily goals are just the many elements that go into accomplishing these larger objectives. On any given week, you will have some blue chip, red chip, and white chip goals. Every day when you plan your goals, some of the daily things you want to accomplish will have blue chip status. others will have red chip status; and many will have white chip status.

When you make your daily goals in your daily planning session, prioritize them. Always prioritize goals when you develop them: prioritize on a daily basis. A red chip goal on Wednesday which hasn't been accomplished can easily become a blue chip item on Thursday.

Use your judgement when determining if your daily goals are blue, red, or white chip. Consider the following:

o    the importance of the project.

o    deadlines.

o    how important your immediate supervisor considers this project (very important).

o    accessibility of other people or equipment.

o    the sequence of one part of the project to other parts of the project.

To get a feel for the importance of a project, ask yourself, "What would happen if I didn't do it?" If the consequences are minor, the project is probably a white chip project. If the consequences affect the profitability of the company, it is a blue chip project.

Now that you have prioritized, there are two rules to follow to insure proper allocation of your time:

1.    Spend most of your time each day on a blue chip goal, some of your time on a red chip goal that support blue chip goals, and little, if any, of your time on a white chip goal.

2.    Always start your day working on a blue chip goal. Also devote much of your spare time or "in-between time" to work on a blue chip goal. When you return from lunch, work on a blue chip goal. If you have 10 minutes before a meeting, spend this time working on a blue chip goal. Always work on your blue chip goals first. Spending 10 minutes working on a blue chip goal is always preferable to totally completing one white chip goal.

Time Management Worksheet 4

Write "Blue", "Red", or "White" in the space provided depending on the item's priority.

1. ______Meeting your number one performance appraisal objective.

2. ______Reading a trade magazine.

3. ______Completing a mostly finished report for you boss which is due tomorrow.

4. ______Completing a mostly finished report for your boss which is due in two weeks.

5. ______Responding to a dissatisfied customer.

6. ______Obtaining supplies for your desk.

7. ______Holding a meeting with your subordinartes to update them on recent events.

8. ______Working on a procedure that can directly increase the profitability of the company.

9. ______Making a phone call to get information you need for a project you are involved in.

10.______Filling out paperwork that is required but not due until next week.

Prioritize some of your monthly current activities under blue, red, or white chip status.  

Blue                                                                                                                       

________________________________ 

________________________________ 

________________________________    

________________________________

Red                                                                     

________________________________ 

________________________________

________________________________  

________________________________  

White                                                                   

________________________________ 

________________________________ 

________________________________  

________________________________   

Go back and priortize activities under each of the blue and red chip headings by numbering them from top blue chip priority to bottom blue chip priority, and top red chip priority to bottom red chip priority. Simply prioritize each of the lists.

Scheduling

Scheduling is a key component of being organized. Following are simple, yet proven techniques to help you manage your time better.

Use a Calendar

A calendar which shows the entire month at a glance is better than one which shows one day at a time. By seeing how all of your obligations are being arranged for an entire month, you can obtain a "bigger picture" of the time requirements you will need to reserve for these events. You will also be able to better plan for week to week by seeing what pressing needs you have later in the month.

Appointments, meetings, deadlines, and special events should all be marked on a calendar. In addition, reserve a couple hours each day to be devoted exclusively to your top blue chip goal. Try marking a "warning" on your calendar: for example, you might write: Warning, project _________________ should be one-half completed today.

Use a Daily "To Do" List

Many people write out a list of things they hope to accomplish. This is an established time management tool. The daily "to do" list should include the goals that you developed in your daily planning session. As mentioned under goal setting, make sure your daily goals are attainable, specific, etc. After completing the list, go back over the list and indicate which of your daily goals have blue chip, red chip, or white chip status.

If you already have been using a daily "to do" list, use it more effectively by remembering the following points:

o    Make only one list; trying to coordinate and act upon many lists at once can quickly become confusing.

o    Put a rough estimate of time needed to complete each item on your list. If the total time to complete all the items on your list is approaching eight hours, your list of daily goals is too long. Remember, make sure the goals you set for each day are realistically attainable.

o    Always start with your top priority and devote the most time to it.

o    Start a new "to do" List each day in your planning session. Don't just keep adding to yesterday's unaccomplished goals.

o    Do not load up the list so that every moment of your day is allocated. This is the biggest mistake people make in using a "to do" list. Most people know that they will be interrupted through out the day. Plan for it. "Pad" scheduled events by reserving more time. Allow time for handling unexpected crises. Remain flexible.

Spending 10 minutes on a blue chip project is better than totally completing one white chip item. Never spend time on less important items when you could be spending your time on more important events. Your emphasis should not be on how many items you cross off your "to do" list each day, rather, it should be on accomplishing high priority items( i.e. blue chips, then red chips, etc.)

Set priorities and set yourself free, you will get more done and it will be the most important things needing to be done.