Simple Tactics to Boost ROI from Your Investment of Time

Each day offers only 1,440 minutes. Unlike dollars invested in the stock market that we anticipate will give us back more dollars to reinvest, each minute can be spent no more than once. Are you getting the desired return on investing your limited time?

If you're experiencing hiccups, consider these time management tips to boost productivity:

1. Stay true to your priorities, intentionally aligning your actions with those areas of importance and better avoiding burnout. As priorities shift, it’s important to be flexible, shuffling how your time is invested to keep your actions focused on achieving your highest priority goals. It's important to regularly revisit this alignment, assessing how well you are staying focused on what matters most and investing your limited minutes in those priority actions.

2. Learn to say "no". What actions are being asked of you that don't actually need to be done? Are there tasks on your to-do list that could be delegated to someone else who can do them equally well if not even better so you open time for what only you can do? Alternatively, should you consider "not now" for something that can be delayed until a later deadline?

3. Utilize work-life integration for more overall success. Create harmony with goals for home, work, society and yourself by allowing them to complement one another rather than compete with each other. Focus on actions that can accomplish multiple goals at once, plan how you can invest your time with each of your most important priorities at the forefront of your emphasis and maintain pliability to easily address your priorities as they evolve over time.

4. Cut back on distractions with fewer pings and dings. When distracted, it can take us an average of 23 minutes to fully re-engage in the task at hand. Each time we receive a notification for a new email, social media update, text or voice mail, those are the distractions that steal our time. Stop bleeding minutes throughout the day! Turn off the notifications and schedule set times to check each platform. For folks requiring immediate responses, make them VIPs to utilize Do Not Disturb on iOS and Priority Mode on Android.

How do you make sure the limited number of minutes you have in each day is moving you forward in crafting the life you want to live? Make every minute matter!™️

Top Tips to Simplify Your Life

As we near the first week of August, plan how you'll celebrate "Simplify Your Life Week" with baby steps you can take to streamline, cut out the clutter, make life easier and better invest your limited resource of time. With a few tweaks to how you get things done, you can better focus on what matters most, making greater progress on your priority goals to achieve your desired results.

Per Dictionary.com, simplify means "to make less complex or complicated; make plainer or easier." Invest some time in simplifying to limit stress, more quickly find what you need when you need it, have a clear grasp on what needs to be done at any moment and stop wasting precious moments of time. Make every minute matter!Ⓡ

Here are tactics to jumpstart your efforts at simplifying your life:

• Deliberately choose how you invest your time. Develop habits such as a weekly strategy session and daily wrap-up to map out a specific game plan and stay on track.

• Learn to say "no". What actions are being asked of you that don't actually need to be done? Are there tasks on your to-do list that could be delegated to someone else that can do them equally well if not even better so you open time for what only you can do? Alternatively, should you consider "not now" for something that can be delayed until a later deadline?

• Stay true to your priorities. When you know what matters most, you can more intentionally align your actions with those areas of importance, avoiding burnout. As priorities shift, you can be flexible and shuffle how to invest your time so you keep your actions focused on your goals.

• Utilize work-life integration for greater overall success. By studying research by Wharton's Work / Life Integration Project along with my experience with clients' best practices, I know first-hand how you can create harmony with goals for home, work, society and yourself complementing one another rather than competing with each other. Focus on actions that can accomplish multiple goals at once, plan how you can invest your time with each of your most important priorities at the forefront of your emphasis and maintain pliability to easily address your priorities as they evolve over time.

• Respect the value of your space. Whether it's in your physical space, electronic files or calendar, keep only what is accurate, applicable, useful, bringing you joy and not just as easily found with a quick Google search. If something filling your physical space, electronic files or calendar no longer meets those requirements, remove that clutter.

• Plan to have the tools you need nearby when needed. Do you utilize a smartphone, tablet or laptop? If so, you are well aware of all the accessories needed, especially when you are working on-the-go, like charging cords, earbuds and the like. Rather than depending on whether you remember to bring "all the stuff" with you whenever you work outside an office, keep multiple sets of accessories (one for the office, one in your vehicle, one for your bag), bundling your tech tools together with the GRID-IT or a canvas pouch that's easily portable.

• Address email. Unsubscribe from eNewsletters you are no longer reading, consider bundling subscriptions that you do read via Unroll.me and shift from checking to processing newly received messages, moving to-do items to your task management system, adding requests for your time to your calendar, shifting retention items from your inbox to personal folders and using delete as your friend to remove trash or junk.

• Save time with forms, templates and checklists. If you regularly send the same reply, create a template that can be easily plugged in and tweaked as necessary, saving time by not starting from scratch each time. Create a packing checklist so you don't forget anything needed for travel. Design a form for your grocery shopping list so you remember to restock the essentials each time and save valuable minutes by listing the items in order of the aisles at your store.

• Automate daily processes. "Set it and forget it" may be the greatest time-saver. Investigate options such as IFTTT, Podbox and Zapier to find the best solution for your needs. In addition, add an automated cloud back-up solution, such as Backblaze, Carbonite or CrashPlan, and consider which social media management solution will allow you to automate putting the right message in front of the right audience at the right time.

• Cut back on distractions with fewer pings and dings. When distracted, it can take us an average of 23 minutes to fully re-engage in the task at hand. Each time we receive a notification for a new email, social media update, text message or voice mail received, those are distractions that rob us of valuable time. Turn off the notifications and schedule set times to check each platform. For folks that do require an immediate response (like key account clients or your direct supervisor), make them VIPs so you can utilize Do Not Disturb on iOS and Priority Mode on Android.

Where do you see excess in your life or time being wasted? How can you take action in tiny steps that will assist in simplifying your life so you get to your goals more easily?

Delegate and Automate to Get More Done

Tasks are thrown at us each day via calls, emails, meeting conversations, texts and people stopping by our office. With our limited time, it often feels as if there are never enough minutes to get it all done; yet, our inability do it all on our own does not eliminate the never-ending to-do list. Until cloning becomes a realistic option or we can get our Inspector Gadget tools, we need alternative solutions.

When evaluating tasks requesting your attention, think this way:

1. Does this task need to be completed at all? If not, can it be deleted, totally removing it from my to-do list?
2. If the task must be done, does it need to be done immediately? If not, to when can it be deferred?
3. Does this task require my unique skill set? If not, can someone else learn from doing it or does someone else have a skill set that will get it done better, more thoroughly or more quickly? To whom can it be delegated?

In any instance where a task can be completed by someone or something else, you open up time in your schedule to allocate towards getting something done that only you can accomplish.

Resources for delegation are not limited to existing member of your team, whether those at your company, members of your household or volunteers on a committee you chair. There are endless options for delegating the different types of tasks on your to-do list: Errand Girl, Fancy Hands, Fiverr, GigSalad, Guru, Metro's Other Woman, Moonlighting, Outsourcely, Red Butler, Sweeps, Task Rabbit, Thumbtack, Upwork, 99Designs. Likewise, consider delegating the task of grocery shopping to options such as Instacart, Shipt or Amazon Prime Now. Or think about how personal assistants can help, like Amazon Alexa, Cortana, EasilyDo, Google Home or Siri.

Automation is a form of delegation where you delegate to technology and can massively expand how much you get done concurrently. Set what rules apply to your needs in automation tools like IFTTT, Podbox, Zapier and social media managers like Buffer, Edgar, Falcon Social, Hootsuite, SocialOomph and Sprout Social. These "set it and forget it" solutions fulfill your desire to do two things at once while not hiring a human-being to help.

What are some tasks on your to-do list that could benefit from deleting, deferring or delegating? Which of the aforementioned tools might be a positive addition to your productivity toolbox?

Communicate to Collaborate for Greater Results

A quick Google search reveals that collaboration is defined as "the action of working with someone to produce or create something"; I contend collaboration is partnering with others to create something greater than can be produced alone. It is the very principle on which the team acronym of "Together, everyone achieves more" was created.

If we define team as "a number of persons associated in some joint action", we illuminate the importance of each team being results-oriented, focusing on achieving the desired outcome from that joint action and bringing complementary skills together in working towards a common vision. The trust, accountability and interdependence of a team depends heavily upon how well the individual members can communicate, meaning each must "impart or interchange knowledge, thoughts, feelings, opinions, information and ideas by speech, writing, gestures or signs" in order for all team members' differing contributions to combine for producing greater results related to achieving their unified mission.

Whether your team is everyone in the same department at work, a volunteer committee for a non-profit organization or the members of your family, there is always a need for optimal communication, and we must put effort into continually improving this skill.

Here are best practices for your team to improve communication:

• Use the right tools at the right times. Research found that only 7% of any message is conveyed through words, 38% through vocal intonation and 55% through non-verbal elements, such as facial expressions, gestures and posture. Therefore, carefully consider the pros and cons of each communication channel before choosing which is the best for sharing what message needs to be conveyed: text, chat, email, phone call, video conference or in-person meeting.

• Speak in the language your audience will best hear. I don't mean choosing between English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Italian or Portuguese. Instead, I mean choosing words that appeal to the way your audience prefers to take in information, process it and make decisions based on acquired information. Some people prefer to take in information by using their five senses while others go beyond what is real or concrete and focus on meaning, associations and relationships to take in information that they trust. Some people seek to experience the world, not organize it, while others look at the world with an eye for what decisions need to be made, utilizing a planned approach to meet the deadlines set for decisions to be made in a scheduled way. Some people make decisions based on impersonal, objective logic while others use their personal values to understand the situation, focusing on relationships and harmony. Some people make decisions based off reasoning while others focus decision-making on emotions, responding to their gut more than their brains. When you customize your message for the person to whom you'll be saying it, you better ensure the message is received.

• Avoid overload. The age of the Internet gives us instant access to knowledge and correspondence, making us constantly susceptible to an information avalanche. It's easy for any individual message to get lost amidst the clutter, no matter how important it is. Effective communication shares the right information with the right audience at the right time. Since less is more, keep your message simple, brief and to the point, sharing updates only when appropriate. 

• Help everyone stay away from making assumptions. Whenever there is missing information or we haven't been updated on the status of something, as human-beings, we automatically fill in the blanks. Unfortunately, we often fill those blanks with inaccurate or incomplete information. Focus on eliminating blanks in what you communicate to others, filling them in with what you want others to put in those blanks instead of what they'd assume from their own perceptions.

Are there certain folks with whom you struggle to communicate well? Which tactics from this list could you incorporate in communications with those people for greater effectiveness and to better achieve your desired results?

Make Meetings More Meaningful

When The Muse asked how much time we spend in meetings, the results were scary... "If you're a middle manager, it's likely about 35% of your time, and, if you're in upper management, it can be a whopping 50%." Considering most of us have no way to avoid meetings, it is important to make good use of all that time being invested in meeting with others. Here are steps we can take for a positive impact:

• Have a clear purpose. If your meetings are focusing on simply updating attendees, they are not respecting everyone's limited resource of time. There are plenty of alternative means for conveying updates that are less intrusive to attendees, such as email or project management tools. Instead, meetings are most useful when focused on one of two purposes... either discussion or decision-making. If your meeting's purpose is not one of these, could the goal be achieved in a more efficient way by using another method or implementing new technology?

• Schedule strategically. Be cognizant of vacation plans so meetings are not scheduled when many who need to attend will be gone. Likewise, avoid scheduling a meeting in the days leading up to a big deadline, especially if the meeting is unrelated to the project coming due, or during times when there will be too many distractions for attendees to be focused on achieving the desired results. Finally, as attendees can better plan the remainder of their day if each meeting includes an end time in addition to a start time, be sure to set and communicate a specific ending time for each meeting.

• Invite only the right people. Include those whose contributions are necessary for fulfilling the meeting's purpose: those with the authority to make decisions, those with enough pull in the organization to advocate for what's decided, those with the expertise needed to make informed decisions and those necessary for successfully executing decisions made. Still, the Rule of 7 explains how "everyone in a meeting over 7 attendees reduces your ability to make decisions by 10%", hence why it's important to not include more than those whose contributions are necessary for accomplishing the meeting's goals as too many attendees lowers productivity.

• Shorten how long you'll meet. Rarely do meetings require an entire hour, but we tend to schedule them for that length anyway. Try to end meetings at least 10 minutes before the next hour, like 12:50, 1:50, etc, or schedule your meetings in 15-minute increments, like meeting at noon to 12:45 or 12:15 to 12:45. Then, push yourself to accomplish everything on the agenda within that shorter duration by using a timer or having someone serve as timekeeper. Attendees will appreciate those spare moments before the next hour to return calls, run to the restroom, grab a snack or gather their thoughts.

• Utilize an agenda. Make sure the agenda is realistic, listing what you actually believe can be accomplished within the scheduled time. Start with the most important items, and indicate how much time you intend to allocate for each item listed. Seek input from attendees to ensure everything needed is included while removing lower priorities or unrelated topics.

• Prepare beforehand. Distribute supplemental items with enough time for attendees to review. If there is legwork that can be done in advance, completing it beforehand will help the meeting run more smoothly. As explained by Dana Manciagli in The Triad Business Journal, "proper planning prevents poor performance". Taking time to get your ducks in a row before empowers better discussion and / or decision-making.

• Clearly communicate expectations. How does the meeting's leader want those attending to behave? Examples include coming prepared, contributing to discussions, giving feedback, sharing insights as applicable, making sure to ask questions and limiting technological distractions. Those expectations should be shared in writing prior to the meeting or verbally at the start. Additionally, attendees need to know guidelines for participating within the agenda, like when to ask questions, how to join in brainstorming and at what point it is appropriate to share feedback during any discussions. Meeting leadership should think proactively about what situations might arise related to each interaction and be specific with standards set.

• Make notes. If you have the agenda beforehand, you can use that skeleton as a framework for filling in your notes from the meeting. Highlight what is important, whether via a different color of ink, a real highlighter or simply a block to separate the content that matters most from everything else. Designate each task that must be done as it arises in conversation; then, end your meeting notes with a recap of the highlights, action items and timing of next meeting. This reinforces your commitment to the topic, helps with paying attention throughout and enables more easily referring back to any items covered earlier.

• Push discussion of issues arising throughout the agenda. Rather than deviating down a rabbit hole and stealing time from addressing all aspects of the meeting's designated purpose, denote on a separate list any issues not on the agenda as they arise; then, if there is extra time at the end, address each item. Alternatively, consider scheduling time on a later date for discussing or resolving those newly discovered topics.

• Ensure accountability for what's decided. Each action item arising from the meeting's discussions and decisions will require a deadline for its completion, particularly as every what that has a when is more likely to get done. Ensuring each task gets completed is more likely when there is someone being held accountable for its completion and a way to track progress being made. Assign someone to the completion of each task resulting from the meeting and decide how you'll confirm follow-through by the person being held accountable.

With what aspects of meeting others do you struggle most? What issues have you faced in keeping your meetings on track? How do you ensure your meetings are productive? 

Limit Distractions

As you dive into your daily must-do list, do you frequently find your thoughts drifting? Do you get pulled in different directions all day, especially when time-crunched near deadline? Are there constantly different people, places and things needing your attention? If so, distractions might be depleting your efforts, and it's time to evaluate new solutions for limiting distractions' negative impact on your output.

A set of studies at the University of California found that workers are interrupted every 11 minutes at work. Research shows it can take 10 - 18 minutes to regain focus after a distraction, although some studies indicate it takes an average of 23 minutes for workers to return to a task after an interruption. I am not a mathematician, but my rough math tells me that doesn't leave much time for actually getting things done. Distractions rob us of productivity.

Here are strategies to limit the negative impact of distractions:

• Turn off tech-related notifications. Every one of those pings and dings jerks your thought-process around like a ping-pong ball. Stop the pop-ups that are designed to tell you when you get a new comment on social media. Deactivate previews of newly received email messages. When you need to focus, set your smartphone to silent and remove the vibrate that goes with silent mode. Schedule time for handling calls, social media and emails when it works best for you, and, for folks that do require an immediate response (like key account clients or your direct supervisor), make them VIPs so you can utilize Do Not Disturb on iOS and Priority Mode on Android.

• Wear noise-reducing headphones. Particularly when you need to focus on strategic thinking or creative production, it's imperative to block out all the excess noises around you. The tool of noise-reducing headphones can block out what's happening around you, even if you have no music playing and simply utilize the visual of you wearing headphones to discourage others from disturbing or interrupting you.

• Delete the clutter. Excess in your workspace, too many emails coming into your inbox, stacks of paper and the loads of documents saved on your computer's hard drive can all act as distractions, pulling you away from what matters most. Having less means fewer things to detract from your desired results.

• Schedule tasks that fulfill your goals. Burnout comes from actions being out of alignment with priorities, and being distracted can be a symptom of burnout. Regularly perform a time audit for optimum output, making certain your actions properly align with what matters most to your specific priorities.

• Focus on working intently for shorter durations. When you break projects into smaller, bite-sized actions, you can work to complete each of those individual tasks step-by-step. You'll feel empowered to achieve each task's goal in a single work session, thereby having more rewards for staying on track to succeed with wins for finishing each of these mini-milestones. 

• Utilize a timer. Some individuals or teams use a timer to simply get started, setting it for 15 minutes or so and capitalizing on the momentum created by that rush to keep pushing toward completion of the task at hand. Others like using a timer to stay on track, setting it for different intervals throughout the time required for a task's completion and making certain to still be working on the task at hand when the timer goes off at the end of each interval.

• Jot down unrelated thoughts as they pop up. Our brains are meant for thinking, not remembering; therefore, each time we attempt to use brain cells for remembering, it steals our ability to think better. Document those ideas, to-do items or brilliant thoughts so you don't lose them and they don't detract from your efforts to keep getting work done.

• Capitalize on your energy cycles. Output flows more easily and distractions are less impactful when we're in a groove and our most energized. Therefore, take a moment of self-assessment to decide when your energy level is at its peak and, then, schedule how to attack your most challenging work at this time of day when your abilities flow most freely. 

• Limit the impact of folks who drop by. If you have an extra chair in your office, make sure it has something resting in it to keep others from sitting down to chat or position it somewhere more difficult to access so it's less inviting for visitors to setting in and stay awhile. When someone comes into your office without an appointment, stand up and move towards your door, conveying to the visitor that it is not a convenient time. Keep an outbox near your office door so you can take those items down the hall as someone is coming to your office, always encouraging those that make unplanned visits to schedule an appointment for later. You want to help them, but it has to fit into your schedule for you to give that individual your undivided attention without negatively impacting efforts to do your work.

• Work remotely when needed. While a library might help, research suggests the sounds of a coffee shop act as "white noise", helping you block out everything around for the greatest uninhibited productivity. New surroundings can boost concentration. For an added increase in your productivity, leave your laptop's charging cord at work or home, and work more efficiently so you can accomplish everything requiring your computer before its battery loses all of its juice.

• Implement delegation and automation. If someone else can complete a task more efficiently or as effectively as you, cut back on the distractions from trying to do it all on your own by delegating those tasks. Likewise, stop worrying about getting done what you can program technology to do automatically, removing the distractions of trying to remember all those additional tasks by automating what you can.

• Resolve what's weighing on your mind. Problems, conflicts, issues and decisions to be made all take up space in our minds, adding a psychological burden and popping back up in our thoughts at the most inopportune moments. Once those are resolved, they stop coming back into our thought-processes, allowing us to better focus on what needs our attention more.

What distracts you most often? What tactics have you found most successful for keeping yourself organized, focused and productive amidst all of your distractions?

Stop Procrastinating

Procrastination is often due to being overwhelmed by all that needs to be done. Sometimes, it stems from being unclear as to what is expected for completing a requested task or simply not knowing how to start the task at hand; other times, it is because we are unable to decide which to-do is the highest priority and, therefore, don't attempt any of the tasks needing our attention. Whether productivity is being held up by a lack of knowledge, clarity, skills or something else, ultimately, action is necessary to continue desired progress.

At times, procrastination helps us gain clarity by providing time for ruminating or marinating our options; yet, if procrastination continues for too long, it prevents getting things done, achieving desired results and attaining set goals, none of which are good.

Stop procrastinating! Use these options to get the ball rolling:

• Break projects into smaller, bite-sized actions. No entire project can be completed at one time; instead, when them down into tasks that can be completed step-by-step, checking each item off, one by one, from a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual to-do list. When creating this list, start each item with a verb, and make sure it is broken down into the smallest increment of what is to be done so it's more feasible.

• Gain clarity on anything that is confusing or unclear. Vague priorities, unclear directions, lack of knowing how to do something and being unfamiliar with the order in which to move through the steps necessary for getting tasks done are all problematic. Ask questions to better understand the objective, your team's priorities and how to accomplish each step necessary; if you don't know how to do something, ask someone who does know it for assistance. Never be afraid to ask those questions, realizing that the result to not asking is far worse than any answer you could receive.

• Set deadlines for each specific task. I have yet to find a calendar that includes "someday"; therefore, when we say "I'll get to that someday" or "I'll work on that when I get some free time", we are usually setting ourselves up for failure. Instead, assign deadlines for each of the smaller, bite-sized actions within the projects to be completed, making it possible to block off time on your calendar for when each task will be completed. Every "what" assigned a "when" is more likely to get accomplished, leading to more wins.

• Maintain accountability for designated deadlines. Some people respond better to a reward being held in front of them for completing a necessary task; other folks respond better to avoiding punishment or embarrassment from not completing assigned tasks. Once you know what motivates you, use that self-awareness to drive your desired behavior and encourage your greater focus on achieving desired results. Make it fun, utilizing gamification when possible, and make what best motivates you a tool for accomplishing what must be done.

• Quiet any perfectionist tendencies. One of my favorite mantras reminds me that, "Done can be better than perfect so focus on good enough." Perfectionism is frequently the cause of procrastination; subsequently, focusing on the desired results can empower us to get past waiting for "the right time"and get us to stop continuing our work on projects for perpetuity in the effort of achieving perfection. Stop comparing yourself with others; achieving your desired results usually has little to do with how the finished product compares with what others do or have done. Instead, focus on getting things done to the best of your ability, not necessarily in a perfect way.

• Utilize a timer. Working in a focused manner for a short stretch can boost both efficiency and total output... Anyone can do an undesirable action for a short spurt, and it's amazing how much more can get done in that shorter amount of time than if you think you have longer to finish. If you think you have all afternoon to do something, it will likely take that full amount of time; however, if you set a timer for a shorter timeframe, you'd be amazed how much you can get done in that block of time. Likewise, if you are a competitive person, try getting more done within a set amount of time than you expect you can or have done in previous instances. Most importantly, when the timer goes off, you may find that you are engrossed in the task and will keep at it, getting even more accomplished.

• Minimize interruptions. It can take 23 minutes to recover from a distraction, which means productivity suffers each time we get distracted. Deactivate social media notifications, and schedule specific times to check those sites for what's happening. Send phone calls to voice mail while working diligently on a task that's coming due, catching up on calls at set times during your day. Turn off previews of new emails, scheduling when you will look at your inbox instead of letting your inbox bleed into all that you're doing. Remove visual clutter from your workspace, wear headphones to signal when you are not to be disturbed, and fill the chairs in your office to prevent those stopping by from making themselves at home.

• Implement music's motivating abilities. Some people are energized by fast-paced music while others get more focused through smoother tunes, both leading to greater productivity. Pick enough tunes in the tone you prefer to fill a set block of time, group them together as your productivity playlist and, then, use that playlist to motivate desired output.

• Put color to work within your space. A study published by Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that red increases attentiveness; a separate study by the University of British Columbia shares how blue boosts creativity. Whether via color in your desk accessories, on your walls, in what you wear or through what you eat, bring into your workspace what color fuels the actions you hope to be taking.

• Spend more time with folks who get things done. For years, I've heard that you become like the people with whom you spend time. If you prioritize spending time with people in your life who are considered hard workers or go-getters, their energy will rub off on you and motivate similar productivity in yourself. As activity breeds activity, time with productive peers can insight greater productivity within ourselves when we spend time with those getting more accomplished.

There are many times during which we need to follow Nike's advice and just do it, especially if the task takes less time to complete than how long it would require to re-focus and re-start the related thought process when we return to it later. These tactics can help.

Which tactics do you prefer for limiting procrastination? Are there any on this list you'll try when stuck next?

Capitalize on Your Energy for Enhanced Productivity

When thinking about a normal day at work, are there times you feel more "in the zone", the output seems to flow more easily, you're in a groove and you're energized? Can you envision what those instances have in common? For many, the theme that runs consistently amongst instances when working tends to work better happens to be our personal energy level.

As I've learned by using the Time and Space Style Inventory assessment with my clients, each of us is invigorated by different things in different ways, and our energy level has a dramatic impact on our ability to be productive from moment to moment.

It is important to attack challenging work when your energy is at its peak. This becomes more complicated as the timing of one's peak energy level varies from person to person; therefore, the first step in pairing the work that is most demanding of your abilities with the timing during which your abilities flow most freely happens to be self-assessment.

Know when your energy is most likely to peak so you can schedule uninterrupted time then for addressing your hardest work.

If your energy peaks first-thing in the morning, you may choose to enlist your energy level as a productivity tool by "swallowing the frog", tackling your most difficult tasks first. This approach is why folks talk about wanting to "hit the ground running" each day.

If your energy peaks later in the workday, you may choose to enlist your energy level as a productivity tool by adopting the mantra of "activity breeds activity", starting with easier tasks and building momentum to do more difficult work later in the workday.

Unfortunately, it's not always feasible to pair those more challenging tasks with times when your energy peaks. Since meetings are designed for discussions and shared decision-making, they can be a drain on energy and force you to be filled with energy during times that are not your normal peak energy time. If you find your energy waning right before an important meeting, invest in actions to fuel your energy reserves and replenish your energy on demand. It might not be quite as effective as your natural time for peak energy, but there are always options to quickly boost energy as needed. Use whichever works best for you.

Does your energy peak in the morning, afternoon or when the sun goes down? How do you adjust when you attack certain work functionality to best use your energy peaks?

A Sunday Well Spent Leads to Productivity All Week

A solid foundation is necessary for building success. When you take time on Sunday to lay stable groundwork for the week ahead, you are more likely to successfully address what matters most with fewer distractions, less stress and greater efficiency. Balancing time to recharge, relax and refill your tank with investing in preparations for the week ahead can be challenging; here's a sample weekly prep checklist to guide your efforts and ensure nothing's forgotten as you get ready to start the new week:

• Complete your weekly strategy session. As our brains are meant for thinking, not remembering, it's imperative to document a clear, meaningful path for achieving your priority goals, specifying how to address tasks, team communications, time commitments and opportunities for development. Using both your calendar and running data dump of tasks needing your attention, create a game plan that can be used as a protective barrier, warding off time stealers and others' priorities like your own suit of armor.

• Create in your space a blank slate for addressing your priorities. Take away what physical distractions or hurdles will prevent progress. Return to their homes the items atop your desk that you have been using for work. Put away the papers and objects in your "to file" stack. Move into folders the random selection of documents downloaded to your computer's desktop. Return your email to the desired "inbox zero" status (or as close as possible). Give homes to what has come into your entryway. Move back to their homes what might have shifted throughout your home or automobile. Clear your clutter!

• Get a head start on what you can for the week ahead. Often, a good place to start is with marketing efforts... Can you draft, edit or add photos to what blog posts will go live? Can you schedule some of the content to be posted on your social media channels? If you have networking events to attend, can you check out the registration lists to see with whom you need to connect? Have you or your team placed what advertising buys are needed? Yet, don't stop with marketing efforts alone; consider what other projects or tasks could benefit from a head-start. Take action now to double-check what's up so you don't worry later about what might've fallen through the cracks.

• Plan from where your meals will come. We each need to eat regularly to stay alive, but waiting until we're hungry to figure out what we'll eat can be a recipe for eating unhealthy meals. Instead, take time to plan your meals, including options for using a slow-cooker or Instant Pot®, cooking mass amounts over the weekend for meals throughout the week, ways in which the same elements can be reused in different ways, pre-packing lunches and preparing breakfast the night before. Assuming you eat 3 meals each day, there are 21 opportunities for creatively streamlining, but you don't have to pre-assign each meal; you could create a list of options for the week and pick from the list in preparation for each next day.

• Lay out each day's outfit for the week ahead. Check the forecast, incorporate what you have planned and pick out the details for what will be necessary so you aren't scrambling in the morning. This should include what purse or bag to carry, what jewelry to wear and what undergarments are needed. It's an excellent opportunity to make sure everything in the your closet is hung or wherever it is supposed to be; an organized closet makes it so much easier to find what's needed for that perfect outfit you'll need at this week's big event.

• Connect with those who matter most. Outreach on social media to share content that might be of value to a friend, congratulate someone for a big accomplishment from the week ending or say hey to a contact you've been missing. Better yet, get together in-person or via video chat with someone who is special to you; spending time with people who know and love you will fuel your soul and re-enforce your identity. Then, talk through logistics with your team; since we all wear many hats, working through commitments with your spouse, kids or roommates will make sure folks get where they need to go with what is needed while managing how much stress is experienced. We don't want pre-school calling in a panic because someone got left behind, right?

• Wash and change your bed sheets as well as bath towel. There's a true joy felt when jumping into bed on Sunday night with clean sheets, even more so than another night of the week. It's such a quality way to create that desired foundation for the week ahead, signifying a clean slate and fresh start.

What steps do you take each Sunday to prepare for the week ahead? By when will you implement which of these steps into your weekly routine? Will this checklist help you be more proactive and, thereby, more successful?

Regularly Perform a Time Audit for Optimum Output

Productivity is efficiently working at effectively achieving desired results, and there are so many thoughts about how to best boost productivity. People often refer to work-life balance as a viable option; yet, in thinking about "balance", I see a seesaw, forcing a perception of costs needed for success. I don't believe my work competes with my life, seeing how they regularly complement each other instead. Further, although balance would be static, life is certainly not and requires fluid solutions to address one's ever-changing priorities for the various layers of work, home, community or society and the private realm of mind, body and spirit, known as work-life integration.

As Stephen R. Covey explains, "The sum is greater than the parts... When it comes to organizing your life, nothing happens in isolation. As you take an active role in planning your days, weeks and months, the choices you make influence each aspect of your life, multiplying and amplifying your results". It is when all elements of life work in harmony that we are more effective in attaining our goals; the return on time invested in one element can enhance results experienced from investing time elsewhere, like how skills garnered from leading a volunteer committee can transfer to running a household more efficiently or parenting teenage children.

Whereas operating with harmony between how we invest our time and what matters most amplifies success, misalignment between one's actions and one's goals, priorities or values causes burnout. Achieving this necessary alignment gets complicated as our priorities fluctuate daily, weekly, monthly... Some days will need a greater investment of time in work while others should focus more on community or home, requiring fluidity to shift between work, home, community or society and the private realm of mind, body and spirit as needed. Without regular reflection, there is often a discrepancy between the way we spend our time and how our time should be invested to achieve what outcomes we most want or need. Encourage harmony while discouraging misalignment by regularly completing a time audit to verify each action is in agreement with what matters most.

A time audit is an assessment that can be done at whatever interval is necessary, making it the best tool for looking at exactly how our time is being used to better understand where our time is going and evaluate whether using any minutes in a different way would more quickly move us toward more efficiently attaining our goals. This can be completed by keeping a log of how each minute is used, whether paper or electronic, and, then, taking time to reflect upon what the log says regarding how our time is being used and verifying that it's how we'd really like to spend our time, highlighting time wasted versus time invested.

How do you monitor the ways you're investing your time? How often do you examine that investment to make sure your actions align with your goals, priorities and values? How will you utilize a time audit to amplify your success?

Which Tasks Can You Complete Quickly?

There is a well-known quote that instructs each of us to "plan your work and work your plan", which provides valuable insights for how to be more successful and better achieve more desired results. With a weekly strategy session, we create a game plan for addressing our priorities through tasks, communications, time commitments and development opportunities, staying on track toward achieving our most important goals via the habit of a daily wrap-up at the end of each day. Yet, there are times when we find that we can do even more than that which we'd planned to accomplish.

Maybe traffic was light and you arrived at your next appointment with a few moments to spare. Maybe one of your meetings ended early, giving you extra minutes before the next commitment. Maybe you had a cancellation, which opened up an unexpected block of time. That time can be a gift for boosting productivity.

If you have no guidance as to what can fit within the available time, you might spend 5 of your 10 available minutes determining your 10-minute tasks, which leaves only 5 minutes to actually get anything done. Alternatively, if you denote within your data-dump of tasks how long each will take, you'll know immediately which take 10 minutes and easily plug what fits into the available time.

Don't lose minutes. Make the most of your time, optimizing the most limited of your resources. Know which of your to-do items can be completed quickly so fewer valuable minutes are wasted determining possible tasks for small windows of available time, whether 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or another increment.

How do you optimize your task management efforts, filling small windows of time as they become available for accomplishing more?

Assign a "When" for Each "What" to Get More Wins

In planning for each day, week, month, quarter or year, we all have things we want to accomplish. Sometimes, they are big, and, other times, they are small; however, we all have accomplishments that we aspire to achieve. Hopefully, we are documenting them somewhere instead of counting on simply remembering them; then, we can funnel that running list through our priorities to incorporate in our weekly strategy and pinpoint on a specific date with our daily wrap-up, but that doesn't always work as planned.

When you look at your data dump of tasks needing your attention, until time is allocated for moving each action from a to-do to being done, it's a list of things you wish you could accomplish. That's it. Only when you carve out time in your schedule for getting them done do they become goals and start looking more like a to-do list.

Many of us fall into the trap of thinking "I'll do that when things calm down" or "I'll get to that someday" or "I'll plug that in when I get a few spare moments". I've yet to find a calendar that includes someday; calendars include Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday but not someday. Does anyone ever have free time magically appear in our schedules? Does life calm down without proactively working to slow things down a bit? I believe it requires a different approach to get things done.

Assign each task that you want to accomplish specific time in your schedule, and you'll be much more able to get it done. With this move toward task management, every "what" is given a "when", meaning there is time allocated for getting it done, and you'll be able to actually complete it during that assigned time. You don't have to schedule every 15-minute block in your calendar, but it helps to have a general idea of how you'll invest each day's 1,440 minutes, which is fluid and flexible, allowing you to adjust as needed while being guide down that clear path to achievement.

Experience tells me this will empower you for greater success and make you more likely to win at the game of accomplishing your goals, but I'd love to hear about your experiences. What tactics have you found most successful for moving tasks from to-do to done? Do you create synergy between your calendar and to-do list?

What Will Guide You to Success This New Year?

For many, it wouldn't feel like the start of a new year without setting resolutions, which are formal expressions of intentions made or declarations of what actions will be taken. The most common resolutions as we start a new year include get healthy, get organized, live life to the fullest, learn something new, find a better job, do more good deeds for others, be more fiscally responsible, work out more often and spend more time with loved ones. However, the success rate for resolutions tends to be abysmal. If you choose to set new year's resolutions, follow the advice of Valorie Burton, life coach and author of "Brave Enough to Succeed: 40 Strategies for Getting Unstuck", which outline how to choose the correct resolutions and more likely conquer those goals: be super specific, set a timeframe of strategic deadlines with a realistic timeline of milestones throughout, make sure your resolutions are achievable so you commit or quit, and recalibrate through failures as needed.

I, on the other hand, have found that resolutions don't fit the way I think. To me, they feel like yet another something for my to-do list. Instead, I sought a clear, meaningful path to guide my year, allowing me to live with intention and purpose, fulfilling one of my favorite mantras that "From those to whom much has been given much is expected." Rather than listing out new year's resolutions, I have started picking a "word of the year". Sometimes, it's simply a word for the upcoming season or it might change from month to month; it must be a word that really speaks to me and pulls together what I'd like to make happen in the foreseeable future.

When I first started choosing a word to guide my year, it seemed like a rarity; today, though, it is a much more widespread practice. A quick Google search for "what is your word of the year" pulls up a plethora of articles, blog posts and websites to help you choose what word works best for your specific needs and where you are in life. Delve deeper into the process with Blessing Manifesting, Create & Connect, Cultivate What Matters, kale & chocolate, My One Word, One Word 365 and Susannah Conway.

Going into 2018, I have chosen fulfillment as my word of the year. Searching Google for "define fulfillment" shows that this word means "the achievement of something desired, promised or predicted". This can cover so many things that matter a great deal to me in the new year, like fulfill dreams, fulfill goals, fulfill commitments, fulfill work-life integration, fulfill Greensboro LUNGe Forward's budget requirement, fulfill blog-writing consistency, fulfill RSVPs by showing up, fulfill outsourcing and fulfill business growth. For me, it's about follow-through, particularly as I remind myself that perfection is not required and, sometimes, done is better than perfect when getting things accomplished.

Maybe a word of the year is not enough for you, and that's quite alright. Maybe you'd prefer a phrase or mantra to guide your actions toward what results you'd like to achieve in 2018. There is no right or wrong option for what you choose; it's simply important to pick something that resonates with you, reflects what you desire and provides the direction necessary for getting from where you are to where you want to arrive.

With that word, phrase, mantra or resolution in mind to guide you to success, you are ready to embark upon the journey of 2018, writing the story you desire upon the blank pages of this year and taking with you the resources to best fuel what results you aspire to achieve. Let's launch this new year with "Get Organized Month", where I'll share a daily tidbit that's easy to implement for boosting your productivity, helping you more efficiently accomplish your goals and encouraging greater happiness.

For the new year, will you choose a guiding word, phrase, mantra or resolution? Please share what you've chosen in the comments so we can follow the advice of Alex Sheen, Founder of "because I said I would", who reiterates holding ourselves accountable for important commitments made amidst the over 15,942 words each American says daily.

Is It Time To Simplify Your Life?

The first week of August is celebrated as "Simplify Your Life Week"; however, I feel confident that any time of the year can be ideal for streamlining. With a little effort, you can determine what matters most and develop razor-sharp focus of your resources on those priority goals; you can best invest your limited time in efficiently and effectively achieving the results desired.

Clutter is the greatest deterrent when working to organize for success. Whether the clutter is in your space, your mind, your technology or your calendar, beyond simply robbing you of precious time, it can be physically, mentally and emotionally draining. Clutter makes each of us overwhelmed, enhancing the difficulty of forward-thinking decision-making and creating a scenario where it is more challenging to best achieve your goals.

Taking time to simplify can tame some of this stress, making it easier to quickly find what you need and effortlessly know what needs to be done at any moment. Here are some strategies that can be implemented this month to eliminate the unnecessary:

- Deliberately choose how you invest your time. By developing habits for a weekly strategy session and daily wrap-up, you can map out a specific game plan to guide you throughout the week and, then, stay on track amidst the world's distractions.

- Stay true to your priorities. Yes, priorities can shift by the day, week, month or year; sometimes, there are shifts minute-by-minute. Yet, if you have a flexible game plan that can act as your protective barrier, you can shuffle how you invest your time accordingly, filling each day's 1,440 minutes with only what matters most and keeping your actions aligned with your goals.

- Respect the value of your space. Whether it's in your physical space, electronic files, email folders or calendar, keep only what is accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy. When anything not meeting one of those requirements is maintained, there's more to dig through, leading to overwhelm, distractions and stress.

- Be positively present. Try to live in the current moment instead of worrying about the future or what is outside of your control. Listen intently to others, focusing on understanding rather than planning how you will respond. Accept that none of us is perfect, and work to bring folks together rather than fueling divisiveness.

- Learn to say "no". What can you keep out of your space? What can be deleted in general? What tasks or time commitments can be delegated? With tips from mindbodygreen, it's easier to master the art of saying no, which eliminates what doesn't rank high enough in your priorities to earn space in your files or time on your schedule.

- Incorporate tactics for success from work-life integration. Through research by Wharton's Work / Life Integration Project along with my clients' best practices, yes, you can create harmony with goals for work, home, community and self complementing one another rather than competing with each other. Focus on outcomes over activities, and invest your time in activities that accomplish wins in more than one area of life at the same time.

What steps do you take to simplify your life? Will you try any new tactics for this year's Simplify Your Life Week?

Make Summer More Productive

Summer officially kicks off today, and you might be feeling a little more sluggish, laid back or easy going than during other seasons. When someone mentions summer, many folks' minds drift to being on vacation, hanging out by the pool or lounging on the beach with toes in the sand. Alternatively, you might reflect immediately on the rising temperatures and how difficult it is to concentrate in the heat. Yet, there are steps we all can take to make summer more productive. Here are a few ways to boost productivity this summer:

1. Calendar the craziness. Line up calendars for the next three months along your wall so you can see everything coming up at a glance. These might be wall-hanging paper calendars or dry-erase calendars; the key is to have the next three months visible at once. Then, add vacations for you and your team members, holiday celebrations, impending deadlines and family commitments, including swim meets and camp registrations alike. Include all elements of your life (work, home, community and self), considering different colors for each of those buckets. When you know what is coming, you can more proactively invest your time in achieving all of your desired results for each area of life.

2. Establish your non-negotiables from the get-go. As summer schedules tend to become a little more erratic than normal, you and your team need to know which items have less flexibility than others. For me, I absolutely must maintain my weekly strategy session and daily wrap-up, but the good habits that keep each individual on track productively will vary from person to person. Do you expect your team members to have certain hours during which they always work in the office rather than operate remotely? Is there an expectation for how team members should request vacation time or notify the rest of the team about a hiccup related to impending deadlines, which can be especially vital with varying schedules for summer vacations? This would be a good time to communicate leadership's expectations to everyone. Be as clear, concise and transparent as you can.

3. Focus your efforts on tasks, not projects. It's not possible to check a project off your to-do list in one sitting. "Plan a party" is not a single action item; instead, there are many actions that make up that project. As you are mapping out the next three months, take time to break larger goals into smaller, bite-sized action items that can be completed as individual tasks. Start each task with a verb so as to fuel action, break each task down to as simple of a function as possible, estimate how long each action item will take to complete so you readily know those tasks taking 10 or 30 minutes, and and assign a deadline for each task's completion.

4. Invest some time to reflect inward. With erratic schedules during the summer, many companies have fewer meetings that would otherwise be held at normal intervals; this can be the ideal time to review and reset some of your organization's key elements. When was the last time your team updated its mission, vision, core values, annual goals, processes and workspace organization? If it has been awhile, block out time during the dog days of summer to look them over and adjust as needed. Maybe you'll want to freshen up your customers' experiences, update what messages you are conveying across all mediums and put yourself in the client's shoes. Further, this can be an ideal time for a personal audit, where you assess what you have learned and achieved thus far this year, what priorities need attention in the coming months and what "someday" actions need to be scheduled so they move from to-do to done. Do your goals for work, home, community or self need to be adjusted, and how can you realign your actions to focus on achieving each?

5. Make time for fun and frivolity. If you block out time to truly enjoy the season, you'll be less distracted by what you are missing when you are focusing intently on getting things done. The "Fun Summer Activities Checklist" from Real Simple and "31 Totally Free Things to Do This Summer" from PureWow are excellent places to brainstorm what cool things you can do to dive into summer enjoyment; then, once you've blocked off time for those activities, your mind will be less likely to drift from working towards wondering when you'll actually be able to celebrate summer fun. Plus, when you are taking time to enjoy all this season offers, you can truly take a break from everything else since you've planned for when those other goals will be addressed.

What steps do you take to make summer more productive? Will you be implementing or attempting any of these here?

Is It Time To Stop Saying I'm Sorry?

There has been a buzz growing about the negative impact of saying "I'm sorry". Folks contend that it holds back career success, prevents stronger relationships and makes the person saying it appear weaker. As opposed to saying "I apologize", the phrasing of "I'm sorry" suggests you are claiming first-hand that you are a sorry human-being. In researching this phenomenon, I read about a study published in Psychology Science that had men and women journal how often they committed an offense as well as whether or not they subsequently offered an apology, which reported women committing more offenses and offering more apologies than men.

As I studied this, I became acutely aware of each time I used the phrase of "I'm sorry". Whether it was bumping against someone walking through a doorway, because I'd missed the other person's call due to being in a meeting or when I'm running a few minutes late arriving somewhere, I felt a twinge of "I shouldn't have done that" with each iteration. "Oh, no... What will they think of me?!?"

Although I want to be considerate of others, remembering we are all humans who put our pants on one leg at a time and regularly make mistakes, I certainly don't want others to view me as a lesser person due simply to my word choice. Therefore, I've been practicing two new habits: First, I choose carefully when an apology is appropriate or if I should be responding in a different manner. Then, second, I make sure to word each apology as "I apologize" rather than letting "I'm sorry" simply roll off my tongue. There is a distinction between those statements, and I want to make sure I'm conveying the appropriate message.

As I have made these resolutions, I've realized that breaking a bad habit is very difficult. I backslide from time to time, but I'm trying to be kind and understanding with my own shortcomings. I know that changing my words isn't about mind over matter; instead, it means I have to be thinking about it regularly until that thought process is simply inherent to my thinking. That's no easy feat.

I will keep at it, I will get better daily, and I am confident my efforts will make me a better communicator. Meanwhile, I will eagerly await the day that the Google Chrome extension for Just Not Sorry will be expanded to include the Mac Mail application.

Are you aware of how often you say "I"m sorry"? If so, what are your thoughts about that? How does it strike you when you hear someone else use that phrase? Which phrases bother you more?

I Blogged Daily for a Month... Here's What Happened

Lessons from Regular Writing

Throughout the entire month of May, I wrote at least one post each of the 31 days. Celebrating 10 years of business for Organize for Success®, I posted a "top 10" list daily, intermingled with the last four posts in my "Countdown to Memorial Day" series of travel tips from frequent travelers. It was an eye-opening experience, and I'm writing today to share some of what I discovered doing this.

First, it was much more time-consuming than anticipated. Going into this project, I figured "It's only a list of 10 things per day; how much time could that possibly require?" It ended up being a heck of a lot more time than I ever imagined. It involved time brainstorming topics for all 31 "top 10" lists, outlining all the content I wanted to include in each post, typing it out as I wanted the content conveyed, editing what I'd typed, incorporating images as needed and adding links wherever possible.

Second, it really was fun. Part of the fun was culling together the best of the best from the many tips I've shared over the years. An additional part of the fun was taking a stroll down memory lane for some of the personal experiences I wanted to share with you. Yet another part of the fun was thinking through things I enjoy and what matters most to me. It was great to get your feedback as the blog readers about how my favorites resonated with you and what are your faves. It was such great dialogue both online and off.

Third, I'm proud of all the content I created. These 31 "top 10" lists covered a wide array of topics, ranging from ways to boost your productivity to insights about me and my business, and I like the way the information was conveyed. I got into a groove of writing the lists in a conversational tone, and I believe my content was easy to digest, including lots of useful recommendations.

If you missed any of those "top 10" lists, please click here, and leave a comment; I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Which list was your favorite and why? Were there any additional lists you would've included during the month?

Top Ten Tips for Boosting Productivity with Technology

Organize for Success® Turns 10 

In honor of 10 years of business for Organize for Success®, I am continuing to post a "top 10" list to this blog each day through tomorrow. The grand prize for celebrating Organize for Success, LLC's 10 years will be awarded this Thursday, randomly selecting from all those who commented on any of the month's "top 10" blog posts as well as those who have subscribed to my eNewsletter for a winner to receive downloads of all 5 eBooks, a pass for my Stress and Time Management online video course as well as a 60-minute productivity consultation conducted over video conference.

Here are my top 10 tips for boosting productivity with technology:

10. Be proactive in protecting yourself. As outlined earlier this month, use two-factor authentication, choose private browsing when surfing the Internet, don't over-share on social media, protect your information, conduct online shopping wisely, create complex passwords you keep safe, protect your devices, monitor your accounts and know your credit scores.

9. Set others' expectations. If you don't provide those emailing you with an expectation for when they will hear back from you, they will determine the answer to be whatever they prefer. Reassure people that you have received their messages, alert them as to when you will be processing new emails rather than constantly checking your inbox and take control back over email.

8. Divide and conquer. Delegating to technology via automation is like cloning yourself; further, keep in mind that delete can be your friend, realizing that not everything needs to get done and how focusing your attention on what only you can do will boost your ability to get more of your priorities accomplished.

7. Master time-saving tricks where helpful. Whether you prefer PC or Mac, acquire complete knowledge of which keyboard shortcuts can best help in your day-to-day functions. Regularly consider where you can utilize text expansion via TextExpander, ActiveWords, Phrase Express or Alfred; likewise, make sure you are implementing automated organizers wherever you feel comfortable, like Hazel, DropIt or File Juggler. Techlicious offers some powerful options in this post, but think outside the box for more.

6. Be strategic about what tools you utilize. Follow Kenny Rogers' advice of "Know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em." Maximize the efficiency of what solutions you already own before trying something new; at the same time, know how to recognize when an outdated program is hurting your business so you can replace it and continue moving forward.

5. Learn all you can about tools you've chosen to implement. Consider saving time by bringing in a specialist for learning about, expanding use of or implementing your tech tools. Then, take advantage of the organizational tools built into the devices or operating systems you already have before looking to add new ones. Functions for calendaring, task management, note capture, contact database and more are often covered in smartphones, tablets and Mac computers so they sync even better.

4. Utilize the "power of one". Although Three Dog Night contended that "one is the loneliest number", I suggest that it can be the most productive, especially in regards to one calendar for personal and professional commitments, one running data dump of all tasks that funnels into one daily to-do list, one address book for all contacts' information, one set of naming conventions for all files, one place for all which you must remember, one weekly strategy session and one wrap-up per day.

3. Separate solutions when necessary. Your online file repository is not a cloud-based back-up solution. If you utilize Box, DEVONthink, Dropbox, eFileCabinet, Egnyte, Google Drive, SpiderOak or SugarSync, that does not alleviate your need to implement Backblaze, Carbonite, CrashPlan or Mozy, too.

2. Turn off notifications. Especially when you are deep in thought on an important or urgent project, you need not waste time refocusing after a distraction, and all of those pings, dings and previews are distractions. Instead, schedule specific times to deep dive into processing your emails and social media.

1. Remove clutter. Keep only what is accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy, whether talking about paper, physical items, electronic files, email or time commitments. The less you have to dig through to find what's needed means less time wasted.

What is your favorite way to utilize technology? How have you found that to boost your productivity? Will you implement any of these tips?

Top Ten Favorite Business Leaders

Organize for Success® Turns 10 

In honor of 10 years of business for Organize for Success®, I will be posting a "top 10" list to this blog each day through Wednesday, May 31st. Each Sunday, my team will randomly select from those who commented on the prior week's "top 10" blog posts for a gift card giveaway and free download of one eBook via OrganizeForSuccess.biz/shop The grand prize for celebrating Organize for Success, LLC's 10 years will be awarded on Thursday, June 1st, randomly selecting from all those who commented on any of the month's "top 10" blog posts as well as those who have subscribed to my eNewsletter for a winner to receive downloads of all 5 eBooks, a pass for my Stress and Time Management online video course as well as a 60-minute video productivity consultation.

Today, let's discuss my top 10 favorite business leaders:

10. Mary T. Barra - Having been General Motors' CEO since January 15, 2014, Ms. Barra is remaking the company's culture in order to keep pace in the race to reinvent transportation. I'm continually impressed with how well Ms. Barra stays ahead of all the changes happening in society while empowering employees, valuing customers' wants as much as their needs and pushing for profitability. As Ms. Barra says, "If we win the hearts and minds of employees, we're going to have better business success."

9. Jeff Bezos - As the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest online shopping retailer, as well as founder of Blue Origin aerospace and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, Mr. Bezos is an excellent example of how "we can't rest on our laurels" and frequently shares insights from the ongoing evolution of his businesses as well as himself. Currently the third richest person in the world, Mr. Bezos believes "A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person; you earn reputation by trying to do hard things well," showing that our work is never done developing.

8. Warren Buffett - Widely considered one of the most successful investors in the world, Mr. Buffett is a business magnate, investor and philanthropist who regularly displays humility as the public asks for what lessons he's learned across his many successes. Mr. Buffett is Chairman and CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway, where he leads the company and its team members to continually evolve while upholding ethics to be admired." As he's stated, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it; if you think about that, you'll do things differently."

7. Ashley Christensen - My sophomore year in high school, Ms. Christensen served as our student body president, filling her role as a strong leader from the very beginning; however, this Kernersville native has come a long way in the years since graduating from East Forsyth High School. Beyond being the chef + proprietor for six different restaurants, Ms. Christensen fosters community through food, philanthropy and the stimulation of Raleigh's downtown neighborhood. Exhibiting keen work-life integration skills, Ms. Christensen is active with a number of local and regional charities while excelling at providing such amazing food and beverages that she's regularly highlighted nationally and was awarded the very prestigious James Beard award for "Best Chef: Southeast" in 2014.

7. Melinda Gates - According to Town & Country Magazine, Kappa Alpha Theta has the most celebrity alums, and we are proud to count Ms. Gates among our ranks from the Beta Rho chapter at Duke University. As co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ms. Gates honorably fills the philanthropist role by empowering the next generation with access to quality healthcare and a great education. In September 2016, Ms. Gates announced her desire to begin working on the unbelievably important issue of the lack of women in technology by saying, "We're graduating fewer women technologists; that is not good for society, and we have to change it." I find Ms. Gates inspiring, saying we must "get comfortably being uncomfortable" to achieve our greatest success.

6. Arianna Huffington - In 2016, Ms. Huffington stepped down from her role as editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, an American journalism company that she founded, choosing to devote her time to Thrive Global, which focuses on health and wellness information. Ms. Huffington's message that we need to sleep better in order to achieve greater success resonates with me and has prompted me to focus more on getting better nights' sleep, although I'm still a work in progress. As Ms. Huffington reassures and empowers us all, "Fearlessness is like a muscle. The more I exercise it the more natural it becomes not to let my fears run me."

5. Gayle King - More than simply Oprah Winfrey's best friend, Ms. King is an inspiration for "keeping it real", whether co-anchoring CBS This Morning, serving as editor-at-large for O Magazine or emceeing special events. As Ms. King explains, "There's always going to be somebody who people perceive can do the job that you're doing, and you can't get hung up on that; I have always decided I'm just going to do the best me, do the best job that I can do, so that, at the end of the day, I don't have any regrets about my performance." I can relate to Ms. King describing herself as inquisitive, asking questions to understand better and learn more.

3. Coach Gregg Popovich - Like any company, a successful sports team needs strong leadership, and I believe Coach Popovich is the absolute best NBA basketball coach, exemplified by his multiple NBA Coach of the Year awards and championships. Each year, the San Antonio Spurs players trust Coach Popovich completely, looking to him for winning game plans and depending on him to see what each player's greatest attributes can be for the overall team's greatest success. Coach Popovich trains his teams to pass the ball more on each possession than any of their opponents, building trust between teammates, encouraging communication and requiring each player to dedicate himself 100% to the specific role that Coach Popovich assigns each individual on the team.

2. Kip Tindell - For each of the last 17 years in Mr. Tindell's 38-year tenure as The Container Store's CEO, he led the company to Fortune's Best Place to Work list, fostering a progressive corporate culture where everyone associated with the business can thrive together. As The Container Store's founder, Mr. Tindell brought to life this amazing concept of a store to fulfill folks' needs for an eclectic mix of bins, boxes, racks, shelves and tools, all exceptional quality that more easily enables the organizing process.

1. Cindy Whitehead - Although you may recall Ms. Whitehead as the Former CEO of Sprout Pharma who created Addyi (the women's libido-enhancing drug often referred to as "the female Viagra") before selling the company for an incredible $1 billion, her newest venture of The Pink Ceiling is an exciting combination of VC fund, incubator and consulting firm, which is based right here in Raleigh, NC, and recently added a membership service based out of North Hills and known as the Pinkubator. With first-hand experience of how misunderstandings can become truths, Ms. Whitehead proactively works to the betterment of each client, regularly exhibiting her genuine care for each client's greatest success, and she's truly dedicated to her team's partnership with each client.

Bonus - Former President Barack Obama - Over his 8 years as the United States of America's 44th president, he led our country to many powerful lessons on leadership while representing us honorably throughout the world. Former President Obama encouraged Americans to be optimistic while not forgetting the long view, lived his viewpoint that nothing is accomplished alone as he built and utilized a strong team, empowered us to stay with the times while being forward-thinking and advised us to get neither overwhelmed nor comfortable with making big decisions.

Who are your favorite leaders? What is it about those folks you admire, are impressed by or want to emulate?