Issue No. 38 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a tip from The Meeting Bucket and an excellent time management book. Many of our weekly readers now understand the incredible power of an office book budget. This week’s book, according to the author, is a “time management system that will save you up to an hour a day.” That’s serious payroll money over a year. The book at any price would be cheap! To read the reviews of the last 37 books, send your team members to the Buckets Blog at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
I know some procrastinators who will never change. Their projects will always approach panic status near the deadline. One procrastinator friend has actually honed his dysfunction to evoke sympathy. Others are just disturbingly disorganized. Others, though, would welcome help from a thoughtful mentor—but are reluctant to broadcast their weaknesses. Here’s help.
Jeffrey Mayer has the antidote for procrastination. “Bore yourself to death,” he writes. “Whenever you feel yourself being tempted to put off some unpleasant task or are reluctant to tackle an important job, pull yourself up short. Stop! Do nothing!Empty your head of thoughts. Stare into space. Don’t even doodle or twiddle your thumbs. I guarantee that after just a few minutes of this you’ll be so totally bored that you’ll be eager to start any task, no matter how unpleasant or intimidating.”
Order it today: If You Haven’t Got the Time to Do It Right, When Will You Find the Time to Do It Over? by Jeffrey J. Mayer. His 25 short chapters (just 153 pages with cartoons) focus on time management, desk and paper management, delegation, the “sidetrack syndrome,” productivity tips for traveling, and much more. Note: it was written pre-Blackberry and the money-back guarantee expired in 1990, but it’s still worth the price if it turns time manglers into time managers.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
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1. Rate your tendencies towards procrastination on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is dangerous and 1 is “no problem”). Is your procrastination fueled by too much to do, a lack of prioritizing your work, a lack of delegation, or a lack of organization?
2. When is the last time you’ve read a book or taken a course on time management? Share you best time management tip today.
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Insights from the Management Buckets Workshop Experience
According to Jeffrey Mayer (see above), the clock is the most important piece of furniture in your meeting room. Never, never, never hold a meeting in a room without a clock.
Many leaders and managers mentally add up the hourly payroll cost of each meeting and then strive to end it on time or even early. If your shop needs five or ten more clocks, that’s a small investment to increase productivity.
Mayer has a laundry list of productive meeting tips, including the obvious—every meeting must have an agenda and an agreed-upon outcome. Use standard agendas, especially for routine weekly meetings. And here’s a bonus idea: whenever possible, cancel a meeting!
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
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1.The Meeting Bucket. Team members, based on longevity and social style (see Issue No. 8), will have different views of our weekly staff meeting. What do you appreciate about our meeting—and what would you change?
2. Do we need more clocks for our offices and meeting rooms? Who will buy them today?
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Note: This month we hosted lifelong learners at our Management Buckets Workshop Experience (two days) and the Nonprofit Board Governance Workshop (one day) at the scenic Blue Lantern Inn in Dana Point, Calif. Dates for future workshops will be announced in June. If your organization would like to co-host a workshop, please email me this month.
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