Other People's Voice Mail

To successfully deal with other people's voice mail:
* Speak a little louder than usual, enunciating as you speak.
* Say your name and organization, and then slowly leave your phone number.
* Follow that with a short, essential message.
* Make your message last 40 to 50 seconds.
Too short, and it may seem insignificant. Too long, and you may irk the other party.
* Pretend you're writing your phone number in the air as you're reciting it.
Some callers speak too fast, making recipients replay the message repeatedly.
* Days later, if you’ve had no reply? Say, "I'm calling to follow-up on my call last Tuesday."
* Be flexible when offering times and dates when you can be reached.

Be friendly and personable. You'll stand out like few others callers that day!

Organizing and Over-collecting

Becoming and staying organized is desirable. Being organized, however, is not the same as being neat. Neatness is just a virtue. Being organized is done for the practical purpose of creating breathing space. What good is information if you spend all morning looking for it?

The recurring problem with staying organized is holding on to pieces of the past. Overcollecting, or packratism, can create huge pile of junk at home and in your office. Reexamine what you retain and practice creative trashing. If you must hold onto items you no longer need, put them in a special box and hide it in the attic or garage. If you can go two years without missing it, then throw it out.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder

Intermittent Explosive Disorder
* It appears that road rage is far more common than experts had expected and is not confined to the road. Almost 16 million Americans are inflicted with a disorder that prompts them to erupt in shouting or screaming, and violent outbursts sometimes at the mildest provocation.

* EID is regarded “as a pattern of explosive outbursts in response to everyday frustrations which can lead to injury to other people and property, revenge, and domestic abuse” says Michael McClusky, PhD in the New Scientist. "They often say that their anger goes from 0 to 100."

It is my strong suspicion that a lack of breathing space is at the root of this phenomenon!

Leave the Office on Time

Leaving Ready for the Rest of Your Day
Here's what you can do, on a typical weekday, to leave on time when you choose to:

1. Tell everyone that you have a personal commitment at 5:30 that evening. If you have a
child you could say that your child is in need of important parental assistance. Schedule
something for 5:30 that evening if it helps.

2. Mark on your calendar that you'll be leaving at five.

3. Sleep well the night before.

4. Eat a light lunch.

5. Strike a bargain with yourself at the start of the day, in late morning, in early
afternoon, and in late afternoon.

6. View any intrusion as merely part of the workday.

7. Once striking the bargain with yourself, don't add more items at the last minute.

8. Imagine how you'll feel when you leave right at closing time (however, there is no
reason for you to be staring at the clock for the last 45 minutes).

9. Ask a co-worker to walk you out at closing time.

Completions All Day Long

The process of giving yourself a mental completion on all tasks or even thoughts, described in my book Breathing Space, sets up a mental partition for you whereby you have more energy, focus, and direction for what’s next.

You can practice completions all day long. When you get up tomorrow morning, whether you had good sleep or bad sleep, you'll be complete with that phase of your day, and so on. If you give yourself acknowledgment, and this takes only two or three seconds, you will have more energy, more focus, and more direction for whatever else you face.

The Zeigarnik Effect

When interruptions predominate, little work gets done, observes Paul Radde, Ph.D. author of Thrival. Radde says "Cell phone use is not just plain rude, it is mentally distracting and abusive to others. Cell phone use captures the brain's interest in completing the conversation, so whether the user is broadcasting or simply within earshot, the Zeigarnik effect kicks in. This is the same desire for closure that makes the effects of multi-tasking akin to the effects of post-traumatic stress."

The Zeigarnik effect is characterized by the tendency for people to remember interrupted tasks better than those that have been completed. "Once taken off one task, without completing the transaction," Radde observes, "the mind continues to seek closure. If you have a number of things going, but none of them to completion, you have these tensions tending toward completion -- and that is stress-provoking."

Solitude is Golden

Too many career professionals are uncomfortable with solitude. Increasingly, this discomfort tolerates only shorter and shorter attention spans. To retreat into one's own mind, to pause, to reflect is now treated as if it were enemy territory, yet these skills are needed now more than ever!