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!

Key Chain Blues

Every day I see the people of my neighborhood drive up to the mail box stand, then turn off their car so that they can get their keys out of the ignition. Then they open their mailbox with the mailbox key which is part of their overall key chain, close their mailbox door, insert the car
ignition key, and drive on.

After hundreds and hundreds of times of doing this, you would think that one of them might stumble upon the notion that since they always get the mail when they're in their car, there's no reason to have the mail key as part of the same key chain that holds the car key. Their mail key could be housed independently someplace in the car. where no one else would know what it is. and be used at the appropriate moment to open the box, while keeping the car on, and then driving off.

You wonder, if they can't figure out this component of getting things done, what else can they
not figure out?

Time Saving with Computers?

It's a myth to believe that PCs automatically increase productivity. While they can save an enormous amount effort on certain types of tasks, the time you save is not synonymous with increased productivity.

To become more productive, you have to spend the time gained on something worthwhile and rewarding. If you don't, you've squandered the time savings on minutia, trivia, or worse.