Make an “appointment” for
anything taking more than
30 minutes:
The most important function of
Outlook is your calendar — use it
proactively to set appointments with
yourself as well as with others. Be
“selfishly unselfish” with your time.
Set appointments with yourself
for everything that will take longer
than half an hour, such as making
marketing calls to potential clients,
following-up with customers to assure
their satisfaction with your services or
to offer additional services, blocking
off time for the kids’ soccer games, and
perhaps most importantly — taking
personal time for yourself to improve
your skills or be with your spouse or
family.
Email is a poor tool for problem solving.
This is best done person-to-person.
business cards. Use the category function
(which you can customize). It is easy to
keep notes on people and why they are
important to you and to send contact
information to another person.
When you see that there are multiple
people involved and complicated issues
to be discussed, set a time for a
Following these tips routinely will
free up time and make managing your
workload easier. Invest some time to
shore up your company’s electronic-tools
management. It doesn’t cost anything,
and the rewards are substantial.
phone/conference call. Issues will get
resolved much faster through
live conversation than by using email.
use the Task function to remind
yourself of everything:
Don’t use paper to-do lists that you have
to write and rewrite. The Task function
is the key to sanity. You can remind
yourself proactively of everything.
Always use the reminder setting so you
will be notified when you want. The text
box within the Task function allows you
to write notes about the subject topic
and is a valuable tool to use when using
Tasks for continuing follow-up.
use the Contacts function and
toss out business cards once they
are entered:
Keeping your contacts electronically is
by far the easiest way to assure quick
retrieval of names, phone numbers,
and addresses. Do not rely on a pile of
Kerry Gleeson is the founder of the Institute
for Business Technology International (IBT)
and developer of the Personal Efficiency
Program (PEP). He is the author of the
books The Personal Efficiency Program
and The High-Tech Personal Efficiency
Program. Bary Sherman is CEO of PEP
Productivity Solutions, an international
efficiency consulting company. Contact
them at kgleeson@bellsouth.net and bary.
sherman@PEPproductivitysolutions.com.
