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By: Alex Fernandez
Internet Marketing Strategist
A couple weeks ago, we started a Productivity Series based on an awesome seminar that Matt Mernin and I attended for PTE. The seminar was on “Managing Multiple Priorities, Projects and Deadlines with Larry Singer from Fred Pryor Seminars. Hopefully you’ve gotten a chance to read part 1 of the Productivity Series, “5 Tips for Managing Your Email Inbox.”
This week, we’re sharing more from what we learned, on the topic of prioritizing! We have 168 hours in every week. That’s a lot of hours, but it can be wasted if we don’t do the right things, in the right order. Have you ever worked all day long – only to wrap up and think “I’ve gotten nothing done!”? Prioritizing is the process of designating in what specific order tasks should be handled. This is a rewarding process that ends with the satisfaction you feel, knowing that your most urgent and most important tasks are off your plate, leaving you with a manageable schedule.
One of the key takeaways from the seminar was the “Four Quadrants of Time Management,” adapted from the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven R. Covey. The idea is that every task falls into one of four “quadrants”:
- Crisis: Urgent / Important
- Productivity: Not Urgent / Important
- Distraction: Urgent / Not Important
- Waste: Not Urgent / Not Important
The Four Quadrants of Time Management
- Waste: Covey recommends keeping these activities at a minimum – but be realistic. Everyone needs a sanity break from time to time. The idea is to keep these activities in check, but still partake every now and then.
- Distraction: These are all of the little distractions throughout your day. From people walking in to your office with questions, to phone calls and emails. Beware of forfeiting too much of your time here. You have a job to do!
- Productivity: This is obviously where we want to be. Planning for future success, being prepared, preventing problems before they happen, making new connections and broadening our horizons. This should take the most time out of your week.
- Crisis: Unavoidable at times, but this is NOT where you want to be. If things get pushed back to the last minute, and work is fast and frantic, mistakes will happen; valuable time will be lost. Sometimes there will be crisis, and it has to be handled before anything else – but the idea is to minimize it.
We have modified Covey’s model slightly, to reflect the 80/20 principle. The purpose of the Four Quadrants model is to maximize time spent on high importance / low urgency tasks. We have added recommended percentages next to each item to reflect the 80/20 rule.
- 80% of time = important tasks / 20% of time = not important tasks
- 80% of time = not urgent tasks / 20% of time = urgent tasks
- Example:
- In the “Not Urgent” column, 75% productivity + 5% waste = 80%
- In the “Important” row, 75% productivity + 5% crisis = 80%
Make sense?
TIP:
When you have multiple tasks of the same HIGH importance (welcome to the agency life), order them a few different ways to find the best one to start with:
- From least time consuming to most time consuming
- From most visible/impactful to least visible/impactful
- From items you can’t easily delegate to items you can easily delegate.
Now, try and think of your workweek so far…
Where has most of your time gone? Which quadrant would that time fall into? If you’re like I was before this seminar – you’re probably spending too much time dealing with unimportant tasks, which leads to crisis later on (as important tasks are left unaddressed today).
Hopefully, you’ll find use of the Four Quadrants of Time Management in your job. We only have so many hours in a week, and those hours need to be spent on the IMPORTANT tasks in our jobs. Keep checking back for more on the Productivity Series! Until then!
Note from the author: When you first start using this process, it may be difficult to adapt right off the bat. It may take a few days or even weeks depending on what has piled up for you in past months. There IS, however, a great reward once you reach your ideal productivity level. That reward is less stress. You won’t be constantly rushing, and you’ll be getting just as much (if not MORE) done, because you’ll be productive. So hang in there!
By: Annette Venditti
Communications Ally
The new year is nearly upon us and we suggest taking some time away from opening gifts and eating sugar cookies to create your 2013 New Year’s Goals & Resolutions list for your personal and business needs. Each new year is the perfect time to focus on that “to-do” list that is still not done and add some creative items as we move into the new year.
We have put together 13 suggested Goals & Resolutions for 2013, so feel free to borrow these ideas as well as add a few of your own personal favorites:
1. Get Healthy: Personal & Business – We all know one of the first items on everyone’s list every year is to get fit and healthy for the long-term. Keep this one on the list for your own personal health but try a take on getting your business healthy too. How do you do this? Take a good look at your office space and determine if the layout and items in your office are supporting or hindering a healthy and productive environment. Ask your team about ways to improve working conditions like updating office chairs and adding healthy food and drink options for all to enjoy in the new year and beyond.
2. Review & Refresh: Set Goals – Review business goals you set in 2012 and determine what has been achieved and not achieved. Then, set new goals. Create a plan for these newly revised goals with your team to take ensure these goals are met and delivered in a timely manner. Record and track this list as you and your team work on them and follow-up after each is completed to discuss results, lessons learned, etc.
3. Stay Accountable: Support your staff in developing and putting systems in place. Make sure everyone is held personally accountable to making any approved changes that will keep the team motivated and highly productive. Remember to celebrate success often and review, but also measure the one’s that flop to learn how to change the process in the future.
4. Tools & Assets: Revise & Refresh – Have you read your website lately? How about your Facebook page or printed hand-outs/information packets for cultivating new business? Review all your current assets to revise and refresh them over a scheduled period of time so they will be ready for your next big meeting. Don’t forget about updating staff photos and business cards as we do look different after a few years go by and that scratched out, re-written title on your business card is just not good anymore.
5. Measure. Monitor. Reward. - Set up a procedure with all tasks and projects to consistently measure, monitor and reward those involved. These can be used as quantitative date or analytics in your final client report too. Putting checks and balances into place is a great way to see how things are going and to see what worked and what needs to change the next time around.
6. Explore New Media & Technology - Ask your staff – and yourself – to read and research new media and technology on a consistent basis. Things change rapidly and there are always new and better tools and solutions for doing business for you and for your clients.
7. Make The Right Connection: It doesn’t matter who your audience is, but you need to know to whom you’re selling to and make a point to connect with the right people, not just people in general. Most consumers and B2B buyers alike respond to content and ideas that speak to their interests, so take time this year to make that personal connection and let them really know who you are too.
8. Are You Listening? - At every meeting with staff and clients alike, keep in mind the most important concept is listening. Make it your mission to listen more than anything else next year and then use what you have learned to speak and clarify your points and understanding of the task at hand. (You might also review our recent blog on the passive act of communication – listening, too!)
9. Planned Escapes - Everyone needs a physical and/or mental health break during a busy work week. Try setting aside time to grab lunch with co-workers or meet after work for a early evening stop before heading home, just leave your work discussions at the office. These scheduled mini-breaks are proven to keep our minds and bodies in a more relaxed state allowing us to return to work refreshed with increased levels of productivity. On a personal note, make time for a couples or family “stay-cation” over the year, a week or weekend away with your loved ones will be sure to add years to your life and substantially increase your happiness and productivity levels.
10. Pay It Forward: Giving Back - Are you and your business involved in your local community and with your local non-profits? If so, keep up the good work and if not, this is the year to pay it forward and use your successes to reward those who are in the most need. Find organizations that matter to you personally and contact them to find out how you and your business can contribute and volunteer.
11. Seek Answers: Get Educated – Are there areas of your business where you and your staff are feeling you need more information to become better and more efficient? Take the time to commit yourself and your team to continuing education in your specific field of business. Check into local seminars and groups where you can join and share in discussions and feedback. Don’t forget about online media for more educational tools and group discussions.
12. Expand Your Network: Personal & Business - Are you and your business taking full advantage of business networks like LinkedIn? If not, this year is the year to create a LinkedIn page for your business and yourself where you can make connections with individuals and organizations who may work in the same profession or live nearby. These connections will afford you valuable insight into creative solutions and ideas for increasing productivity, new work tools and networking resources for cultivating and meeting new, potential clients. You will also find this business networking platform adds to your social circle as well as you will find new friends within your connected circle.
13. Big Picture View: Don’t get trapped in the tasks themselves and end up forgetting about the big picture. Be sure to schedule meetings during a project and allow updates on each aspect so there is no loss of view or vision for the end goal. Sometimes walking away for a moment allows our brains to stop and breathe so we can then easily see the issues and solutions
Go ahead and start building your 2013 Goals & Resolutions list today! If you need help with any of your 2013 goals, feel free to contact us. We’re just an email or a call away.
By: Annette Venditti
Communication Ally
- Your welcome.
- Hello, is this you’re seat?
- The choir singers’s handled that song very well for their first try.
- Roses Bakery Shoppe is the best in the district.
- (The sound they heard was very distant).
- The little girl loved being outside (especially in the summer), she really enjoyed the warm sun and the sound of the birds in the trees (it was her little secret.)
Can you find the grammar mistakes in the sentence examples above? Some are easier than others, right?
The act of writing is a skill we’re taught in grade school, starting first with mastering all the letters of the alphabet, then forming words, phrases and ultimately complete sentences. We were taught the rules of proper grammar, but as writing has become something of a lost art, the rules have become a bit vague.
Additionally, today’s technology has largely affected our writing skills. I have seen, more often than I’d like to admit, the use of 
“text-like” writing in emails and printed materials… abbreviations, no capitalization and other grammatical offenses seem to abound.
I often look at my own writing and wonder why it doesn’t look quite right. I write daily in the form of news releases, blogs, emails, Facebook posts, etc. It’s proof that even in this age of technology, the skill of traditional writing is still prominent – in personal and business applications.
So, let’s brush up on some of the grammar basics. Here are some quick tips to help you avoid some of the most popular grammar mistakes.
Grammar Tip #1
The use of “your” in place of “you’re” is a common mistake that can easily be missed by spell check or even a proofreader.
In my examples above, the first sentence should read: You’re welcome.
“You’re” is the contraction (sound familiar?) for “You are”
So based on this correction then the next sentence should be: Hello, is this your seat?
Grammar Tip #2
The use of possessive “s” and plural possessive “s” is also a common mistake found in writing samples and printed materials.
The rule here is if you have a word that is singular possessive, like a noun or name, you place the apostrophe BEFORE the “s”.
Rose’s Bakery Shoppe is the best in the district.
BUT when you have a plural possessive noun, like a group of people or things, the apostrophe goes AFTER the “s”
The choir singers’ handled that song very well for their first try.
Grammar Tip #3
This grammar issue is a bit more confusing so here are the rules for the use of brackets or parenthesis in a sentence.
When a complete sentence is enclosed in parentheses, place punctuation in the sentence INSIDE the parentheses, like this.
(The sound they heard was very distant.)
If only part of a sentence is enclosed in parentheses (like this), place punctuation outside the parentheses.
The little girl loved being outside (especially in the summer), she really enjoyed the warm sun and the sound of the birds in the trees (it was her little secret).
For all your future writing project needs, always take the time to read through your finished piece a few times as well as ask someone else to proofread for you as a second pair of eyes can make all the difference!
Check out these sites and bookmark them for your future reference; these are great tools to use daily as a great checking tool for all your grammar and grammar rule needs. Go forth and write!
Grammar Girl: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
The Purdue Owl: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/5/
Grammar Bytes!: http://www.chompchomp.com/menu.htm
The Internet marketing and social media world continues to change rapidly. In fact, communications in general is ever-evolving. That’s why it’s so important for us to continue our education. Part of that is participating in trade organizations like FPRA, going to seminars like Social Fresh, and also formal education.
Today, we’d like to announce some very special news of this genre… Alex Fernandez, Social Media Strategist at PTE has earned is Internet Marketing Masters degree!
We’ve always thought pretty highly of him, but now Alex is well versed in the advanced academic studies of Internet marketing, search engine optimization, e-commerce, and the psychology of the online consumer. His studies included key areas such as online brand development and consumer behavior / analysis, website usability testing, social and mobile marketing, website conversion optimization, search engine marketing strategy, Internet public relations and more.
“I wanted to obtain a competitive edge in my niche area of social media marketing,” Alex commented, “and the most ‘current’ education possible, considering that the online environment is ever-changing, coupled with my work at Pushing the Envelope, I’ve gained that.”
Alex helps clients communicate effectively through social media and other online platforms by developing fully integrated marketing strategies that enhance a brand’s presence. He has led both regional and national internet marketing campaigns in several industries, including travel, tourism, healthcare, hospitality, education, technology, and more.
If you’d like to pick his brain or learn about how we might be able to help your Internet marketing or social media efforts, contact Alex at alex(at)getpushing.com or (239) 221-2858. He likes high fives, pats on the backs and plus 1s on Google too!
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