Most people see email as a strictly transactional tool, using it only when they need something or owe someone something. That’s exactly why you should use it to stand out.

People love to feel appreciated. Instead of worrying about all the things you need to do in the morning, take a moment to thank someone for what they do for you. “Thanks for all your support during that last big project” or “I’m so glad we get to work together. Thanks for being my sounding board” is all you need to say to make an impact.

An Email Saying "Thank You

The fastest way to get what you want is to get to know the people who <a href="https://forge.medium.com/the-power-of-doing-the-right-things-consistently-1e7430bc0efb">already have it </a>. Send a message to someone a step or two further ahead in their career and let them know how their work has impacted you. I like to <a href="https://forge.medium.com/how-to-get-on-the-radar-of-people-you-admire-5f6646a65c45">use the formula </a>: “Thanks to your work doing X, I’ve been able to accomplish Y.”

An Email To someone you admire

There’s something magical about someone you don’t know very well showing interest in you. Often, it’s even more validating than when a friend encourages you, because they really don’t have to do it. One sentence can impact someone for a lifetime. Neill taught me to always <a href="https://michael-thompson.medium.com/to-add-meaning-to-your-career-be-a-name-dropper-1d60514b2c85">lift as you climb </a>.

An Email Lifting sometime

Reach out to someone you recently met during a training session or through a mutual friend. See if they’re up for a chat. We all need more eyes looking out for us.

An Email to someone you just met

It’s harder to network with new people, so why not use your energy to check in on the people you used to work with? It’s a good way to learn about what’s going on in your industry.

An Email to an Old Co-Worker

Save your boss from having to make rounds before the weekend. Tell them what you’ve got going on: “Here’s where we stand regarding W, X, Y so far this week. I’m focusing on Z tomorrow. But if there’s something that needs to be pushed, let me know.” It will help you understand your priorities and show that you’re organized.

A Thursday afternoon email to your blood

When I talked to <a href="https://medium.com/u/1ceb119b8919?source=post_page-----2358f8451ef9-----------------------------------">Melody Wilding, LMSW </a>, the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Yourself-Overthinking-Channel-Emotions/dp/1797201964">Trust Yourself </a>, she suggested I send myself a Friday afternoon message with a run-down of the week. Try it: Write down your wins, a few things you learned, and any idea that made your week a successful one. It’s a simple exercise, but it really helps you <a href="https://forge.medium.com/you-still-need-an-after-work-routine-when-working-from-home-9850c1e3ccc7">transition out of work mode </a>and realize that what you’ve done is enough.

A Friday Afternoon email to yourself

Networking is something we often struggle with. Here's a few ideas I read that helped me a lot in reaching out. 

Most people see email as a strictly transactional tool, using it only when they need something or owe someone something. That’s exactly why you should use it to stand out. Taking a moment to send…

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

communication

Communication

timemanagement

Time Management

The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career

Before you start working toward improving your mental focus, you might want to begin by assessing just how strong your mental focus is at the present moment.<ul><li>You find it easy to stay alert</li><li>You set goals and break tasks up into smaller parts</li><li>You take short breaks, then get back to work</li></ul>Second set of statements: <ul><li>You daydream regularly</li><li>You can't tune out distractions</li><li>You lose track of your progress</li></ul>

Assess Your Mental Focus 

If the first set of statements seems more your style, then you probably already have fairly good concentration skills, but you could be even stronger with a little practice.If you identify more with the second set of statements, then you probably need to work on your mental focus quite a bit. It might take some time, but practicing some good habits and being mindful of your distractibility can help.

Is It Good Or Bad? 

While it may sound obvious, people often underestimate just how many distractions prevent them from concentrating on the task at hand. One way to deal with this is to seek out a calm location where you know you will be able to work undisturbed. The library, a private room in your house, or even a quiet coffee shop might all be good spots to try.A few strategies you might want to try to minimize or eliminate such internal distractions are to make sure you are well-rested prior to the task and to use <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-positive-thinking-2794772">positive thoughts </a>and imagery to fight off anxiety and worry.

1. Eliminate Distractions

While <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/multitasking-2795003">multitasking </a>may seem like a great way to get a lot done quickly, it turns out that people are actually rather bad at it. Juggling multiple tasks at once can dramatically cut down on productivity and makes it much harder to hone in on the details that are truly important.Think of your <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-attention-2795009">attention </a>as a spotlight. If you shine that spotlight on one particular area, you can see things very clearly. If you were to try to spread that same amount of light across a large dark room, you might instead only glimpse the shadowy outlines.Try to give your full attention to one thing at a time.

2. Limit Your Focus 

You have probably heard people talk about the importance of "<a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/use-this-simple-brain-hack-to-finally-stop-worrying-2337510">being present </a>." It's all about putting away distractions, whether they are physical (your mobile phone) or psychological (your anxieties) and being fully mentally engaged in the current moment.It may take some time but work on learning to truly live in the moment. You cannot change the past and the future has not happened yet, but what you do today can help you avoid repeating past mistakes and pave a path for a more successful future.

3. Live In The Moment

Mindfulness is a hot topic right now, and for good reason. Despite the fact that people have practiced forms of mindfulness meditation for thousands of years, its many <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/mindfulness-the-health-and-stress-relief-benefits-3145189">health benefits </a>are only recently starting to be understood.Practicing mindfulness can involve learning how to meditate, but it can also be as simple as trying a quick and easy <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-reduce-stress-with-breathing-exercises-3144508">deep breathing exercise </a>.

4. Practice Mindfulness

Start by taking several deep breaths while really focusing on each and every breath. When you feel your mind naturally begin to wander, gently and uncritically guide your focus back to your deep breathing.While this might seem like a deceptively simple task, you may find that it is actually much more difficult than it appears. Fortunately, this breathing activity is something you can do anywhere and anytime. Eventually, you will probably find that it becomes easier to disengage from intrusive thoughts and return your focus to where it belongs.

5. Quick Tip To Regain Focus 

Shift your attention to something unrelated to the task at hand, even if it is only for a few moments. These short moments of respite might mean that you are able to keep your mental focus sharp and your performance high when you really need it.

6. Take Short Breaks 

Building your mental focus is not something that will happen overnight. Even professional athletes require plenty of time and practice in order to strengthen their concentration skills.One of the first steps is to recognize the impact that being distracted is having on your life. If you are struggling to accomplish your goals and find yourself getting sidetracked by unimportant details, it is time to start placing <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/how-the-glorification-of-busyness-impacts-our-well-being-4175360">a higher value on your time </a>.By building your mental focus, you are able to accomplish more and concentrate on the things in life that truly bring you success, joy, and satisfaction.

7. Keep Practicing

Get helpful tips on what you can do to improve your mental focus so you can achieve your goals that much faster.

productivity

Productivity

mindfulness

Mindfulness

health

Health

7 Useful Tips for Improving Your Mental Focus

Many of the time-management techniques that have been used for decades are not going to work in this setting. We need a way to prioritize and triage, not to categorize and identify every to-do.
Instead of worrying about each item on your to-do lists, ask yourself this simple question: *“What three activities must I complete today to make this day feel successful?” These items are very different from your to-do lists. A standard to-do listing is a comprehensive list of all activities we should complete. It is impossible to finish 30-50 tasks in one workday.

Time Marches On

66% of people check email daily, but only 34% plan their day. It is common to reach for your phone at night and check messages. People are more productive if they don’t check their messages but instead make a plan for the day and grab a cup of coffee. This research shows that checking your email first thing in the morning increases your chances of wasting over half of your work time.
This simple technique is so effective because it forces you to create a plan for your day. As a result, you are taking charge of your priorities and exercising proactive control over your day.

Time Or Timely

You can take control of your day by setting a plan and not responding to emails. This will dramatically increase your sense of well-being.
This technique will also force you to be more proactive in your mental state. Instead of waiting for others to set your priorities, this technique allows you to get in front of them and decide where you should spend your time. High achievers are distinguished by their proactivity. If you are passively waiting for direction, it is almost inevitable that you will feel more overwhelmed and frazzled.

Staying In Control

The Time/Work paradigm is broken. The Pandemic turned time management into a whole new ball game. Without insight and courage, time is a foe. Time marches on &#8212; do you?  ...

habits

Habits

A Time Management Hack to Beat Pandemic Blues

“It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” British naval historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote that opening line for an essay in The Economist in 1955, but the concept known as ‘Parkinson’s Law’ still lives on today.In his somewhat satirical essay Parkinson uses the example of an elderly lady writing a postcard to her niece. Since she has nothing else to do with her time, the otherwise simple task takes up her entire day.

Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law’ took on a life of its own, forming the basis of several more essays and a book by Parkinson, leading to public lectures around the world. But what fewer people know is that Parkinson’s original intent was not to take aim at old lady letter-writers, but at a different kind of inefficiency – the bureaucratization of the British Civil Service.

Bureaucratization

In his original essay he pointed out that although the number of navy ships decreased by two thirds, and personnel by a third, between 1914 and 1928, the number of bureaucrats had still ballooned by almost 6% a year. There were fewer people and less work to manage – but management was still expanding, and Parkinson argued that this was due to factors that were independent of naval operational needs.

The Paradox Of Bureaucracy

One scholar who has taken a serious look at Parkinson’s Law is Stefan Thurner, a professor in Science of Complex Systems at the Medical University of Vienna. Thurner says he became interested in the concept when the faculty of medicine at the University of Vienna split into its own independent university in 2004. Within a couple years, he says, the Medical University of Vienna went from being run by 15 people to 100, while the number of scientists stayed about the same. Thurner wanted to understand why his bureaucratic burden did not diminish – on the contrary it increased.

From Parkinson To Stefan Thurner, Peter Klimek And Rudolf Hanel

Thurner happened to read Parkinson’s book around the same time and was inspired to turn it into a mathematical model that could be manipulated and tested, along with co-authors Peter Klimek and Rudolf Hanel. “Parkinson argued that if you have 6% growth rate of any administrative body, then sooner or later any company will die. They will have all their workforce in bureaucracy and none in production.” https://arxiv.org/pdf/0808.1684.pdf

“Parkinson’s Law Quantified”

Parkinson pointed to two critical elements that lead to bureaucratization – what he called the law of multiplication of subordinates, the tendency of managers to hire two or more subordinates to report to them so that neither is in direct competition with the manager themself; and the fact that bureaucrats create work for other bureaucrats.

The 2 Critical Elements That Lead To Bureaucratization

Thurner says that companies typically start with a flat hierarchy, perhaps two engineers. As the company grows, they hire assistants, who then get promoted and hire their own subordinates. “A pyramid starts to grow. One might add artificial layers that serve no purpose other than introducing hierarchy, that help you to promote people to please them and keep them motivated. When the pyramid gets very large and expensive it might eat up all the company’s profits. If the bureaucratic body is not drastically reduced at this stage the company will die.”

A People-Pleasing But Company-Killing Pyramid Of Hierarchy

Thurner also looked at inefficiencies in Parkinson’s original context: governments. In another <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2202">study</a>, he and his colleagues examined cabinet sizes of nearly 200 countries. They found that cabinet size was negatively correlated with government effectiveness; political stability; <a href="https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/voice-and-accountability-percentile-rank">voice and accountability as measured by the World Bank </a><a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi">; and life expectancy, knowledge and standard of living as measured by the United Nations</a>.

Another Law - Cabinet Size And Governmental Efficiency

To test how the size of a group affects its ability to make decisions, they created a model based on information flow networks and found that a significant change occurred when groups hit 20. “We found a realistic linking pattern of people and gave artificial committees random initial opinions on subjects,” he says. “At 20 you see a strong difference in coalition building. Smaller groups form and they block each other, which explains why it is exceedingly hard to come up with unanimous decisions when cabinets are large.”

The Coefficient Of Inefficiency: Number 20

So if the wider points Parkinson was making about bureaucracies still stand up today, what of his enduring first line? Today, while some researchers might chuckle at the mention of the ‘law’ that has come to mean so much more than its original intent, there’s also no doubt they know what it is referring to. Is there some truth to the notion that without strict time constraints, we waste time and our work takes longer to complete?

From Bureaucratization To Procrastination

Studies in the decades since Parkinson wrote his essay have shown it has some merit. In the 1960s, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022103167900297">researchers showed </a>that when subjects were “accidentally” given extra time to complete a task, the task took longer to complete. In another set of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11189704_Timeless_demonstrations_of_Parkinson's_first_law">studies from 1999</a>, subjects were asked to evaluate four sets of photos. When they were told the fourth set was cancelled, they spent more time “dallying” on the third, rather than just finishing the task more quickly.

Parkinson’s Law Is In Fact Supported By Studies

So, should we be imposing tougher time constraints to improve our productivity?Humans have a limited capacity for memory, attention and fatigue – or mental bandwidth, according to Eldar Shafir, a professor at Princeton and co-author of Scarcity, a book that looks at the psychology of having less than we need and how it drives our behaviours. “Because our attentional capacity is limited, we divide it sporadically any way we can as we run through everyday life,” he says. But sometimes, of necessity, we need to knuckle down.

Procrastination, Productivity And Mental Bandwidth

In Scarcity, Shafir and co-author Sendhil Mullainathan talk about focusing deeply on a project at the cost of other things. “When you have a deadline it’s like a storm ahead of you or having a truck around the corner. It’s menacing and it’s approaching, so you focus heavily on the task.” And you may well pull off a great job, but the problem is that everything else gets moved to the periphery. “If you’re focusing so heavily on a big project you may at the same time forget to, say, pick up your kid from school. That may be the price you pay for the success you’re achieving with your focus.”

The Price You Pay For The Success You’re Achieving

“People like to say if it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would get done. But research shows people’s productivity is not linear,” says Elizabeth Tenney, an assistant professor at the University of Utah’s Eccles School of Business who has <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1534-0856(2012)0000015015/full/html">written </a>about time pressure and productivity. “When people sit down to do a task, they’ll put in a lot of effort initially. At some point there’s going to be diminishing returns on extra effort. To optimise productivity, you need to maximise benefits and minimise costs and find that inflection point, which is where you should start to wrap up.”

Productivity Is Not Linear

So what about Parkinson’s hypothetical little old lady writing letters? If she had given herself a tighter deadline, she would’ve probably finished more quickly. But with nothing else to do all day, she finished just in time.

Inefficiency Is Relative

A British historian famously wrote that work expands to fill available time – but what was he actually saying about inefficiency?

problemsolving

Problem Solving

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

The ‘Law’ That Explains Why We Can’t Get Anything Done

The basic idea is to firewall processing as a discrete phase you go through no more than every hour or two at the most. For God’s sake, don’t live in your Inbox if there’s any way you can avoid it.

How I process my email Inbox

Processing determines as quickly as possible what, if anything, to do with each piece (in ascending order of urgency and importance):<ul><li>delete it</li><li>archive it</li><li>defer it for (a) later response</li><li>generate an action from it</li><li>respond to it immediately (if it—literally—will take less than 2 minutes or is so Earth-shattering that it just can’t wait)</li></ul>

Processing

Then as often as time allows, I return to the response and action folders and crank through as many replies and complete (or generate) as many todos as I can—usually in 5-email sprints.The critical point, as ever, is to focus on action and not on the administration and housekeeping. If the action is just a response, respond. If it requires more than a return email, either do it or get it in your “next actions” and keep moving.

Focus on action

“You have to remember you’re in the business of making sandwiches—not deciding the prettiest way to stack the customers’ orders.”

An email auto-check set for every minute means 60 potential distractions every hour, or almost 500 per day. Look back at a week of your emails and ask yourself: how many distractions was that really worth? How much crucial, instantly actionable email did I receive to make it worth shifting my attention over 2000 times?

Shifting attention

Follow-up to the email productivity post. Short overview of how I process my inbox. read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;

teamwork

Teamwork

Quick tips on processing your email inbox

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. - Alice Morse Earle

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. - Alice Morse Earle - Quotespedia.org

In a time not so long ago or far away, eating family dinner, connecting with your spouse after tucking the children into bed or talking with your children in the in-between times like the ride to school was just routine.
But times have changed. Our growing cultural mindset is that we’re too busy to connect with those closest to us, even though we collectively want to. Parents and children alike increasingly invest their downtime in phones and on social media and there’s a general sense that there’s always more. More to read, more to reply to and more to see.

Family Time

Because of this pressure to always consume more, it can feel wasteful to slow down to appreciate the people in front of us, for fear of missing out on life happening elsewhere.
Although it’s true that we can always consume more information, it’s not true that slowing down and taking time to connect — particularly face-to-face — is a waste of time.

Appreciating Those We Are With

Making time for social connections can reduce the chances of depression and anxiety caused by loneliness. And those connections can have broader benefits as well.here are a few simple ways to integrate face-to-face interaction into your family’s lifestyle.

Face To Face Interaction

Eating together as a family requires intentional effort, but most families can manage it at least a few times through the week. The intention, however, starts at the top.
You may want to reassess the timing of extracurricular activities to see if you can align your schedules to allow everyone to have a seat at the table.

Eating Together

To get the full benefit of those meals, keep away the phones and turn off the TV. You may want to have a basket for everyone to put their phones in, on silent, before the meal starts. 
The goal is to not just eat but to get a sense of what’s going on in everyone’s lives, and to get the gist of their emotional state.

No Phones Policy

Another important opportunity to reconnect with each other is winding down together before bed. You probably know that using electronic devices in the hour before bed makes it harder to fall and stay asleep. So you can improve your physical health and the health of your relationships by using that time to connect with your spouse instead.
It’s a good idea to set your phone to “do not disturb” mode so you rest peacefully. This tech-free before sleep ritual gives you the opportunity to pay attention to your spouse and to stay emotionally attuned to how he or she is feeling.

Wind down together

The best opportunity for face-to-face, meaningful connection is to invite your family members into whatever you’re already doing. 
Ask your kids to help you cook. Invite your spouse to walk the dog with you, and turn it into an evening ritual. Or suggest they join you on that evening errand to the Supermarket. Connection develops and strengthens in the little day-to-day moments.

Live life together

We get it, we’re all busy. But real, meaningful relationships thrive when they’re face-to-face. Here’s how to make time for them.

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

How to Make Time With Family and Loved Ones Count

<ul><li class="ql-align-center">Abstract goals.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Outcomes that are far in the future.</li><li class="ql-align-center">A disconnect from our future self.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Feeling overwhelmed.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Anxiety.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Task aversion.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Perfectionism.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Fear of evaluation or negative feedback.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Fear of failure.</li><li class="ql-align-center">A perceived lack of control.</li><li class="ql-align-center">ADHD.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Depression.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Lack of motivation.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Lack of energy.</li><li class="ql-align-center">Sensation seeking.</li></ul>

Reasons For

Understanding why others procrastinate can help you figure out why you procrastinate. Sometimes figuring out other's issues make ours clearer and help us figure out how to overcome whatever is holding us back.

Understanding Procrastination

<ol><li>Establish clear, precise goals based in actuality.</li><li>Identify the when, how, and why of past procrastination to get a clearer picture of why you put things off.</li><li>Create a plan of action with anti-procrastination techniques.</li><li>Put plan of action into effect. Monitor progress as well as which techniques are working and others you could try.</li></ol>

Overcoming Procrastination

<ul><li>Prioritize tasks.</li><li>Break large, overwhelming tasks into small, actionable parts.</li><li>Remove distractions.</li><li>Set small deadlines throughout the project's progress.</li><li>Reward yourself as you go.</li><li>Visualize yourself experiencing the outcome of your work.</li><li>Believe in yourself and that you can stop procrastinating.</li></ul>

Anti-procrastination Techniques

Understanding why people procrastinate is beneficial, since it can help you figure out why you yourself procrastinate, which in turn can help you figure out how to solve your procrastination problem. To learn more about this, and to understand how you can implement this knowledge in practice, read the follow-up guide on <a href="https://solvingprocrastination.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating/">how to stop procrastinating</a>.

Understanding And More Information

I am a queen at putting things off until the last minute! This article is full of great information on breaking procrastination!

Learn why you procrastinate, so you can understand what you need to do in order to change.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

The Psychology and Causes of Procrastination – Solving Procrastination

Hustle culture may be toxic, but the way the world functions is on productivity. Productivity determines your success, both financial and personal, in a world like ours. But where do you cross the line? Where do you decide that overworking beyond this point will lead to problem? What you might need is focus. Focusing on your work while at work and on your home when at home will make life easier.

5 Books To Make You Focused In Life

Here’s a list of 5 books to make you focused in life. These books will boost your focus, your productivity, professionally and personally.

5 Books To Make You Focused In Life - GoBookMart

Whether it’s the weekend or an upcoming holiday break, a number of studies have shown that people who set personal goals to achieve during their time off — such as seeing friends, pursuing a hobby, or even organizing a closet — report being happier than those who don’t.
The reason this works is that it makes us more intentional about how we will spend our time away from work and not because it allows us to cross things off from yet another to-do list.

Intentional Time Spent Is Better

Employees who have holiday goals further anticipate allocating 24% less time to passive leisure activities such as watching TV, napping, or doing nothing, and 28% more time to socializing with their friends and family. 
These differences in how we plan to spend our time off matter for our well-being: Studies show that planning to spend more time with loved ones is associated with greater happiness. This is in line with one of the most consistent finding in time-use and well-being <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21678165/">research</a> on the unique benefits of social connection.

Time Well Spent

Similar to holidays, people who have goals for their weekends are also more likely to spend their weekends pursuing social activities and less likely to spend their weekends resting or doing nothing. And spending one’s weekend engaging in social activities may in turn lead to greater happiness.
The positive effects of setting goals aren’t just limited to weekends and holidays, but can actually be tapped into on a daily basis — setting goals for how we spend our evenings can even be beneficial.

Have A Goal For The Weekend

While setting goals for our time-off is important, that doesn’t mean we should treat those goals like a to-do list. We should be flexible.
<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1509/jmr.14.0591?casa_token=3co9CjhhIb0AAAAA:kwErL-umQy0EvU8M7FjR4mtCaORg0mJUvCYqac6Q12rHahDHjLFkLooCZ1Zm-EnRQaSg-_VCzus">Research</a> by Gabriela Tonietto and Selin Malkoc showed that scheduling leisure activities can undermine the enjoyment people experience from such activities in part because leisure starts to feel like work. These authors found that when people scheduled leisure activities loosely, they were still able to maintain the enjoyment of leisure time.

Flexible, Fun Goals

Research suggests that setting (loose) goals can help you recharge more effectively.

career

Career

Be Intentional About How You Spend Your Time Off

Find 100+ Tips for Time Management - Curated from inspiring sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!