by Joseph Wardy

Created on: November 16, 2009   Last Updated: November 17, 2009

Doing work is not always the most productive way to be effective and successful. Here are four things to do at work besides work:

1) Plan. Consider the following story. Two men are cutting wood. One takes a break every hour and the other works straight through. At the end of the day, the worker who took a break had a higher pile of wood. The other coworker was exasperated and said, " Look, you took a break every hour and I worked hard straight through yet your pile is higher than mine. Why? The other worker responded, " When I took my break Iwas sharpening my axe. Planning is sharpening our axe. Planning is firstwriting what work we will do. Doing that alone insures we will be busy. Now, we must prioritize what is most important in order to keep the axe sharp. Please do not confuse this task with analysis paralysis as the planning process should take no more than 1 percent of our day, or fifteen minutes.

2) Socialize. Here, I don't mean become a social butterfly and waste time. No, here take another fifteen minutes of your day and say hello and exchange pleasantries with coworkers and customers. Get to know your colleagues and customers so you can genuinely ask about how their project is going, how well they are doing in golf and get updates on theirpersonal life. The process here is to build bridges that will come in handy when you there help in the future. Can you possibly get help from people you haven't connected with? Suggestion: Work on less ego by being interested in your colleagues rather than trying to be interesting to them. Consider the followingquote: " Don;' worry about what people are thinking about you because they are not thinking about you".

3) Network. A consultant once said, " A network saves legwork". The process of networking is to take the time toi get to know people and then do the little things every day to show what you know and care about them. Examples: Find coworker and customer's birthdays and anniversaries and send them cards with a handwritten message. Discover what interests them and find to levant information share with them by emailing or mailing. Offer to be of help to them in areas of your expertise and don't do it just to get credit. Suggestion: utilize fifteen minutes to connect daily.

The three suggestion total 45 minutes a day which may be the amount of time spent unproductively. Hopefully, one of these three suggestions can work for you!

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