Where is your phone on your desk?

Mine used to sit on the right because I am right handed, making it easy for me to answer the phone with my right hand, which seemed perfectly rational and was completely instinctive. Of course, when I need to make a note, I waste a few seconds shifting the phone to my other hand so that I could reach for a pencil.

A few weeks ago someone pointed out this seemingly innocuous waste of time. It seems innocuous because it is just a few seconds, but it disrupts the flow of the conversation and potentially derails the speaker’s train of thought. Of course, if it’s just a phone number, that’s no big deal. If they’re wanting you to copy down some thoughts, though, those few seconds become a major disruption.

The answer? Move your phone to your off-hand. If your right handed, move it to the left side of your desk. If your left handed, move it to the right side of your desk. You’ll find reaching for that pencil or keyboard is much easier.

Another phone tip: get a hands free headset so you can talk and write (or type) at the same time with ease while still keeping the conversation private—as opposed to a speaker phone, which also frees up your hands, but blasts the phone conversation for all to hear.

I know some of you are thinking “well, duh!” to both of these tips. What can I say? I’m a slow leaner.

Okay, now this looks useful.

If you’re doing something that requires a lot of attention, stop doing it thirty minutes before it’s time to leave. You can go as much as fifteen minutes, but you’re pushing it. Best to stop at thirty. You spend the remaining 15-30 minutes conducting your daily review, processing your inbox, or completing some of your nagging to do’s.

So, the 19 minute daily cleanup Merlin talked about yesterday sounds good and all, but it’s still 19 minutes. If that sounds like a lot of time to spend cleaning—and it does to me—try cleaning just for 30 seconds. That is, take 30 seconds to clean or straighten before you leave for work, head to lunch, or head home.

Any time you’re walking out a door, stop, look around, and take something that’s out of place and put it in its place. Shelve that book. File that folder. Put that cup in the sink. All little things that add up over time.

Now, if you can’t even find thirty seconds, there’s probably not much help for you at all.

Lesson learned from a Time Management seminar given by Mike Collins. Will probably be seeing more from the seminar posted here in the coming weeks.

“It only takes once” has become something of a mantra. It’s seemingly a simple phrase: it only takes once. But, the phrase holds two truths:

• The first truth: you only get one chance to do it right; that chance is right now. At it’s core, the first truth is simple: always do your best.
• The second truth: it only takes one “yes”. One great idea. One. Keep trying. A rejection or failure means that you’re one step closer to success.

It’s a simple saying that holds two truths that I occassionally need to remember. You might find it useful, too.

I have a confession to make: I eat cereal. You might think I should have grown out of this, but I haven’t. In fact, it’s one of those early morning rituals I look forward to. This ritual invariably begins by me looking for the one open box of cereal by rifling through all of the unopened boxes of cereal—and this, even though the open box is always on the right side of the shelf. (I blame it on my early morning grogginess.)

Yesterday, my wife, brilliant woman that she is, turned the unopened boxes on their side, so that the unopened flap faced the cabinet door, which means no more rifling through unopened boxes of cereal. Like I said, she’s brilliant.

John Mayer had some good advice for travellers in the latest issue (May 2005) of Esquire:

On the road and lost a cellphone or PDA charger? Ask the front desk if you can rifle through the gargantuan box of chargers they keep in the lost and found.

So, you’re at the office. You’ve just finished your lunch, and you still have half a salad that would make an excellent supper—if only there was a way you could remember to pull the salad out of the refridgerator before you left work. If only.

A clever person would put his car keys in the refridgerator with the salad. That way, he can’t leave the office without his leftovers. That’s what a clever person at the office did yesterday. Of course, he had to answer: “Do you know whose keys these are in the fridge?” several times. But his salad did make it home with him.

If you do use this technique, just make sure you don’t get locked out of the building before remembering that your keys are in the fridge with the salad.

So, seemingly, one of the problems with using multiple user accounts to separate work and play is that you might have some data that you want to share between the two accounts, but which should actually be stored in someone’s “My Documents” folder. Take music, for instance. I listen to my music at work and at home, so where should it go? Under my work account or under my home account?

As it turns out, you can have the data appear in both places by placing it in

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\My Documents

So, my music placed in

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\My Documents\My Music

will magically appear in both my work and my home accounts’ “My Music” directories. In fact, anything placed in the “All Users” directory in this fashion will work this way.

Like most things I think, say, or do: this isn’t earth shattering. But it has certainly made things a bit easier for me. And, of course, this technique assumes that you haven’t by-passed the entire “My Documents” paradigm. For example, on my desktop I’ve setup a separate drive to store my data.

Here’s an interesting tip for those who use the same computer for work and personal use: create different accounts for personal use and another for work.

I use a laptop that my employer bought. It’s been an amazing convenience—and has contributed to the huge increase in productivity I’ve seen in the past couple of months. (Getting Things Done by David Allen has also been a significant factor.) I’ve always hated, though, that email from work often interrupted my play. Even if Outlook was closed, there was always the temptation to open it and check my mail.

Having separate accounts ensures that I’m not going to be tempted to check mail over the weekend. And, if I absolutely, positively wanted to check my email, I can log into my work account.