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Why Time Management Makes for a Better Employee Time management is a major issue in the workplace. When time is not utilized efficiently, it leads to sloppy work, missed deadlines, and way too much stress. Employers are constantly seeking ways to teach their employees to manage their time better for a simple reason – a team that manages its time well is a team that is productive and successful. Everyone has done it. You’ve know that there is a big deadline approaching for weeks on end, and you kept telling yourself that have plenty of time. Then, suddenly, it is the day before the project is due, and you haven’t even begun it. You know you will have to pull an all-nighter, and even then you will be lucky to get everything done in time. Your heart is racing, your head is pounding, and you’re cursing your procrastination yet again, thinking about how much time you wasted surfing the next when you could have been doing a little work on the project every day, so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming. The end result of a project like this is predictable. You may get it in on time, or at least close to the deadline, but your work is likely to be sloppy. The rush job you did will be evident to everyone, and if your project involved making a pitch to a potential customer, your time management failure may end up costing your company big money (and costing you a job). As if you were not stressed enough already! If you contrast that performance with one in which you had effectively managed your time, the difference is clear. If you have worked on the project over the entire time span you had to finish it, a little bit at a time, then you would have had time to make sure your work was up to par. You wouldn’t have been scrambling for last minute information to include, and you could have made sure your work was free from little errors like typos or pages that printed incorrectly. Most importantly, you wouldn’t feel like you needed a week long vacation when the project was over, because your stress level never would have hit the roof. So, how do you become a happier and more effective employee by managing your time better? The first thing you can do to become an effective time manage is simple – write yourself a to-do list everyday. Not only does a to-do list help you think through exactly what you need to accomplish so you don’t forget anything in the rush, but it also helps you feel accountable for everything that needs to get done. If you write “spend 30 minutes on the big project” on your to-do list, it is a lot harder to come up with excuses why you can put it off for another day. Your conscience will make you want to get through everything on that list. If it seems like you never have enough time in the day, keep a journal of all of your activities. If you spend 20 minutes chatting by the coffee pot, write it down. After a week, look back over your activities. You may be surprised how much time you actually spend doing nothing. Now that you know, you can reinvest that time more wisely. The last thing is the hardest thing – getting over procrastination. This one is sheer willpower. When those voices in your head start arguing over whether to work on something now or put it off until later, listen to the work now voice. Give yourself manageable goals, like working on something for 15 minutes or 30 minutes, to get started. Once you experience the freedom from stress that time management brings, that procrastination voice will be a thing of the past.

Helpful Hints on Getting Better Respect in the Workplace Sometimes, an inhospitable work atmosphere can ruin the best job in the world. If you work in an office where people don’t respect each other and you feel undervalued and taken advantage of, then you are likely to give up and move on--no matter how much you love the work. When people work closely together, disagreements and problems are bound to arise from time to time. There are, however, ways you can get more respect in the workplace, so you don’t have to dread heading to the office every morning. As the old adage goes, you have to give respect to get respect. Are you doing everything you can to treat your co-workers with dignity and respect? Put another way, are you doing everything you can to avoid annoying everyone in the office? There are a lots of little ways you can make the day more pleasant for everyone, including showing up on time for work and for in-house meetings, not talking too loudly on the phone, keeping your personal cell phone ringtone on silent or vibrate, and cleaning up when you use the common break rooms and kitchen area. Things like spamming everyone in the office with incessant “funny” emails, sending political or religious emails (or challenging everyone on political or religious issues), or invading privacy by looking at someone else’s emails, phone messages, or mail are also not a good idea in the office setting. Then there are the big ones – you should never take credit for someone else’s work, talk behind people’s backs, lie, steal from other’s desks (even if it is just a post-it note or white-out), or have a general bad argumentative attitude. If you are doing anything of these things, trying to correct your own behavior is the first step to earning a little more respect in the workplace. What happens if you are doing everything you can and you still aren’t getting the respect you feel you deserve in the office? How you handle things may partly depend on who is showing you the disrespect. Are your subordinates treating you like you’re not the boss? In this case, having a little one on one conversation might do the trick. It doesn’t have to confrontational. You can simply point out that you are getting the impression that they may be having a little trouble with your leadership style and offer them a chance to raise any problems. If they bring up a legitimate problem, then there is something you can work on to make things go smoother in the future. If they can’t point to any one thing, let them know politely, but firmly, what you will need from them going forward in terms of respect. And then, stick to it and hold them accountable for their behavior. If your boss is not respecting you, things can get a little trickier. If your boss has a bad attitude, being pulled up on it by his subordinates is probably not going to do much to improve it. Your company may have a grievance policy in place to deal with issues like this, and it is best to go down this path when dealing with a boss with a respect issue. There are some respect issues in the work place that can’t be resolved with the softly, softly approach. If you are being persecuted on the basis of your gender, your race, your disability, or your sexual preference, you have a right to demand a stop to that at once. If the abuse is coming from your co-workers, go straight to your boss. If your boss is unresponsive, or if your boss is the offender, go right over their head, and keep going until you get some satisfaction.

Beautiful Pens are Just the Beginning: Fascinating Gifts for Writers (gifts for writers) Buying gifts is a difficult project in many cases. Sometimes a person seems to already have everything. They may not enjoy the typical gift ideas that come to your mind. To buy the perfect gift, it is essential to actually know a person. A basic understanding of likes and dislikes will help, but passions will guide you to a really great gift. If you cannot come to a conclusion for what to buy for a friend, you can also consult other sources for gift ideas. Following are some ideas for buying gifts for writers. Writers are passionate people. They are passionate about words and about truth. They are also passionate about their subject matter. Is there a writer in your life? By using these guidelines, along with your knowledge about that person, you can come up with an ideal gift that they will treasure. Under Twenty Dollars As suggested by the title, a beautiful pen is almost always an inexpensive and appropriate gift for a writer. Most writers spend much of their time jotting down thoughts and ideas. As they meander through their day, an idea may strike at any time. Give them a quality instrument to facilitate great thoughts. You can also include a personalized pad of paper to hold on to the brainstorms. Another great gift for a writer is a magazine subscription. A good writer needs to keep up with the type of writing that is being published. Sometimes they need a little bit of light reading to keep their creative juices flowing. Choose the magazine based on some interest that you and your friend share. Under One Hundred Dollars If you want to spend a little bit more on gifts for writers, you can start taking your gift buying to a little bit different level. For less than one hundred dollars your options open up. Books are great gifts for writers. You can buy new books in the writer’s area of interest or expertise. He will probably always be ready to expand his own knowledge base. You can also buy reference books. Style manuals are very helpful when a writer has strict guidelines to follow. Your writing friend probably already has a pretty good dictionary, but you can buy them the best one. Thesauruses and literary guides are also interesting gifts to receive. Moving away from words for a bit, a writer would also love to receive an artifact that has to do with their main subject matter. If he is a history buff, try to find an authentic coin from the particular piece of history he finds most fascinating. Under Five Hundred Dollars At the next level of gift buying, your options start expanding into more elaborate forms of previous gifts. Very old and rare books may fall into this price range. Very old or particularly good quality antiques will also be fairly expensive. Gifts for writers also often fall into the category of electronics. Good printers make the writing all that more impressive looking on the page. Software and other hardware for the computer is also a worthwhile gift for a writer that spends most of his day sitting at his computer. A nice digital camera is also a fantastic gift for a writer that wants to remember situations exactly in order to adequately describe them later. Won’t Cost you A Dime Some of the best gifts for writers won’t cost you anything. Many of the more expensive gifts are extremely practical, but the free ones can be that also. The nature of a writing career leads writers to spend a lot of time alone. A good gift is just some company. Take your friend out for dinner with a group of mutual friends. He’ll appreciate the time away from the desk. If he’s been trying to get an interview with someone, you can put the leg work in for him and schedule it. All that will cost you is some time and effort. Not all gifts have to cost money. Good luck finding the perfect one for the writer in your life.