Everybody can stand to punch up their management skills, strategies and business productivity from some angle.

We often share a lot of business productivity tips and strategies through our blog and social media, but wanted to offer up this round from our Fulcrum Group owners and managers, engineers and support staff, to you – right here, right now:

• The “Getting Things Done” Flowchart – Our Director of Consulting Services, Robert Curtis (a US Navyman since 1999) is a structured “flowchart” kind of guy.  You may not be surprised to know he likes a plan with noted actionable items and a goal or destination for each. This one, based on the book“Getting Things Done” by David Allen, is in Robert’s line of sight and commands his attention daily.

• Password Manager – Like most small business owners and managers, Fulcrum VP David Johnson is challenged every day to utilize every drop of time between 8 and 5 (and more) as efficiently as possible. Using a password manager like Roboform or LastPass as a bookmark tool and as a way to quickly auto-fill website credentials not only helps boost password security, but saves about 15 valuable minutes each day for him.

• Triaging Tasks & Activities and Prioritizing – several great tips from Fulcrum Group President, Steve Meek on time/task management and strategizing:
  • Calendar discipline – ” I spend 30 minutes at the end/start of a week to make sure I place rocks squarely on my calendar to get to them.”
  • GPS tip – “If I am traveling offsite to a meeting, I include its address in the location field of Outlook so my phone alerts me in advance and so I can easily GPS it. I also include the contact’s phone number in the subject field, in case running late.
  • Interruptions – “I try to turn phone to silent for meetings so I don’t get interrupted and am able to focus on conversation in room. Also, I try to close Outlook when I have time-sensitive work to get done.”
  • Tagging items for followup – “Use red flags in Outlook to tag items for follow-up later. I have a lot of low priority emails but where maybe I am the only person who can answer.”
  • Helping Outlook run more efficiently for you – “I have large amounts of email that slow Outlook down. Where every IT manager will suggest I “reduce my mailbox size” I find it a struggle to do, due to email volume, and I already have various sub-folders assigned for projects. However, I have been able to speed up Outlook by organizing large numbers of email into folders. So, in addition to my main inbox, I created a folder called 2014 Inbox and moved the email from that year (that is not in other sub-folders) into it. I do the same for the SENT folder. It helps Outlook run more efficiently when you don’t have so many items in a single folder – and also when you don’t have too many in your main folders.
  • Rockefeller Habits for great management strategies – We use Rockefeller Habits management strategy including daily huddles, meeting rhythms and quarterly theme to circle the management wagons and maintain focus on a common strategy.

• The Golden Rule Mindset – a basic but too-often overlooked notion which Fulcrum Group cable infrastructure technician, Greg Spicer aims to keep in the forefront of his mind, daily:  work for others in the same manner that you would prefer others to work for you.  

• If you’re a natural gamer (and/or prefer to see your daily tasks and to-do’s displayed in a fun, visual format), like Fulcrum Group Renewals Specialist, Tyson Rasanen, you’ll totally dig HabitRPG.  HabitRPG is a video game to help you improve real life habits. It “gamifies” your life by turning all your tasks (habits, dailies, and to-dos) into little monsters you have to conquer. The better you are at this, the more you progress in the game. If you slip up in life, your character starts backsliding in the game. Making rote tasks fun – priceless!

Feel free to share some of your best productivity tips on our Facebook page – we aim to provide our clients and contact with great business advice, from a technical standpoint, or otherwise.  Let us know if something you try here makes a difference in your workplace!