Communication - Telephones & Telephone Tag

COMMUNICATION


TELEPHONES AND TELEPHONE TAG


The greatest myth of communication is the belief that it exists.

Paraphrase people’s comments to be sure you understand.

Use the echo technique : Repeat a person’s last few words as a question.

Don’t ask questions that can be answered with a yes or no. Ask open-ended questions that require a thoughtful response.

A lack of clear, complete communication is a major time-waster. It may take a little more time, but it will save for more time than it takes. In the words of an old paradox; Why is it that you never have time to do it right, but you always have time to do it over ?

Make sure your body language is consistent with your verbal message.

Restate your thoughts in several ways to help others understand better.

Keep track of the details in your requests and conversations with others.


TELEPHONES

Analyze your phone calls to determine who should answer you telephone. The higher the organization level, the greater the risk that answering your own phone, is a timewaster.

Develop a plan for screening, delegating, and consolidating calls.

Train people to answer your telephone effectively.
-. Consider what to say,
-. How to say it,
-. Which questions to ask,
-. How to refer callers,
-. And how to take complete messages.

Have your Secretary or Assistant look up answers for your return calls.

Get through the small talk as quickly as possible. Get right to the point and stay there.

Bring calls to a prompt close. Be firm, but don’t be rude.

Tell people who call you when you prefer to receive calls or when you are most likely to be in.

Smile when you are talking on the telephone. You will convey a more positive image and get better result in less time.

Stand up when you answer your telephone and you will spend less time on your calls.

Plan your calls. Have information at hand. Make an agenda. Organize yourself before you call. Be prepared to talk. Unplanned calls take 57 percent more time.

Group outgoing calls for greater efficiency.

Tell long-winded callers that you have another call, appointment, or emergency. As a last resort, to get rid of long-winded callers, hang up …. while you are talking.

Schedule conference calls.

Record your telephone conversations. Listen to yourself and look for ways to improve.

Realize that an increasing number of people don’t return calls to anyone. Go ahead and leave a message, but don’t expect to return call. Call again.

If you’re on the phone constantly, try using a lightweight telephone headset. Advantages: hands free, no neck pain, easy to take notes, easy to move around, no echo for the caller.

Don’t pick up someone else’s phone just to be a nice guy.

About half of all business calls convey one-way information. Use fax or E-mails instead.

Use the speaker phone when you’re on hold so you can do other things while waiting. But pick up the receiver as soon as the other person comes on the line.


TELEPHONE TAG

Telephone tag can’t be eliminated, but it can be minimized.

Ask people you call frequently when they prefer to receive calls or when they are most likely to be in. Call at those times whenever possible.

Rather than leaving a message, you may want to call again.

If you must leave a message, make sure it is very complete. The better the message, the better your chances of getting a callback and response.

To get through more often, call in the early morning, call after hours, call during lunch, ask the secretary for a direct number, and ask about preferred call time.

URGENCY – VALUE

Urgency

Sometimes urgent things are important; sometimes they aren’t

When something is urgent, take a little time to think it through. Well-though-out solutions are usually better than impulsive ones.

Spend your time with the people who are most important to you.

Before you respond, consider the worst than can happen. You are less likely to react emotionally and more likely to respond sensibly.

Urgent and important are not the same thing. See the Priority section.

Most people respond to urgent items far faster than important items. To make important things seem more urgent, set deadlines for them and schedule the activities.

Make time to take care of the important issues, even if they are not urgent.


Value

Calculate the cost of your time in dollars.

Calculate the cost of your time per minute. It is probably higher than you realize. Be sure to include salary, bonuses, commissions, fringe benefits, expenses, and overhead.

Sometimes it is easier to decide whether or not to do a task if you think of the dollars involved rather than the time involved. Using your personal time-cost per minute, translate the time into dollars. Where as you may be prone to excuse something because it only takes a few minutes, you may think differently when you see what it costs.

Calculate the cost of preparing and distributing all reports. Ask if they are worth what they cost.

Calculate the cost of meetings. Ask if the results are worth what they cost.

Calculate the money cost for any activity, not just the time involved. Many people find it easier to make decisions based on money than on time. Either way, it helps you decide what is really important and worth doing.

Time Management - Analyzing and Priorities

Time Management – Analyzing and Priorities

Analyzing

The key to managing time well is too make sure your activities are consistent with you goals. That they will help you achieve your intended results. Everything you do either helps you or hinders you.

Good time management is a systematic way of thinking and working. It requires that you constantly analyze what you are doing and look for ways to improve.

Keep a record of how you really spend your time from2 to 4 weeks every year. A month is usually best. The first three days are tough; after that it becomes part of your daily routine.

Ask questions to help analyze your time, i.e. :

-. What problems do you see ?

-. What habits, patterns, or tendencies so you see ?

-. Was the first hour of the day productive ?

-. What was the most productive time of the day ?


Priorities

Think carefully about what priorities mean to you, about how you decide what is really important. Remember, you will never have enough time for everything, but you will always have time for the most important things.

Most people start with the quick, easy, or enjoyable tasks. Instead start with the most important tasks.

Important activities are those which help you achieve your goals

Learn to distinguish between important and urgent. Any activity falls into one of four categories :

-. Important And Urgent
-. Important But Not Urgent
-. Urgent But Not Important
-. Neither Important Nor Urgent

Just because something is urgent does not mean it is important.

Don’t ignore activities what are important but not urgent. If you do, they will escalate to become urgent and important, and you will have another crisis on your hands.

Identify the importance and urgency of issues that you plan to tackle each day.

Don’t always do someone else’s requests at the expense of your own top-priority tasks. Learn to say no. Do it logically, firmly and tactfully.

If you have any of the following common priority habits, change your ways immediately, i.e. :

-. Doing what you like to do before you do what you don’t like to do

-. Doing easy job before hard jobs

-. Doing quick tasks before time-consuming tasks

-. Doing urgent things before important things

-. Doing small jobs before large jobs

Personal priorities can sometimes conflict with work priorities. Be sure you know how to tell them apart.

Realize that despite what you say is important to you, what you do reflect your true choices and priorities.

Time Management

In order to do work, we all need time. Many people who have high work demands think they have to work harder and longer. Therefore they spend a lot of their time and energy in their work and ignore their other needs. They become rushed, pressed for time and always have many things they want to do but cannot. Symptoms of people who are pressured by time are :

-. They look busy
-. They become irritable
-. They become critical of others
-. They look for excuses for what is happening

Your time is one of your most valuable resources. You have the opportunity to make it whatever you want. Take into account your personal needs and start controlling your time instead of letting it control of you.

Here are some general guide lines which should help you manage your time efficiently :

-. Set up a fixed daily routine. Schedule your definite times for definite matters.

-. Do the things that require maximum brain capacity when you are at your best.

-. When you start a piece of work, finish it. If you split it up too much, you waste time warming up each time you start again.

-. Think first, and then act. You must consider the decision making process first before you do anything.

-. Avoid time-wasters.

A time waster is a cunning enemy which creeps upon all of us quietly and unsuspectingly. It will absorb more and more of your valuable time, until you have been captured by it.

Be careful about making assumptions; perhaps you may not be true. Just like below statements that people assume they are right but actually they are false :

-. Most people are overworked, owing to nature of their jobs (false)
-. People at higher levels make better decisions (false)
-. Most people can solve their time problems by working harder (false)
-. Most of the ordinary daily activities don’t need to be planned (false)
-. Most people know how they spend their time (false)
-. Managing time does not allow for spontaneous actions (false)
-. The more urgent something is, the more important it is (false)

Your time management system should reflect your unique personality.