What is “The Bling Thing”?  Simply this – “bling” refers to that little sound that most e-mail programs make when a new message is received.  And “the bling thing” is the almost comical and highly predictable response many professionals have when they hear that “little bling sound” – they immediately drop what they are doing, give up their focus, and check their new e-mail message.

A recent study found that 25% of office professionals are checking their e-mail 20 or more times per day. That frequency can be one of the biggest productivity destroyers for a business professional.

A recent study at the University of London’s Institute of Psychiatry found those constantly checking e-mail were suffering tangible 10-point hits to their short-term I.Q.!  That’s like missing an entire night’s sleep. (Source:  Yoga Journal, ABC News)  If you feel like you are in a fog and are having a hard time focusing, perhaps it is because you are checking your e-mail too much.

I recommend you turn off sound notifications for new e-mails received.  Second, if that little Microsoft Virtual Assistant figure pops up to let you know a new message came in, right click on that little guy and select, “Do not notify me in this situation.”  Third, go into your e-mail’s Options tab, go into Mail Setup, and click on Send/Receive.  Then, change your “Auto Send/Receive” settings to something more than 5 or 10 minutes (try 90 minutes for a huge productivity gain) –

Try it for a while and comment here with how it goes.  Good luck taming that “Bling Thing”!

Guest post by: Randy Dean a popular speaker and trainer on time and e-mail management. http://www.randalldean.com

I met with Terry to assess his use of Outlook and offer suggestions to improve his use of it. We met in a conference room – presumably to project the screen so we didn't have to crowd around a smaller screen. After a while it became clear that we weren't in Terry's office because he has so many post-its on his monitor and desk that the clear slate of the conference room table was the environment he wanted to show me. Does this remind you of anyone?

A simple solution to all sorts of post-it clutter is to use the task list in Outlook. Studies show about 10% of us do use tasks in Outlook which gives 90% of users the chance to make a productivity leap by using the task list. Ah, I hear some of you saying, "Out of sight, out of mind. I need those reminders." The good news is that you can keep your task list right on your screen so it is always in sight. Additionally, you can set reminders on tasks so you don't have read, re-read, and continually re-read your post-its so you don't miss any.

Let's cover that step by step.

First is the creation of a task. The fastest way to do that is in Outlook type ctrl-shift-k. A new task window like the one below opens. (or click on File, New, Task). Complete the tasks information. In the sample you'll see a task of revamping a business card in the subject line. It's advisable to be complete and make the first 3 or 4 words the summary of the task because those are the words that show on your task list.

Step 2: Set up your task list to be open all the time.

In Outlook 2007 you can show it on the right side of every window (called the todo bar). To show it click on View, To-Do Bar and check Normal & Task List. In Outlook 2003 simply open your Task List in a new window. To open your Task List in a separate window, right click on the Task List Icon and select Open in New Window.

And finally, set reminders for things that are time-sensitive. A reminder pops on screen at the designated time – the perfrect sticky note replacement. For example, refer to the image above. There is a check in the reminder box and the date that this should be done. Another example could be to pick up your clothes at the cleaners. When you drop it off they tell you it will be ready in 4 days. Simply put a task with reminder 4 days in the future near the end of the day to remind you to pick up the dry cleaning on the way home.

Try it now and let us know how it works.

The shortcuts and quick keystrokes available on our computers could fill a book. But, who would pick up a book of shortcuts and digest more than a few at a time? Not me! You? For a while I am going to make Tuesday 'Tech Tool Tuesday' and offer some efficient shortcuts for you to try right away. Some will seem glaringly basic to you but to someone who has been doing things the way she's been doing them since she got her first computer some shortcuts will be marvelously helpful. So, skip those you know and try those you don't. Let us know how it goes!

1. When you're reading a web page, the spacebar will scroll down one page or frame.
2. When completing online forms, the spacebar will check and uncheck check-boxes.
3. To create the copyright symbol © type (c) (left paren, c, right paren, spacebar). Some versions of word and excel don't require the space.

In my quest to save trees and a bundle of my time by eliminating Junk Mail (an ongoing quest) I found a new tactic that might help you. Yes, this takes a few minutes. Yes, the payoff will go on for years!

After receiving a flyer for Team in Training from the Leukemia society I called them to stop all future mailing. The customer service rep is amazing – she was conversational and really understood my reasoning. The simple fact that she cared why beyond just checking a box on a screen was impressive.

After ensuring I would not receive future mailings I asked Helen where they got my name and address. She didn’t know but she IM’d her boss to see if he could cross-reference a code on the label to the source. He didn’t answer right away so she took my number and promised to call me back. And, she did! Clearly this is a post about great customer service too. After she called she followed-up with an email. Here is what she wrote:

—-start—-

Dear Susan,
Thank you for calling us today. Your address was supplied to us from a company called “PERFORMANCE BICYCLE CATALOG BUYERS”.

Have a great day,
Helen
LLS Support Services
SupportServices@lls.org

—-end—-

Of course I picked up the phone and called Performance to get my record marked as do not Share, sell, rent, etc. They were responsive so gave acceptable customer service.

Why didn’t I think to ask for the source cross-reference before…?! Better late than never. Hope this helps you too!

Yeah Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Do you move documents from email attachments to your folders regularly? If so, I have a streamlined operation to do this for you. As often happens, I learned something accidentally today and I love the shortcut. So here it is for you.

When you have documents to move from an email attachment to a folder there are three options.

1 – You right click on the attached document and on ’save as’ in the box that opens. Then you select the folder to store it and hit return.

2 – Some of us double click on the document, pdf or other type of attachment to open it with the related application. Then we File Save from the original program. Then we select the folder to store it and hit return. This is by far the longest route to storing attachments.

3 – You can drag and drop an attachment to a folder in an explore window. (This is the shortcut) note: This operation uses an explore window, not internet explorer.

With the email with the attached document open, open explore. The quickest way I know to open an explore window is hold down the windows key (also labeled start key on some keyboards) and tap the E key.

Left click – hold the left mouse button down – over the document(s) you want to move.

Drag and drop the document in the folder where you want to place the document.

Release the left mouse button and viola – it’s done.

The picture below shows this operation. Double click on it to see a full-screen version.

Chances are that you put a great number of your creations in just a few folders. If you’re on a Windows machine, have I got a shortcut for you! You can put those popular folders right in the ‘Look in:’ box. (I will be referring to the image below throughout this post. Double click on it to see an enlarged and readable version.) The ‘Look In:’ box is pointed to by the Red Arrow in the illustration.

Setting things up this way will speed your saving and retrieving whatever it is you put in folders – mind maps, documents, pictures, etc.

Here’s how to do it in 2007:

1. From a program type file open (alt-f o)
2. Highlight the folder you want to put in the Look In Box by clicking on it
3. Move the mouse on top of one of the current locations. In the picture that could be over My Documents.
4. Right click.
5. Select the top choice ‘add highlighted folder’
6. You’re done

In 2003 follow these steps:

1. From a program type File Open (alt-f o)
2. Highlight the folder you want to put in the Look In Box by clicking on it
3. Click on the tools drop down (labeled in pink in the illustration)
4. Click on ‘add to my places’
5. You’re done

After you add a few folders you can right click on them and move them up so the order makes the most sense to you – either alphabetic or perhaps from most frequently used to least.

Does this streamline things for you?

You’ve gotten your estate planning done and collected your documents according to Step 4. Now the question is, "Where are you going to keep all that stuff?" The key to this decision is that those documents need to be found easily. It would be considerate and helpful if you put them in a user-friendly system too. Oh, and tell a couple of trusted people where they are. A friend’s parents won’t talk about this stuff and they have two houses so it’s going to be a chore just to locate the papers. Not talking about these vital resources and documents is unnecessary and possibly troublesome.

I recommend you get a 3-ring binder for your core documents rather than put them in a nice file folder called Estate Documents. I say this based on experience – - – if the documents are secure in a binder and all in one place the Trustee can grab one thing and take care of the task at hand. (Throughout this article Trustee and Executor are used interchangeably and mean ‘that important estate person handling your wishes’). For example, the Trustee will probably have to open a new checking account for the Trust. She can simply take the binder and have whatever the banker asks to see. For example, she will have the first & last pages of the Trust Document, assignment of trustee, and the deceased social security number or the trust EIN.

In the Binder I suggest you put your core documents which include:

• Will
• Trust & Abstract of Trust
• Power of Attorney
• Health Care Directive
• Your Social Security Card
• Burial instructions
• Key Contacts
• Living Will
• Power of Attorney for Health Care
• General Letter to survivors

You can buy binders with tabs for organizing these items (Google ‘estate +organizer’). Or, simply make your own with index pages and  labels.

In a second binder put financial papers such as:

• Last year’s Year-end statements from every Money Account (savings, checking, money market, investment, stocks & bond, etc.
• Contact information for all your account representatives and holders (institutions)
• Inventory of antiques, jewelry, art, and collectables
• Balance Sheet
• List of credit cards, issuer, account number (or a recent statement from each)

The remaining documents a probably suitable for a third binder or file folders. Group things together – no need to put a prenuptial agreement and marriage license in separate folders -  put them together and call them Marriage Documents. Group your Insurance Policies in a folder called Insurance. Put real estate deeds in one folder. You get the idea.

In a folder called Estate Documents put any remaining documents. Also add a note saying where your binders are and what is in them.

There you go – you’re ready for anything now – and your survivors would thank you!

Another quick email tip today – for your subject line… NRN – No Response Needed.

We all agree that a good subject line is the best way to start an effective email. Sometime a subject line is all you need (use EOM then).

When you’re informing someone of some facts or updating a situation’s progress your can add NRN to the end of the subject line. When used regularly, meaning you’ve trained your recipients that this is what NRN means, NRN informs the reader that this is an update and they can delete or file after glancing at it. NRN is not as popular as EOM. A NRN Google search turns up some interesting links. An EOM Google search goes right to it’s definition. This is useful for emails you send to those people that seem to write "Thank You" to you for all your correspondence to them, too. It’s a polite way to break them of the habit, hopefully. Sure, thank you is the traditional way – and it wastes time in a time-strapped schedule. I’ve even heard about a "You’re Welcome" response to Thank You.

Here’s an example of an email subject line with No Response Needed incorporated:

SUBJECT: Contract with Austin Supplier will Close on Friday the 13^th – NRN

To refresh you on EOM – End Of Message. Your subject line can sometime be the entire message. So, use it in your messages and those you regularly correspond with will appreciate you helping them breeze through (yet another) email.

Here’s an example:

SUBJECT: Tonight’s dinner reservation is for 7pm – EOM

While the holiday shopping season is almost a faded memory because it’s month ago and the price of gas has you reducing all your spending the flow of catalogs has probably been reduced but not stopped. Why not stop receiving catalogs you don’t want receive and

• Save a lot of time that you would otherwise spend flipping through catalogs
• Save trees that won’t be processed into paper
• Save the environment from the waste of processing trees into paper, of fuel to propel delivery vehicles, of landfills that have to hold our waste
• Reduce your stress from feeling you have so much to do as represented by the pile of catalogs you’d like to peruse
• Eliminate the temptation to buy things that you don’t need or already have a version of?

We first addressed this issue in 2006 with the article titled simply: Stop Junk Mail. And we still feel that going directly to the DMA is the best way to remove your name from lists. I just found out it is also the best place to put a name of a deceased person on a Do Not Contact List (https://www.ims-dm.com/cgi/ddnc.php).

Another site to stop the flow of catalogs specifically is Catalog Choice. This free resource allows you to submit the names of catalogs you don’t want to receive. The benefit of this is: you continue to receive the catalogs you’re glad to read and probably purchase from while stopping those that are really clutter.

Catalog Choice is a sponsored project of the Ecology Center. It is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and funded by the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Kendeda Fund.

Sign up now and breathe a sigh of relief.

Create a non-work email. Yep, you guessed that this is written for middle-aged folks because our kids have 2, 5, or more email addresses and don’t need this advice. Too many of us are using work email for some things that we really shouldn’t. Some of you can’t believe I’m writing this because it’s so obvious to you. But, reality offers better stories than fiction – a very high level executive client of mine is literally looking for a job using his work mail. Remember that a company has the right to read, review, and act on any and every piece of email that is sent through the company system. So, this executive’s activities may be uncovered before he has his next position resulting in unlimited time to look for the next position. Ow.

Additional reasons to have a universal email account are:

• Your email address will be the same no matter where you are working or who your ISP (internet service provider i.e. @comcast.net or @verizon.net) is.
• This address should be used for online purchases, e-zines and newsletters, and other public purposes.
• It’s easy to walk away from a universal email address by simply ceasing to check it.
• No corporate overseer has the right to read your email or act on it (as long as you’re not using a company computer to check it).

Universal email are web-based or on your own domain. A few popular options are:

Gmail

Yahoo! Mail

AOL (American OnLine)

Mail.com

Fortunately setting up a new email account at any of these providers takes less than 10 minutes – often less than 5. You simply click on ‘Get A New Account’ or ‘Register’ and follow the steps, answer the questions, write a password and you’re ready to go.

If you’re feeling very accomplished, set up Outlook to retrieve your email into a central mailbox. Again, if you do this on your work computer, they have the ability and right to monitor your email. Do it on your home computer. I have Outlook checking 2 Gmail & my ProductivityCafe & my OrganizersInc e-mailboxes – very convenient and all the emails are in one inbox.

Then be sure to use it and check it at least weekly. Use it for the contact email on services you use, use it for personal correspondence, use it for job hunting, and write below to share with other Productivity Café readers how you use your alternate email.

____________________________

R & R (rest & rejuvenation) are the intentions behind the Friday at 5:00 entries. Often these are inexpensive and low key because you recharging your batteries can be more easily achieved without running around and doing, doing, doing. Your productivity is rooted in your energy being high. Your energy being high is rooted in recreation!