Some companies are even instituting bans on replying to emails after hours. And Volkswagen in Germany shuts off emails sent to employees’ Blackberries half an hour after shifts end.

Many employees sing the work-life balance song. But do they need to have their activities controlled by others so they can have it? May be they just need skills to manage their lives and time better.

Workshops on Managing Your Time

Time Management : Make it a Habit
This workshop analyses the participants three-day time log. The Inscape Publishing Time Mastery Profile

Article on Managing Your Time

Time Management — Getting Back Control of Your Life

]]> http://ontariotraining.net/managing-time-whos-responsible-for-your-work-life-balance/feed/ 0 http://ontariotraining.net/minutes-and-freedom-of-information-what-you-need-to-know/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=minutes-and-freedom-of-information-what-you-need-to-know http://ontariotraining.net/minutes-and-freedom-of-information-what-you-need-to-know/#comments Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:56:33 +0000 Colin Watson http://ontariotraining.net/?p=1829 I just heard about a disgruntled parent who demanded to see the minutes of his son’s minor hockey association. It doesn’t matter what the man was looking for. But, under freedom of information legislation, the group had to turn them over.

The members were shocked. After all, they were just a volunteer group organized to help their kids play a game. Their meetings and minutes were hardly formal. But all minutes – formal and informal – are considered records that the public may have the right to access. If you refuse to turn them over, the requester may then appeal to whatever authority oversees freedom of information in your locale. This authority will make the final decision as to what must be revealed.

In some cases, the entire minutes may have to be released. In other instances, the head of your group may be able to remove certain words or sentences. However, the more you remove the less transparent your organization looks.

Jane Watson has just released a web-based course on minute taking that includes a section on privacy legislation.

To sample a lecture from this web based training,
click on the image and connect to YouTube

The online course costs just $149… but for a limited time, use the coupon code “otn” and get the course for only $129!

Click HERE to get this special offer now!

Jane Watson is also the author of The Minute Takers Handbook.

4th Edition of The Minute Takers Handbook

It’s the best way to run a productive meeting. Time allowances for speakers prevent one person from monopolizing a meeting and encourages the speaker to organize his or her thoughts in a logical manner.

Why don’t more meeting chairs do this? Oftentimes, it’s because they don’t feel comfortable dictating to their members – some of whom may be higher ranking than themselves. But in the long term, the chair looks more capable, meetings finish on time, and more work gets done.

How do you set up the time limits? In the agenda. A good agenda doesn’t just list the topic for discussion. This would make the agenda just the chair’s grocery list. Effective agendas include the name of the person who will lead the discussion and the purpose for the discussion – update, decision required, or action needed. It also assigns a time limit for each topic. Obviously, if the topic becomes heated or more time is needed, the chair can make some adjustments during the meeting.

When in a meeting, do what the Romans do.

By Jane Watson

Sample lectures have been posted on YouTube for the introductory Web-based lectures on Taking Minutes at Meetings.

The links are:

Minute Taking at Meetings – Introduction

Minute Taking at Meetings – Lecture 1

To take this web-based training use the links below:

The online course costs just $149… but for a limited time, use the coupon code “otn” and get the course for only $129!

Click HERE to get this special offer now!

Web-Based training – Taking Minutes at Meetings

YouTube link or click on the image above

This web-Based Training is Offered through the “Udemy” training portal.

The online course costs just $149… but for a limited time, use the coupon code “otn” and get the course for only $129!

Click HERE to get this special offer now!

Web based training by Jane Watson

Jane Watson has been involved in the meeting process — both as a minute taker and as a chair — for many years.

In fact, she has written one of the first books exclusively on minute taking – The Minute Takers Handbook – now in its 4th reprint. Since then she has taught minute taking to all sorts of groups. And Jane has learned even more techniques to help you.

Whether you are taking minutes for boards, committees, weekly meetings, volunteer groups or your condo association, this workshop will  make you more confident and enable you to produce professional minutes.

Minute Taking at Meetings

Whether you are taking minutes for boards, committees, weekly meetings, volunteer groups or your condo association, this three-hour workshop will make you more confident and enable you to produce professional minutes.

The course costs just $149… but for a limited time, use the coupon code “otn” and get the course for only $129!

Click HERE to get this special offer now!

If you prefer the conventional classroom lead instruction, OntarioTraining.net offers both a half-day and a full-day of training on Minute Taking.

Minute Taking and Privacy Legislation – FIPPA & MFIPPA

Minute Taking & Listening Skills

Minute Taking: Take Minutes, Not Hours (half-day workshop)

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night wondering how you are going to fit the 10 hours of job duties into the 8 hours for which you are being compensated?  And then knowing that you will get still more work as the day progresses. The 10 hours will become 12 hours, and you will not get home until well past 8 p.m.?

This describes the life of a time-challenged individual. Busy, running here and there, eating over the sink, off to appointments and always arriving late, not reading books to the end, and falling into bed exhausted. These are common complaints of people whose schedules are out of control. People who lack time management skills.

Time management is self-management, whatever way you look at it. There are only 86,400 seconds, 1,440 minutes or 24 hours in each day.

Therefore, you need to think about self-management, not time management. This article is not about working harder, it is about how you live your life. If you want to enjoy your life you need to do the things you feel will give you happiness; you must set some goals and determine how you want to spend your days so you can accomplish them. You must realize that the only person you will be with for your whole life is YOU. Therefore, taking care of YOU is extremely important. Here are some suggestions that may help you regain control of your time and your life.

1. Make a list of 50 things you want to do before you are living in the retirement home. Write down 50 or so items, prioritize them by your age and physical stamina. Add to the list over time and cross items off once you have done them. The list can include books to read, places to go, things to see —  whatever you want to do. Stretch your imagination. Don’t stop until you have at least 50 items on your list.Think about sitting in a rocking chair after you have retired and ask yourself: “What are the things you will be most proud of, what will you wish you had done more of,  what opportunities will you have missed” ….now go and do something about them.

2. Set goals for yourself — short-term, mid-term and long-term goals. It is hard to know where you are going without a map. Your goals are your map. You can drive aimlessly around all day, or you can get there by the most direct route.Short-term goals should be completed in 3 months, mid term goals in one year, and long-term goals up to 5 years. Really long-term goals, such as freedom 55 if you are 45, are considered long-term. Make sure you establish short- and mid- term goals as well so you manage the complexity of these bigger goals. Even if you are retired, you still have many years ahead, so set some goals. Do not sit in front of the TV waiting for things to happen. You make them happen.

3. Create and follow a calendar — daily, weekly or monthly. Create your own time management system; do not buy one. Make it very personal. On your daily calendar write your goal for that day. To manage your time well, you should start every day with a goal. Only plan or book 60 percent of the day, leave the rest for surprises. Use a to-do list to start your thinking. Be flexible.You cannot be in control unless you are flexible. Get to know your daily energy cycle and use it to plan high energy work for when you are most alert. Do more physical work, and less creative work when you are tired.

4. Prioritize your days. Identify tasks that are urgent and important. If something is not urgent and not important, don’t do it. Spend most of your day working on tasks that are not urgent but that are important. Think of this slogan daily. How you start your day is how your day will progress. If you start it doing unimportant items, chances are you will waste your day. If you waste one day a week, you are wasting one seventh of your life.Use the 80-20 rule originally stated by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto  who noted that 80 percent of the reward comes from 20 percent of the effort. The trick to prioritization is to isolate and identify that valuable 20 percent.

5. Analyze how you spend your time. Do time logs or get a buddy to follow you around with a stopwatch, and figure out where you spend your days. Do this at home on weekends and evenings as well. Ask yourself Alan Lakein’s  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Lakein crucial question: “Is this the best use of my time, right now?”

6. Say NO eloquently and often. One of the most difficult words to say, and one of the most crucial for time-challenged people, is the word NO. Deal with time solicitors as you do money solicitors. Use the same tone of voice and give good reasons why you cannot take on their request. Say no when it is important for you to say no but always remember that some day you may need to ask that person to help you out. Remember you are working on getting control back in your day and going home at a decent hour.

7. Conquer procrastination and stop being a perfectionist. In some ways, procrastination and perfectionism are one in the same. When you try to do things perfectly, you are procrastinating. There is no such thing as perfect. Mother Nature and our bodies show us this daily.

Deal with the FEAR that causes procrastination by determining what you are afraid of, e.g., looking foolish, wasting time, making poor decisions, taking on more work. The solution to procrastination is to understand your own fear and then work on the “Swiss cheese” method described by Alan Lakein — take small bite size chunks out of the task or project, until it is completed.

8. Create a wheel of life. A wheel of life sets out all the things that are important to you. For example, you might include family, career, spirituality, financial planning, health, leisure, social life, personal development, and personal time. The wheel of life should identify how you spend your time and energy during the week, both at home and at work. Once you have set this out, look at the wheel and determine where your life is unbalanced. Then set a short-term goal for balancing that area of your life.

9. Put your learnings and thoughts together in a journal. As you work through the suggestions in this article, write down the things that worked and the things that you still need to do. It takes 7-20 times of repeated behaviour to develop a new habit. None of this will change overnight.

Time management is an attitude. And the attitude you want to develop is one that says: “I am jealous of my time and no-one will take it away without my permission.”  Ask yourself daily “What is the consequence of doing nothing at all?”  Your answer will save your life.

Chris Pohlkamp is a subject matter expert with Ontario Training in the field of Time Management. One of Chris’s popular courses is Time Management : Make it a Habit.

These proposals were particularly important this year as the amount of money to be distributed across the country was considerably less.  In other words, the pie was a lot smaller.  All submissions were rated based on criteria such as relevance to need, value for money, cost effectiveness, organization governance, and the agency’s track record in reporting and financial accountability.

Just before Christmas, Citizenship and Immigration Canada announced that a number of immigrant services agencies will not receive funding for their programs in 2011. The announcement means that several of these agencies will most likely have to close their doors.  Note: This does not mean the agencies’ programs were not essential. It means their proposals did not compete as well as other agencies for a slice of the pie.

Unfortunately, when the “money pie” gets smaller, the need for good writing skills goes up. And the people closest to the project normally don’t have the time or the proposal writing skills required. Funding one year does not guarantee funding the next year – no matter how successful a program is.

David Rockefeller, the investment banker, once said “Nothing happens in the world of business without a piece of paper going along with it.” Today, not only do you have to have a successful program/service or a great idea, you have to be able to sell that program/service/idea to others – in writing.

The problem I see with most proposals is that the writer focuses on the importance or the effectiveness of the existing program. However, evaluators are reading a proposal to determine how effectively the proposal matches their criteria. From an evaluator’s point of view, it is a fair way to compare proposals and distribute funding appropriately.

From a writer’s point of view, you have to put the right spin on your message. You can’t “sell” an effective, necessary program.  You can only “sell” a successful program that fits with the criteria being measured.

Jane Watson is a trainer, author, and consultant in the field of written business communications at J Watson Training.

The reason: employees will change only if senior management is thoroughly sold on the need for change and announces that all employees are expected to co-operate. One of the most successful business writing training programs I was involved with had the president’s full backing; he demonstrated this by announcing that writing ability was to be considered in every job appraisal. And he wanted his employees to equally proficient in emails and report writing.

A second problem involves learning strategies. Learning a new activity and turning it into a habit takes only a couple of weeks. However, research shows it usually takes about six weeks to unlearn a long-term behaviour and to firmly entrench a change. This is particularly true for writing as we have all been doing some form of writing since early grade school. Changing academic writing into a style befitting letters, reports and emails takes time and energy.

Unfortunately, too many training programs do not offer a follow-up method to keep the changes fully in the forefront of the employee’s mind for the necessary period of time.

If you are planning to initiate a writing program for your company, here are proven ways to ensure your success:

1. Work with an experienced trainer in business writing to design a workshop specifically tailored for your staff.  Determine your focus: writing, letters, emails, reports, proposals, etc. Involve your managers in the objectives of the workshop.
2. Have managers attend a shortened version of the workshop so they understand what their staff will be taught or — better yet — have them attend the workshop with their staff.
3. Have each workshop introduced by a high-ranking executive to give it proper weight. The introduction should stress the purpose and importance of the program.
4. Deliver the workshop to groups of 15 to 20 people, preferably from the same department. A two-day workshop with built-in practice sessions works well. (In my experience, you will get even better results if you spread the program over a month using ½ day sessions. However, the downside of this is monitoring attendance to ensure staff members attend all four sessions.)
5. Present each participant with a comprehensive manual to be used during the  workshop and then kept as a reference guide after the course.
6. Insist that after the workshop, participants submit samples of their writing at regular intervals to ensure they are continuing to incorporate the new style. The samples should be submitted two weeks, six weeks and ten weeks after the workshop. The samples should be critiqued and returned directly to the writers with suggestions for any necessary improvement.
7. Set up an internal hot-line number to assist participants with specific writing problems.
8. Send staff — periodically — brief reminder bulletins or emails on writing points. Include articles on business writing in the company newsletter.
9. Update all the company’s forms. This is a key area and one that is often overlooked.
10. Prepare a brief style manual for all employees describing how your organization wants its business documents laid out. Among other things, the manual should include recommended type sizes, fonts, and the company rules for capitalization and spelling. Every new employee should be given a copy.

Too often training doesn’t take because of limited buy-in or follow up. However, following these proven steps guarantees your company’s money and your staff’s time are well spent. And you will notice a definite, long-term difference in the written communications of your people.

Jane Watson is a trainer, author, and consultant in the field of written business communications at J Watson Training.