Telephone interruptions

We hardly consider how much time we waste on telephonic conversations each day. Many of us are quite glued to our phones and don’t even realize how we waste a potent portion of the day conversing on phone. While working keep your phone either in silent mode or switch it off. It’s a big interruption while working.

Extended lunch breaks

While working at office, lunch is definitely not just a matter of eating, but also unwinding oneself. At the same time, extended lunch break filled with gossiping can actually prove to be a serious hazard. Keep lunch break relaxing, but not too addictive that you wish to carry it on and on for hours.

Frequent coffee or smoke breaks

At work place people are often seeing taking too frequent tea, coffee and smoke breaks. These are highly addictive and time wasters. You may think it’s a great way of unwinding yourself, but when done too frequently it’s more like a bad habit. You may end up socializing during these breaks and wasting lot of time.

Small naps are never small

People are often seeing taking small naps in-between work. But in reality they are hardly small ones get extended and definitely waste lot of time. They are addictive too, you may soon start regular naps. Rather than taking naps in between work, try to finish work first and then sleep with a relaxed mind.

Socializing on the job

People often socialize too much at work place, indulge into gossiping and waste big amount of time in a day.

Television watching

Television is one addictive medium, which results into severe time wastage. If you wish to watch something particularly on television, make sure you watch it only and don’t keep the television on for extended long hours. It results into huge time killing.

Social networking websites

These days a major chunk of the professionals, students, even home makers devote a large portion of their daily schedule in social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Hi5, MySpace and the like. They are highly addictive and cause serious damage to work schedule.

Poor planning
Ill planning of daily schedule or inability to set priority of work can land one into grave problem. Start planning your daily work, set a priority ladder of most important work towards least important ones. Work on the same, accordingly.

Multi tasking

Don’t try to juggle between too many works. Work on a specific job at a time. Too many works at a time can distract you from your goal and shared attention results into average quality work.

Don’t talk just for the sake of talking

It’s often noticed that people talk during the group discussion session, just for the sake of grabbing attention. It makes one look stupid and also shows lack of depth of knowledge. Talk only when you know enough about the topic in hand and you are confident. If you are not sure of yourself, wait for others to start, find clues from their conversations and then raise your voice. Don’t talk pointlessly, trying hard to prove a point.

Don’t shout to make a point

Just to get heard among many heads often participants end up shouting on top of their voice to prove a point. Wait for the right opportunity, raise your hand and state your point. If someone interrupts in middle, ask the person to wait and let you finish first. Shouting just to get noticed and beat others will create sheer confusion and chaos.

Stick to the point

Often we deviate from the main issue and stretch the topic too far. Don’t go far away from the main topic in hand. If the topic is controversial and raises lot of discussion, talk either in favor or against the topic in hand. Don’t keep switching between the two. Make sure you stick to your point and don’t go stretch it too far. Maintain the time limit.

Good start, great end

We often think it’s important to grab attention in the beginning only and thus put maximum energy in starting the group discussion rather than concluding nicely towards the end. Never commit this mistake. First impression is definitely the last impression, but an end moment fuss or ambiguity can tarnish the whole thing. So make sure, you are not only noticed in the beginning, but also equally heard and noticed towards the end. When time comes towards end, nicely wrap your message in an impressive conclusion. It will help you to leave a long lasting impression.

Here are few tips for your help.

Don’t carry work to home

Many of us often commit the mistake of carrying pending work home and working overnight on the same. It not only brings stress to us, but also frustrates other family members. They feel deprived of your precious time and company. If you are a family person and have kids in the house, they may feel distant and neglected. Keep your work limited within your office only. Stay late, finish work and come home relaxed.

Mentally switch off immediately after work

Many of us don’t carry work home, but just can’t forget office work even after leaving office. Remember even if you are not physically occupied with work, you may be mentally occupied. Learn to mentally switch off too immediately after work. Don’t come back home with work related worries, office conversations lingering over phone, mails. Just switch yourself off, if not your phone. Don’t overdo your office happening descriptions with family members. They may feel bored.

Pretend to be happy

Your stress and depressed face will make your beloved ones unhappy too. Try to come home with a smile on your face. If it doesn’t come naturally to you, pretend to be happy. Initially it will be frustrating, but slowly your fake smile will turn into your natural smile and you will come back home with a genuinely happy mood. Talk to all, laugh together, eat together, watch television together, and go out for movies or dinner. Soon you will wait for every evening and come back home with sheer energy.

Keep an evening program

Often aimless evening doesn’t motivate us enough to return home on time. Keep a program scheduled for every evening post work, inspiring you to return home as soon as work is finished. It could be cooking, decorating room, dining out with family, watching film at home – anything of your choice.

So obviously the first step is to create a professional Twitter page.  Whether for your business, or personal business ventures, make sure that you update often.  The quickest way to be forgotten is to tweet only once every few days.  You have to keep your Twitter page active, usually with multiple tweets per day, so that there is always more content for an interested party to keep tabs on.

Use Twitter search to narrow down people, or other businesses that might be interested in finding your Twitter page.  Try and contact them, either through mention on your Twitter account or via personal message to let them know about you.  This way you can gain more and more followers.  Your efforts won’t be very successful if you don’t have very many followers accessing your tweets.

Remember to take care of your followers as you gain them as well.  Respond to them, mention them, etc.  Make them involved, as they will become interested, and also mention you in their tweets, and that’s free advertising.  Keeping your followers interested is key to building the Twitter page, and increasing your effectiveness.

Finally use Twitter’s search function to see how many mentions you are getting on other pages throughout the site.  This is a good way to keep up on how successful your efforts have been.  Also you’ll be able to keep track of what you should change to accommodate the greater interest.  Twitter feedback is valuable, so take full advantage of the ability to see accurate feedback so quickly.

Never underestimate the power of a social networking environment that facilitates other peers in your profession.  These types of sites can be incredibly influential for finding out the latest industry news, or important competitive information, like where the best jobs are currently, or which companies tend to care for their employees better.  As you can communicate with others in your professional field you’ll also find yourself making friend easier, and industry friends are always good to have, as that sells who you are to a broader audience.  Never forget, when you’re looking for a new job, you want your name out there as much as possible.

Professional social networking sites are also a great resource for any company looking to hire new talent.  Considering they give you the chance to make friends, meet new people, and really learn about them in an unbiased fashion.  From an individual’s online profile, to also participating in conversations with them, you get a real view of the person and what they could offer your company.  Opposed to the biased attitude anybody looking to get a job has in an interview.

So don’t underestimate the power of a good social networking site.  Probably something a bit more serious than Facebook or Myspace, as these aren’t exactly the best place to have a serious conversation with a stranger most times.  But something more geared towards industry professionals like yourself, or your company.