My Mind, My Heart, My File

Time Management and Technology

To many people, time management means segmenting their lives (especially their work lives) into little boxes, with each box representing a certain number of minutes or hours. To me, time management means putting things in perspective. Think about the 4.5 billion years Earth has been in existence. Think about the 70-plus years the average person spends on Earth. Put into that perspective, we are here on Earth for the blink of an eye. We have much to accomplish in such a brief time.

Time management is learning to appreciate the value of every moment you have on Earth. Not every moment will be earth-shattering. There will be moments of excitement, moments of success, moments of failure, and moments of introspection. But no moment should go to waste. You can’t plan every moment of your life (or your reps’ lives), but you can look at how you and your team spend your moments and think about whether or not you are spending your time wisely—and if not, find ways to make necessary changes.

The Time Management Test

There’s an old saying that goes, “It’s not how hard you work, it’s how smart you work.” Although we’d like to think otherwise, hard work alone doesn’t guarantee success. There are many people who work hard all their lives and don’t achieve success. Working smart is the ability to make sure that while you work hard, you use the most productive means possible to get the job accomplished. It’s the ability to do a task, evaluate it, and see how that task can be done better the next time. It’s discovering how you can become more efficient each time you do something. It’s understanding what your strengths are, and building on them. It’s learning from every action you take and converting that knowledge into the ability to make a better decision the next time.

The best way for your reps to work smarter is to manage their time so that they know what kinds of tasks they have to accomplish, and the best times to accomplish them. That often means dividing their time into face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) sales time, and non-selling activity time.

There’s an exercise I use in my sales management training seminar, designed for managers to give to their whole team, called the “Time Management Test.” It’s really very simple. Give your reps these directions: Starting on Monday, keep a journal of what you’re doing every hour that you’re working. If you start at 9:00, stop work at 9:55 and record what your last hour’s activity has been. Do the same thing at the end of each hour throughout the day. On Friday, compare that week’s activity and productivity to the week before.

I guarantee your reps will have accomplished more during their journal-keeping week than they ever have before.

Why? Because they had to think about everything they did. They were forced to think about the hour they just spent and how they could have improved it, and the hour to come and how they were going to spend it. It’s proactive thinking about how they can work more efficiently, whether that means increasing their time in front of customers or on the phone, changing the time of day during which they do paperwork, or changing their driving route so that they spend less time on the road. Your reps automatically start allocating their time more wisely.

This test is all about the ability to look at the big picture and take the time to think about what you can do to work smarter. Sometimes that’s all it takes—not making giant changes, but taking the time to think about what you’re doing and what small changes you can make to improve your overall efficiency.

“You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”

Five Best Ways to Manage Your Time (and Your Reps’ Time)

1. Emphasize balance. Obviously, your job is to keep everyone efficient and productive at work. Just remember that work is not everything. When the pressure at work is at its worst, people tend to neglect other areas of life that are equally important. For yourself and for your team, keep that perspective in mind. Balance your time among work, family, and personal interests. Urge your reps to make a list of the top 10 things they want to do in the next 12 months—not just work goals, but personal goals as well—and to look at it at least once a week to check their progress.

2. Get out from under your e-mail. E-mail has its good points, but it can be overwhelming. It’s easy to feel that we are at the mercy of our email—that we have to pay attention to it at all times. People will call and say, “Did you get the e-mail I sent you 15 minutes ago?” The solution is to think of your e-mail as being delivered like your paper mail, and that you will only check it at a specific time. The idea that you must send an instant response is damaging to productivity.

3. Rearrange your environment. Are you convinced you are managing time well because you’re doing things the way they’ve always been done? It may be that you are just taking the easy way out. You don’t have to make major changes to be more efficient, just make minor adjustments. Simply moving a file cabinet, changing your filing system, or moving your desk to a new position may make a huge difference. Look at your reps’ spaces and think about ways you might change their environment. And if it doesn’t work out, you can always put things back the way they were.

4. Concentrate on one thing at a time. David Allen, a business expert, once said, “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.” What I take that to mean is that you can do it all, but you can’t do it all at the same time. You have to acknowledge that you are a human being with human limitations. You have to take everything in sequence. Write down the sequence and say, “I’ll do this task first, it should take me this long. Then I’ll do the next one.” Otherwise, it’s like gridlock with everybody trying to cross the intersection at the same time. No one goes anywhere. This applies not only to business, but to life in general. It’s all about setting up a sequence of priorities. It’s common sense, but it’s difficult to think about when you’re caught in the fray. That’s why you need to make it a habit in your life.

5. Customize your time management method. There are many useful time management tools and programs on the market today. One of them may work perfectly for you, but none of them work perfectly for everyone. Find one— or create one yourself—that is best suited for you as an individual. Every high achiever I’ve met has an individual system that he or she has devised to help manage time. Some are complicated, and some are as simple as a little black book. The system you use is less important than using a system that works for you.

“/ am definitely going to take a course on time management…just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”

Source : Superstar Sales Manager’s Secrets, Revised Edition by Barry Farber 

Because the term motivation is so essential to the understanding and definition of leadership, it needs to be carefully defined and explained. But in order to understand what motivation is, we first must understand what it is not. The reason for this is easily under- stood when we make an analogy to the smoker, alcoholic or drug addict, who says, ‘‘I don’t need this stuff. I can quit any time I want to.’’ But the real test comes when the substance is taken away.

We’re not talking about the kind of motivator who comes to town and stirs everyone up and then leaves. Most of those who attend this type of ‘‘motivator’s’’ lectures are back in the doldrums again before the ‘‘motivator’’ even leaves town. That is not motivation. Real motivation lasts longer than twenty-four hours. Real motivation fol- lows the guidelines set by nature, not the ones set by men. Real motivation is the key to effective leadership, and leadership is the key to effective motivation.

WHEN LEADERSHIP IS SEEN AS MOTIVATION
Defining leadership, in whole or in part, as motivation is not an attempt to oversimplify. It is instead an attempt to make our descriptions consistent with what we see in front of us. It is common sense. But there are also some secondary benefits. The reason that people have been running around in circles, asking questions like ‘‘Are leaders born?’’ ‘‘Are leaders made?’’ and ‘‘What is leadership?’’ is because so much of the leadership field has been tied to motivation, and motivation has not been defined. But as seen in this book, when it is defined, leadership will no longer be a circular, neverending debate or a can of worms. It will be operationally defined. Other benefits of being able to clearly define leadership include being able to train, select and identify leaders in organizations and to do the same with potential leaders. Programs that define leaders can be replicated, which is the goal of any scientific pursuit. Fewer flawed leaders will be chosen because our definition of leadership considers the nonconscious as well as the conscious components.
These are the characteristics that people often try to hide when applying for a job or looking for a leadership position. This is often referred to as the dark side. We call it the Silent Side.
Finally, the tendency to avoid emotions, dark-side characteristics, affect and passion have resulted in theories of leadership and motivation that are basically bankrupt and insolvent. They describe, but they don’t explain. They give a lot of details, but they don’t give implications. In many ways, they itemize but they don’t clarify.
Motivation is the Silent Side of leadership. It is wholistic because it looks at all facets of the person. It is selective because it only picks leaders who are capable of understanding motives and motivation, but it is inclusive because it will train and educate anyone who can understand. It broadens and widens the field of potential leaders. It offers performance above and beyond expectation. It amplifies and embellishes dedication, commitment and responsibility because it includes human emotion and passion rather than excluding these essential traits and ingredients.

Source : Motivation, emotions, and leadership : the silent side of management / Richard C. Maddock, Richard L. Fulton.

Konsepsi rasa aman dari sebuah mangkok pemberian

By Fafan Affandi Rahman

Ada sebuah pepatah Jawa yang berbunyi “pagerono umahmu nganggo mangkok”, kurang lebih bila diterjemahkan “pagarilah rumahmu dengan mangkok”. Bila diterjemahkan lagi dalam bahasa yang lebih kontekstual bisa diartikan amankan rumah kita dengan memberi tetangga, sekitar kita ataupun saudara kita. Mendengar pepatah ini saya penasaran, karena saat setiap orang berlomba-lomba memasang teralis, detector dan mempertinggi pagar rumahnya untuk mengamankan rumahnya, ternyata ada konsepsi keamanan berdasar pemberian.

Mari kita amati apakah konsepsi keamanan dengan pemberian ini berlaku dalam kehidupan bisnis dan profesional kita?

Memberi di pasar dan lingkungan kerja

            Konsepsi ini bagi saya luar biasa bila dilihat konteks pasar. Beberapa dekade lalu sangat terkenal konsepsi pengamanan pasar berupa proteksi, monopoli, dumping dan sejenisnya, namun kenyataannya konsepsi keamanan seperti ini sudah tidak relevan dan tidak hakiki lagi.

Kenyataannya sekarang ketika persaingan dibebaskan, pasar sedemikian terbuka dan pelanggan diberikan pilihan maka yang paling bertahan di pasar adalah penyedia layanan yang mampu “memberi” nilai pada pelanggannya.

            Di dunia kerja professional pun, konsepsi keamanan dengan “memberi” juga berlaku. Karyawan-karyawan yang ”memberi” selalu mendapatkan keamanan dan perusahaan selalu ingin memiliki karyawan seperti ini. Sebaliknya perusahaan yang tidak ”memberi” maka berpotensi kehilangan karyawan-karyawan baiknya.

Karyawan-karyawan yang selalu memberikan kontribusi, solusi dan inovasi tidak hanya mendapatkan keamanan, bahkan dimuliakan dengan berbagai penghargaan. Orang-orang yang terbaik di perusahaan seharusnya adalah orang-orang yang memberi. Perusahaan terbaik selalu dibentuk dari karyawan-karyawan yang memberi.

Memberi dalam skala profesional bisa jadi mencapai target-target kerja, memperbaiki proses yang tidak efektif atau menemukan cara-cara baru untuk pencapaian lebih tinggi dan lain sebagainya.

Memberi dan nilai-nilai kebaikan abadi

            Bila anda membaca artikel ini sadarilah bahwa memilih ”memberi” adalah memilih untuk memupuk kepercayaan, menjalin jejaring kerja, membangun reputasi dan mengukir citra baik diri anda pada rekan dan atasan anda. Dunia selalu memuliakan setiap pemberian.

Memberi, dimanapun kita berada selalu menjadi nilai-nilai kebaikan yang abadi.

Memberi sudah tidak hanya diartikan sebagai ”giving” lagi, tetapi sudah terdiversifikasi menjadi ”contributing”, ”serving”, ”supporting”, ”solving” dan lain-lain. Melakukan salah satunya atau semuanya adalah kebaikan. Kebaikan itu yang akan selalu menjaga anda. Setiap satu kebaikan selalu mengundang kebaikan lainnya.. Selamat memberi… Semoga beribu kebaikan mendatangi dan menjaga anda…

Fafan Afandi Rachman

PSD Dept.

Semi-finals

22 - 23 April 2008 & 29 - 30 April 2008

Liverpool vs Chelsea (1-1)

Manchester Utd vs Barcelona (0-0)

Final Moscow :

21 May 2008

Manchester United vs Chelsea ( 6- 5 ) (1-1) Adu Penalti

Penalty miss : MU - Christiano Ronaldo, Chelsea - John Terry & Nicholas Anelka

BY ROBERT A. DURHAM & MARCUS O. DURHAM

TYPICALLY, LARGE LOADS ASSOCIATED with petroleum distribution systems are located in a relatively confined plant area. Scattered distribution systems do not often have very large capacity. The combination of large industrial requirements coupled with the geographic requirements of a utility system calls for a challenging design. One of the primary duties of electrical engineers in the petroleum industry is the design and construction of power distribution systems. In most other cases, larger systems are located within a defined plant environment [1]. Systems spread
over a large area tend to be smaller in load. The scheme discussed here is unique: a large electrical network is spread over a very large geographic area. This creates an exceptional set of circumstances. At the beginning of the design process, several goals were identified.
■ Downtime must be minimized. Due to the inherent physical characteristics of the process being powered, even short downtime has serious financial consequences.

■ In conjunction with reducing downtime, it was desired that a protection system be designed so that a fault in one area does not affect loads in another area [2].
■ Under normal conditions, a voltage drop of less than 5% at the end of the system is desirable.
This is crucial to assure that full voltage is available on the load side of the transformers [3], [4].
■ Under contingency conditions, it was preferred that the load could be served successfully from either
one of two utility sources.
■ Necessarily, the system would be designed so that the heating of conductors would not cause any
additional sag that would damage the integrity of the load service [5].
The only way to effectively address these issues is to conduct a series of computer model analyses prior to the beginning of construction.

See detail : Industrial Power System Design in a Utility Environment 

- Tidak ada harga atas waktu, tapi waktu sangat berharga. Memiliki waktu tidak menjadikan kita kaya, tetapi menggunakannya dengan baik adalah sumber dari semua kekayaan.

- Semakin banyak yang anda inginka, akan semakin banyak yang hanya tinggal jadi keinginan. Fokus pada satu keinginan memungkinkan pencapaian banyak keinginan.

Chelsea - Fenerbahce 1-2, 2-0 (agregat 3-2) Chelsea Lolos

Liverpool - Arsenal 1-1, 4-2 (agregat 5-3) Liverpool Lolos

As Roma - Manchester United 0-2, 0-1 (agregat 0-3) Manchester Utd Lolos

Schalke - Barcelona 0-1,0-1 (agregat 0-2) Barcelona Lolos