Category Archives: Workplace Tips

Self-improvement advice for your work

Tips for starting your week

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So, you hit the office with a full cup of coffee, look at the desk and sigh. It’s a few minutes before 9, you have A LOT to do and no motivation to get started.  Here’s an effective way to start your week off… to start each day.

  1. Make a List – write down on a piece of paper everything you need to get done down (keep this list in front of you at all times).
  2. Pick the “low-hanging fruit.” Take the first 15 minutes and do the easiest, fastest things on your list (i.e. a quick e-mail or short v-mail). After 15 minutes, take a minute to refocus on your list, with all the completed items scratched off.
  3. Turn off all distractions. Switch off your phone, e-mail alert and close your door. Pick the item on your list that is the priority and put your head down to work for 45 – 60 minutes.
  4. Take a 10-minute break and repeat this process, re-evaluating your list about four times through the day.  Before long you will feel better about the work before you and more comfortable knowing you are accomplishing what needs to be done.

This a repost of an article that first appeared in the By George Journal in January 2011.

Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com

Motivational verse for your first full work week of 2023

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Author and poet of children’s books, Charles Ghigna, is known to many as Father Goose. As we approach our first full work week in this new year, we at By George Journal thought it might be helpful to share a few of Father Goose’s motivational verses.  So, enjoy these ditties as you shake off that holiday sluggishness. It’s time to check in. Go to it.

The Art of Start
Don’t search for inspiration when
You have a task to do;
Just start your work and you will see
That it will soon find you.

Best Laid Plans
A plan is only good if it
Is one that gets recruited;
For good intentions soon will die
Unless they’re executed.

Ants Never Cry “Uncle”
Consider the little ant.
He never says, “I can’t.”
And so it comes as no surprise,
He carries things ten times his size.

Heavy Mettle
Adversity is what it takes
To see our goals ascend;
In order for the kite to rise,
It flies against the wind.

Success Full
Never doubt what you can do
No matter what the chore;
Success comes when we care enough
To do a little more.

Finish Lines
Success is never measured by
The things we try to do;
It only comes when we have seen
A task completely through.

 

Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com