by. Anthony Demangone

Last week was one of those weeks.

I travelled a bit.  We had an executive committee meeting.  And we presented our 2014 budget.  We put the finishing touches on a management strategic planning workshop.  And to top it off, we rolled out a new program – a company-wide organizational citizenship review.  We rated every employee on how well he or she played in the sandbox.

For the first time in a long time, I really fell behind.

Desperate to catch up, I researched the Googleverse.  I read articles. Scanned Facebook posts.  I Tweeted.  I LinkedIn. I did not Instagram.  I’m not that cool.

Well, miracles never cease! I uncovered three productivity tricks that let me catch up. Now, keep in mind, I’m not ahead of the game, but I’m no longer behind the 8-ball.

1. A strange beeping machine. I learned of a strange machine that beeps.  Before you go to bed, you can program it to beep, in an annoying manner, whenever you want.  I thought about it long and hard.  Should I set it to beep late in the morning, or earlier than I usually rise?  I picked the latter. It worked!  I got up earlier, and had more time to work on issues.

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