Before picking  up the phone for a call with a client, potential client, or even an internal meeting, draw up a quick call plan.  Developing a call plan maximizes your call time, and keeps everyone on task.

Determine in advance what your intended outcome needs to be, and then prepare an agenda – including the questions that need to be addressed during the meeting to help you achieve your outcome.

During the call, if someone wants to deviate from the agenda, defer their request until the end of the meeting to make sure that the stated outcomes for the meeting will be accomplished first.

Conference calls are an important part of the way business gets done. Using a call plan will help ensure that the goals for the meeting are clear and concise and that the time is used to the best advantage for everyone.

Time is one of your most precious assets, and you must allocate it carefully. A typical worker has over 20 meetings per week.

Think about that. If each meeting is one hour, and you assume 15-30 minutes of prep time and action items per meeting. . . NEARLY 75% OF YOUR WEEK IS GONE!

Meetings are certainly important, but let’s talk about how to divide and conquer. . . .

Become a “zero” inboxer!

A “Zero” Inboxer is an individual that has made the personal commitment to NOT let email run their day. Email has become the most destructive productivity management tool ever invented. It is abused and wastes time in many ways. As new messages come in we tend to stop whatever we are doing to read them, feel compelled to respond to them, and then scan and re-read emails over and over and over again throughout the day. Sadly, 99% of the time there is no need to respond to email right away and more than 50% of emails have no action required at all. Time spent in email is time not spent on productive, high-priority activity. The more cluttered an email inbox is, the less productive we tend to be. For many, the inbox has become their “todo” task list with hundreds if not thousands of stored emails.

The problem with this approach is that when the inbox is full, we tend to read and re-read the same messages, working on the easy ones and feeding our need for immediate gratification while delaying the more critical action items. “0″ Inboxers use email as a communications vehicle, not a task management vehicle. They quickly act on messages, File those that need to be filed, and use a task list to keep track of required activities eliminating the email from their inbox. “0″ Inboxers start and end the day with as near to “0″ emails in their inbox as possible. There are just a few fundamental steps to email management:

If we’re talking about Bill Gates-successful, he probably does whatever he wants in the morning, and not just for the first hour.

If we are talking about CEO’s and Executives, and rubber meets the road-successful, then I’ve got some tips for you! Here are 5 things you should do in the first hour of your “business” day.

1. Schedule the first hour with yourself! The first hour sets the tone to your day.  Use this time to getting organized, taking a quick glance at your meetings, and preparing for the day.  Don’t schedule meetings for the first hour of the day. You have things to do, you need to prep, you cannot start your day disheveled and stressed out!

2. Ask yourself, what do you need to accomplish today?  If it needs to be accomplished tomorrow, write it on tomorrow’s list, let’s be completely realistic! Don’t try to tackle too much in one day.  Prioritization is key to productivity.

3. Now that you have a handle of your day, check your emails. The best way to handle email is arranging by important senders, hot topic of the week and level of importance.  All others can wait until later in the day.

4. With technology overtaking our lives, people often forget this last but simplest tip to saving time.  ick up the phone. If you can accomplish any of your daily tasks with a simple phone call, do it now. Chances are that the other successful person is also getting things done, and you can start crossing things off your list.

5. Time to connect! Check your LinkedIn, and Twitter and whatever Social Media you need to log on to. This is not the time to read about your neighbor’s dog, so if you don’t use Facebook for business, don’t even go there right now. Now is the time to find out what’s going on in the world, and see what your customers are reading and talking about.  When you are socially active, sharing  business articles, company’s posts, and  “Liking” your clients/partners posts you’re showing them that you  are where they are and are in touch with their business needs. Remember, it’s not about making a connection, but making the connection last.

If you accomplish those 5 things in the first hour of your day, you’re set up for success. Sure, you won’t be able to do this every day, but set a habit to at least try. Before you know it, it will become second nature.   Then before you step out of the office at the end of the day, straighten up your desk, start tomorrow’s list, and go home. It’s all about YOU!.

Last week, we talked about just saying “NO!”

One of the reasons some people find it hard to say “no” is that they have a distorted understanding of their relationship to their activities; unconsciously, their work becomes their measure of themselves and the value they deliver to others. Often, “workaholics” accept more and more assignments because they believe they are the only one—or at least the best one— for the job.

In addition, workaholics may feel that turning down assignments would be a sign of weakness or failure. Sometimes, just the act of staying busy all the time feeds their need to feel/look important or indispensable. Ultimately, workaholics have a need to be extremely busy to feel “normal.” For that reason, they welcome new assignments, even though the more work they pile on, the less likely it is they will efficiently accomplish any of their most important goals. They are addicted to work; they just can’t say “no.”

Look at the checklist below and find out if you’re a workaholic.

For more of these tips, join us on twitter @BakerRevGen

True communication has not occurred between the sender and the receiver until both sides have a shared understanding of the meaning of the message.

What can you do to help insure effective communication? Last week, we asked what makes a good communicator and now we’ve come up with the FIVE Cs of Good Communication.

1. CLEAR. Is your message clear? Apply Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong, it will”) to your message. Be sure your message says exactly what you mean.
2. COMPLETE. Is your message complete? You know what you mean, but the receiver may not. Pretend you will be receiving the message. Would you understand completely what is intended? Don’t assume anything.
3. CONCISE. Is your message concise? Most people use too many words to convey a message. A rambling message is more likely to be misunderstood. Longer messages may not be read completely or are read too quickly and some essential part of the message may be missed. This is especially true of voicemail messages that can be deleted when the user believes all information has been received.
4. CONCRETE. Avoid terms and phrases that are too broad and too vague. Try to be as precise as possible in what you are trying to say.
5. CORRECT. Are the facts in the message correct? If the information being transmitted is clear, concise, etc., but the facts are wrong, then it matters little that your form and style are good. Be sure the facts are accurate before you communicate them.

What are some of your communication tips? Meet us on twitter @BakerRevGen and let us know!

Without a doubt, a big reason for our inability to be truly productive is that we don’t know when to say, “No.” This problem is

The first issue that causes many of us to have a hard time saying “No” is related to an emotional need we have to keep other people happy. This emotional priority has nothing to do with the activities connected to important goals in our professional or personal lives, but it does interfere with our ability to accomplish those stated goals. When we receive a request from someone else, the fear of letting others down or being thought ill of—or concerns over some vague, possible futurec onsequences—forces us to say yes even if we don’t want to comply.

We will say yes, KNOWING that it will steal time away from a higher priority activity with an impending deadline, and we will keep getting farther and farther behind as a result.

How often do you say, “NO”?

For more of these tips, come back next Monday or visit our Twitter account: @bakerrevgen!

Here is the excerpt that I think you’ll find most valuable!

1. Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You’ll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.
2. Any activity or conversation that’s important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they’re unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.
3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.
4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you’re doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having “office hours.” Isn’t “office hours” another way of saying “planned interruptions?”
5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don’t start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.
6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what’s missing in your next call or activity?
7. Put up a “Do not disturb” sign when you absolutely have to get work done.
8. Practice not answering the phone just because it’s ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don’t instantly give people your attention unless it’s absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.
9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.
10. Remember that it’s impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.

Chances are, you’re thinking of something else right now, or maybe you’re even reading this while on a conference call.

Everyone has 24 hours to use every day to accomplish a variety of tasks. No one gets more, no one gets less. This also means that no one has the ability to actually stretch the space time continuum in order to do more than one thing at the same time.

People who juggle texting and emails and searching the Internet for information for an important project that is open on their computer while conducting a phone conversation via headset, are not getting more done or turning out a superior project.

So just stop it. To get the increased productivity you are after, you need to reduce the time you spend multi-tasking. The pay-off for less scattered, and more focused, endeavors is:

• Accomplishing more that truly matters in less time
• Improving your overall effectiveness
• Enriching your relationships

Follow us on Twitter for the latest tips: @BakerRevGen

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! (Sorry for yelling, but Fridays should never have such a bad reputation!)

Right now, you may be stressed, trying to figure out how you’re going to get everything done. We aren’t going to make this Friday mistake again. Next week, you are going to make deliverables due on Thursday. Then on Friday, you will have time to review, and make last minute changes. When you walk out of the office on Friday at the end of the day, you’re done. At least with that project.