UTurn^TV

Time poor?  Not enough hours in the day?  Not enough days in the week?  This video will help.  Guaranteed.

Lots of love

Jules

x

Time Management and Organisation are two of the things that many of my clients suffer from the most. Often,the main reason that things get disorganised and time runs away from you is due to avoidance.  We all have tasks that must get done which we don’t necessarily enjoy doing and it’s human nature to avoid doing things we don’t like.  However, some stuff just has to be done and the earlier you take control of it all the better you will feel.  Promise.

Below is an outline that I often use with clients to help them get control over the disaster zone that is their desk.

Find a time of the day where you can sit quietly with a cup of tea and make your list.   Preparing it at the end of the day for the next day will help with clearing your head so that you can spend time with your loved ones without worrying about work.

List everything – don’t group similar items together such as ‘do quotes’ or ‘prepare the teams’ one to ones’.  Identify each item seperately so that nothing gets forgotten.

Once the list is complete, go through it and put a D next to everything you can get someone else to do.  Use a different coloured pen if it helps you.  Remember if it’s the first time you’ve delegated a particular task to someone you will need to explain/show what needs to be done and how.  Also make sure that any task you have delegated includes instructions on reporting back to you if there is a problem or when it is completed.

Prioritise the rest of the items on your list using:

• 1 : High Priority – needs to be done today

• 2 : Medium Priority – should be done today but can roll over to tomorrow if need be.  Don’t forget that tomorrow this priority might need to be upgraded to 1 if it’s a time sensitive task.

• 3 : Low Priority – needs to be done soon but can wait if other priorities/emergencies jump up through the day

As you complete each task cross it off the list.

Only create a new list when the one you are working on is either complete (Woo hoo!) or it’s looking a bit messy.  Don’t forget to move anything still outstanding onto your new list.

Enjoy the sense of accomplishment!

I would love to know whether this has helped or what you do to stay on top of the stuff you hate doing.

Lots of love

Jules xx

This video was inspired by my weight loss this week.  It takes very little to motivate your staff and unless you want to go out and buy them gold star stickers it’s free!

Please let me know how you get on.

Jules

x

Many thanks to Gavin Elliott for the inspiration to today’s blog.

It’s often all too easy to forget that whatever work you do that somewhere you have a customer. Even if you don’t come face to face with them they are always there at the end of some process. Does your team spend too much time on non-productive work and forget that who they are serving?

Love to hear from you.
Jules

Whilst carrying out one to one Compassion Management Training I often find myself helping people to improve their one to one working relationships as a by product of showing them new management techniques.

Working with a manager recently we began the session by discussing conflict resolution.  My approach is always to teach new management techniques in the context of particular situations that managers are dealing with at that time as I find abstract learning rarely has the same depth of impact.

This manager was having problems with a ‘difficult’ member of staff and it became evident quite quickly that she was carrying a huge amount of anger towards this person.  Talking the issue through I realised that both parties appeared to have become entrenched in their own position, with neither willing to move towards any sort of compromise.

So, I asked the manager to list all of the words that she was feeling about her staff member.  These are the words that she listed:

• Upset
• Angry
• Mistrusting
• Disappointed
• Frustrated
• Challenged
• Stressed
• Let Down
• Don’t like her
• Negatively influencing the team
• Sad
• Can’t get through to her
• No middle ground
• Giving too much
• Stuck
• Don’t know what to do

I then asked her to spend a moment really trying to get inside the thoughts and feelings of her member of staff.  I asked her to try and really imagine what it is like to be that person. Then I asked her to list all of the words that she imagined her member of staff might be feeling.  This is what she said:

• Shitty
• Under Pressure
• Not valued
• Angry
• Fearful
• Frustrated
• Let Down
• Mistrusting
• Not Supported

As you can see, although the two lists aren’t exactly the same the feeling emanating from both of them is pretty similar.

My client quickly realised that if both of them are feeling this way then the chances of finding any kind of professional, constructive or peaceful resolution to their issues wasn’t going to appear any time soon.  During the session we decided that she would discuss both of the above lists in an open, warm and caring way.  This way, she felt that it would be much easier to discuss some performance issues that she had concerns about in the hope that this difficult relationship could be put back onto a much healthier footing.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, for the sake of securing a positive resolution, it’s my view that we all need to start looking for the commonalities that we have with the people we work with.  It’s really easy to identify how different we are from everyone but this just helps us to remain apart from others.  Finding the common ground might take a bit of soul searching but for the sake of a peaceful and productive workplace my experience tells me it’s a much nicer way to do business for all concerned.

Once we understand where we have things in common with the people we work with, the resolutions will often float to the surface without a great deal of effort.  If you’re having problems with a member of your team perhaps you could give this approach a try, just once, and see whether it makes a difference.

As always I would love to know your thoughts and experiences.

Lots of love

Jules

In this video Jules asks how do you deal with stresses of birthday cake buying in your workplace?  Is it a source of stress, or have you adopted a share and share alike attitude – even if one person in your team refuses to buy cakes on their birthday.  Teams work best if you can cultivate an atmosphere of open, honest communication.  Is that your team?

Without positive feedback from your team it’s very difficult to know whether or not you are getting it right for them.  You need to be a little bit brave and willing to improve on the feedback you get but the benefits will far outweigh any dent in your ego.  This video explains why getting positive feedback can improve your performance and make your team happier.

If you want to go through this exercise with your team please email me at jules@uturntv.co.uk and I will send you the questionnaire and the guidelines which will help you make this a positive experience.

Hope to hear from you.

Jules

If you are a manager of some experience you will almost certainly have had to deal with a clique, sub-team or gang within your team.  Perhaps you are experiencing it today? Jules discusses how you can deal with them effectively and improve your teams’ performance.

As ever, we would love to hear from you.

Have you ever wondered why you got a promotion, that you don’t deserve it, you’re not good enough or someday your manager will find out you’re not actually that good at your job? I say that’s nonsense! You’re brilliant, amazing, gorgeous, talented and fabulous. You just need to believe it and this video might just help.

As always I would love to know your thoughts.

Lots and lots of love to all you shining stars.

Jules
x

What a funny old week.  I have had several meetings and training sessions this week with clients and business associates where the conversation has turned away from the main reason for the meeting onto more personal subjects.  As someone who is always willing to lend a listening ear to anyone in need I often find myself furiously scribbling book titles, website, music and organisations that have supported me in my personal development over the last 11 years.

In my work with middle management and teams, looking at who I am in a positive way and learning new and better ways of approaching life has made a big difference to how I work so as you can imagine I’m a big fan.

I thought it might be useful (and save me some time!) to list below what has inspired me over the years.  I’m not claiming that these things are ‘the answer’ – they just happened to work for me.  If they work for you that’s great.  If not then I hope you find what you’re looking for somewhere.

The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure – This book by James Redfield was the first one I read that was in the personal development genre.  At the time it blew me away and it’s still one of my favourites.  I had no idea that you could ‘be better’ or ‘be happier’ by reading anything so it was a revelation on many levels.  Looking back, I now know that because it was presented in story format it made it easy for me to accept and acknowledge the concepts you are encouraged to consider.  The blurb about the book is “THE CELESTINE PROPHECY tells a gripping story of adventure and discovery, but is also a guidebook that has the power to crystallize your perceptions of why you are where you are in life–and to direct your steps with a new energy and optimism as you head into tomorrow.”

The Power Of Intention: Change The Way You Look At Things And The Things You Look At Will Change: Learning to Co-create Your World Your Way – Wayne Dyers book is pretty well described in the subtitle of this book.  I found it incredibly useful for looking at the world differently than I ever had done.  It certainly helped me to see how much of the negative stuff in my life was being created by me.

The Power of Focus: How to Hit Your Business, Personal and Financial Targets with Absolute Certainty – I love Jack Canfield (obviously not like that because that would be weird seeing as I don’t know him).  I love his practical, useful and down to earth style that tells it like it is in the nicest way.  The Power of Focus is great if you want to get control over your life but don’t even know how to start a To Do List.

Ludovico Einaudi is a classical pianist and composer who is still alive.  He writes some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard.  Taking time to relax and chill out is an essential part of staying sane and this music is just perfect for that.  There is peace and beauty in this music that takes you to another place.  (Mines always a hammock on a tropical beach.)  My favourite albums are Divenire, Einaudi: Le Onde and Nightbook which is his latest release.  If you ever get the opportunity to see him play live it will be well worth it.

In what sometimes seems like a mad mad world His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s book The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living is a great book for challenging your thinking on how the world should be.  I would never call myself a bhuddist but there is a huge amount of wisdom in this book that will apply to everyone’s life.

In order to keep my skills and head in the right place I work with a wonderful woman called Jane Lumley.  Describing what she does would take all day so beyond saying she is a Health Kinesiologist I would strongly suggest checking her out.  Her site is Reflecting Health and I would encourage you to explore what she does.

Reading Nelson Mandella’s auto biography makes you realise that when you have belief anything is possible. Although I would always recommend reading any books about inspirational people, Nelson Mandella’s strength of character shines throughout this book. A Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

I have just realised as I have been writing this that I could end up making this blog the longest blog in history!  There is so much out there that can inspire you to change whatever aspect of your life you feel needs to change.  Perhaps the list above will give you some starting points that will lead you to exactly what you need.  I certainly hope so.

I would love to know what inspires you.  Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below so that anyone who reads this can have wider choice.

I hope wherever you are you are well and fine.

Much love

Jules

x