Tips of the week

Time Management –

Reduce your stress!   Control your situations!  Sometimes it is the way we react to events, and not the events themselves, that trigger stress.

Eight ideas to increase success in time management include:

1. Identify the sources of stress in your job and in your personal life and minimize them.
2. Find ways to best cope with stress that can’t be eliminated… proper rest, exercise, nutrition.
3. Avoid burning out because of too much challenge
4. Avoid rusting out because of too little challenge
5. Calculate the number of hours you are capable of working and limit your hours accordingly
6. Balance your life; find time for your physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual well-being
7. Identify the priorities in your life and include daily activities related to your priorities.
8. Eliminate time wasters.

• Find out how our Toronto based time management skills training and other communications skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.
• Our time management skills training workshop provides the time management skills essential zero in on areas that will provide the greatest return.  Participants develop the methods to step out of the states of overwhelm, frustration, disorder, anxiety and lack of control into the state of mastery and satisfaction.

Leadership

Staying Professional: Un-emotional & Problem –Solving Oriented

We have a choice in terms of how we can respond to difficult situations. In challenging situations we can respond with anger or frustration if we are not practicing professionalism. Our objective should be to consistently deal with challenging situations in a calm, productive manner.

Six ideas to increase success in staying unemotional problem–solving oriented include:

1. Recognize your body’s physical warning  signals that remaining unemotional will require extra effort, .i.e. a tightness in your neck or shoulders or chest or  hands or stomach;  a flush in your face or  body
2. Take a step back mentally.  See the bigger picture.  Will this be important a week or a month from now?
3. Take a step back physically.  Reduce the extra adrenaline through movement.
4. Buy time.  Say:    “I need to consider this.”   or  “I need to think this through.”   or  “I want to give this some thought”
5. Anticipate your frustration with repeat offenders and plan your reaction to them.
6. Smile and say “I don’t sweat the small stuff”… and smile again.

Our leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based leadership skills training and other management skills and communication courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Business Writing –

Improving your business writing skills will result in an increase in your success!

Eight ideas to increase your success business writing include:

1. Less is more. Be concise. Use words sparingly. Get to the point quickly.
2. Avoid jargon – the eye moves past jargon without really catching the meaning.
3. Write once; check twice. Proofread after you write, and then later.
4. Pay attention to names and numbers.
5. Save samples/templates.
6. Avoid formality but master professionalism.
7. Consider describing a benefit to your reader
8. End with request for action.

Our Toronto based business writing skills workshop provides strategies and techniques to sharpen your business writing skills.

Contact us today to find out how our business writing skills training and other communications skills courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism. Our public workshops take place in Toronto.

Communication Skills –

Disagreeing with a person you report to or a client is a challenging process.

Six ideas to increase your success in disagreeing diplomatically include:

1. Before you disagree, restate or paraphrase what you believe the other person has said to demonstrate your understanding. Do this with a neutral tone and positive body language.
2. Check for their agreement… if they don’t verbalize their agreement, are they nodding?
3. If they don’t agree, keep restating until they do.
4. Acknowledge that you understand their position, feelings or thoughts by outlining what you believe is the value in the suggestion. “I can see the value in…”
5. Add however… do not use “but”.
6. Then present your views, opinions or alternate suggestions.

Our Toronto based communication skills training course provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

We can help you build your professionalism! Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training courses and other management skills and leadership seminars and workshops.

Leadership Skills –

Five ideas to increase success with providing effective feedback include:

1. Make your feedback neutral, free of value judgments.  Stick to facts.
2. Provide feedback as soon as possible.
3. Provide feedback frequently.  Like a vitamin pill, use the following guide: one positive feedback per person per day.
4. Focus on significant issues.
5. Be certain feedback is accurate, concise and readily usable.

Our leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based leadership skills training and other management skills and communication courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Communication Skills –

Make it personal!

Three ideas to increase communication rapport include:

1. Address people by name at least once in any interaction (face-to-face, written, telephone)
2. Try to refer to a situation that is personal to the other person
3. Compliment people whenever possible

Our Toronto based communication skills training course provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

We can help you build your professionalism! Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training courses and other management skills and leadership seminars and workshops.

Communication Skills

Make it personal!

Three ideas to increase communication rapport include:

1. Address people by name at least once in any interaction (face-to-face, written, telephone)
2. Try to refer to a situation that is personal to the other person
3. Compliment people whenever possible

Our Toronto based communication skills training course provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

We can help you build your professionalism!  Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training courses and other management skills and leadership seminars and workshops.

Assertiveness Skills – 

Being assertive means looking after your needs by expressing want, feel or believe in a way that’s respectful of others. It’s a communication skill that can reduce conflict, build your self-confidence and improve relationships

Here are six tips to help you learn to be more assertive.

1. Listen with empathy. Try to understand the other person’s point of view..
2. Agree to disagree periodically. Having a different point of view after discussion is acceptable.
3. Stay calm. Relax your face; speak in your normal un-emotional voice.
4. Use a problem-solving approach. Work to see the other person as your friend not your enemy. Think win/win
5. Use ‘I’ language. Use statements that include ‘I’ e.g. ‘I think’ or ‘I feel’; try to eliminate “You” from your statements.
6. Practice patience… work at lengthening your fuse.

Our Toronto based assertiveness skills training workshop provides the assertiveness skills essential to getting your ideas, plans and feelings across with confidence and conviction.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based assertiveness skills training and other communications skills courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism

Communication Skills – 

You are what you think.  While everyone has negative thoughts; it’s part of being human, you can be a captive or a captain of your thoughts

The thinking that guides your intelligence is much more important than how much intelligence you have.  A positive approach results in fewer problems, less stress, improved health and greater success.

We own our thinking and we can make it work for us.  The key is to focus on positive factors that exist.

Four ideas to increase success with overcoming negativity include:

1. Change: “I want to… but… “       To:  I want to… and…
2. Change: “I can’t… because…”                To: “I won’t… because…”
3. Change: “If it weren’t for… I would…”      To: “I won’t… because…”
4. Change: “I have to… because…”            To: “I choose to… because…”

Our Toronto based communication skills training course provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

We can help you build your professionalism!  Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training courses and other management skills and leadership seminars and workshops.

Time Management – 

Why do you overcommit?  Overcommitting creates stress and potential problems with quality, quantity and delivery.

One idea to increase your success in managing your time is to identify your patterns.  

Do you take on too much because you:

• Want to impress people
• Feel obligated
• Under estimate the time required to complete a tack
• Over-estimate the time you can devote
• Like to start project more than finish them
• Have difficulty saying no
• Earn based on your production

Our time management skills training workshop provides the time management skills essential zero in on areas that will provide the greatest return.  Participants develop the methods to step out of the states of overwhelm, frustration, disorder, anxiety and lack of control into the state of mastery and satisfaction.

Find out how our Toronto based time management skills training and other communications skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.