One Small Win can BOOST Your Productivity
Human nature is when we feel overwhelmed, we just want to resolve it. When overwhelmed with technology, clients and students want to try and get better at everything at once. However, that approach doesn’t relieve the pressure, it increases it. It is surprising simple to quickly reduce your stress. Identify the one program causing you the most grief, and start there. Is it your inbox constantly open and dragging your attention away. Perhaps it is editing Excel formulas and wondering if they are doing what they are supposed to. Maybe it is a Word document that you can’t quite get …
Want to be More Productive? You Don’t Need an All Day Course… Here’s why…
People often think that to become more “productive” they need to enrol in a full day training course, usually at an intermediate or advanced level because they’ve been using Excel for a few years. This generally means blocking a day out in their calendar and preparing themselves for information overload! But the truth I wish more people understood is that: It’s not full day training you need. You need a few better tips. Having been a trainer who delivered full day training programs, I know all too well how much attending a full day training session actually increased rather than …
Pivot Tables: Your Secret Weapon in Microsoft Excel
So many clients I work with want to know how to create complex formulas or functions to analyze large data sets in Microsoft Excel. Reality is, you don’t need to be a math genius to do this, you just need to understand a powerful tool in Microsoft Excel called Pivot Tables. When I mention pivot tables I often see eyes glaze over! Like macros, pivot tables can seem overwhelming and complex. However, when you understand what they do and Excel’s tools to make creating them EASY, enormous amounts of time can be released to do other tasks. The bonus is, …
7 Reasons Why You Should Book Donna for your next event or conference
Donna is a professional and can extend or compress presentations to suit conference or event timelines. As an adult educator, Donna’s programs ALWAYS focus on content that delivers immediate return on investment. …
What’s the point?
At a recent workshop, I went around the room and asked each person what they wanted to get out of the session. Most had a specific thing they wanted to understand or learn, but what one participant said surprised me. They said, “I don’t use Excel and I’m not sure why I’m here.” I was blown away! We can never replace time. It’s our most precious commodity. Yet the organisation was happy to send this person out all day to learn about something they never use. Now it might have been that in the near future, the person attending the …
Time for Thinking
There are points where organizations tend to take time to reflect on the past and the future. Traditionally these are at the end of the calendar and/or fiscal year. But reality is, regular thinking time is great for productivity. Management guru Peter Drucker once said “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection, will come even more effective action.” In a world of 24/7 ON, we often make the time to reflect and observe our experiences, decisions and interactions. We are too busy moving onto the next item on our to do list. It’s very easy to be …
The KISS Principle
Ever read a letter or email, gotten to the end only to say to yourself “I have no idea?” Maybe you have no idea what the writer was trying to tell you, or no idea what the writer wants or expects you to do, or you are just totally confused by its purpose. Too often, particularly in written communication, people “waffle”. If it is something the writer is familiar with, because they either deal with the situation or the language every day, to the receiver it can seem like another language. A bit like internal acronyms in an organisation. When …
Get Out of the Forest!
If you’ve ever gotten frustrated when madly looking for or trying to do something, only to find that when someone else does it, they find it or do it easily, you know what I mean!! It often isn’t until we ask someone else to look at something that we are exposed to a different point of view. One generally without the emotional attachment normally associated with a looming deadline. One of the simplest ways move out of that “stuck” place is to connect with colleagues. Recently I was working with a client who had a specific challenge with an Excel …
Holding ourselves accountable
I’m am regularly surprised by comments from staff in organisations I work with when it comes to learning and development. For some, the opportunity to learn new skills that may benefit them and make life easier is something they grab with both hands. For others it is an opportunity to complain. Complain about how the organisation never provides opportunities to learn the things they want to learn, or changes processes or technology without consulting them. Those who recognise the opportunity for what it is, AN OPPORTUNITY are prepared to hold themselves accountable. They are generally excited about the learning and …
There’s No Such Thing as a Dumb Question!
When I present at conferences or in-house professional development events, I regularly get a sheepish hand raised and the phrase “this is probably a dumb question…” spoken as the precursor to a question. When I hear this, two things immediately come to mind. The first is recognition of the huge leap of courage the individual has taken to ask the question, and the second is, the trust they feel in the moment that I may be able to answer it. When I respond, I always reassure the person that it is not a dumb question, and that it is likely …
