Tag Archive: iTunes

Meet Count Clockula

clock

We had some fun with sound effects on The Bigg Success Show today. You can read our summary here, but you might have more fun listening!

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icon for podpress  Hear the spooky Count Clockula on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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With Halloween approaching, we felt we should warn you about a monster you may not know about. This monster lives off of your most precious resource – time. It’s downright frightening how much of our time can be wasted.

See if you can relate to any of these haunting situations:

Chatty co-worker

You’re working on that bigg project. You reach a point where you just seem stuck. Maybe getting away from your desk will help. So you get up to stretch your legs and grab a cup of coffee. You’re in the break room when that chatty co-worker walks in. Fifteen minutes later, you’re finally back at your desk.

You’ve been bitten by Count Clockula!

He lives off wasted time, sometimes using other people to feed his ravenous appetite.

E-mail alerts

You’re busy working at your computer. You see the alert that your friend just sent you an e-mail. You can’t resist. You have to see what it is. It’s a fun video. Well, you might as well watch it now. Wow, it’s funny. Better e-mail your friend. Five minutes later, you’re back to work.

Count Clockula got ya again!

He sucks your time away by tempting you with things that are appealing. They seem like more fun than the important things you need to work on.

Lost keys

You’re running late for work. You rush into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee for the road. You grab your laptop bag. Your keys! Where are your keys? You can’t find them anywhere. You look everywhere. Ten minutes later, you find them underneath yesterday’s mail.

Count Clockula strikes again!

By keeping you from paying attention to seemingly little things, he can suck away a lot of your time.

Misplaced files

You have a meeting in five minutes and you can’t find the file you need. Where did you put that file? Is it in this stack? No. How about this one? No. You keep looking. If you don’t find it soon, you’ll just have to go without it. Ah, there it is – at the bottom of that overflowing “In” box.

Closely related to the last issue, Count Clockula thrives on disorganization.

Meetings

You went to yet another meeting. The project leader was late. Then he didn’t keep the group on track. The conversation just floated from one issue to another without accomplishing anything.  

Count Clockula sinks his teeth in again. He thrives on dead time – where groups of people are completely unproductive. 

Media

You have a major report due in a couple of weeks. As you were doing some research for it, you found a great site full of information. You spent a lot of time there. Sure, it was still research, but it was more than you needed for the project.

Count Clockula flies again! Sometimes he overwhelms you with his charms.

Lack of focus

You don’t really have a sense of direction. Sure you think about your goals near the end of every year. But you don’t keep them in front of you like you should.

It’s the worst bite Count Clockula can deliver.

How can you allocate your most precious resource effectively if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish?

Word of warning

We’d be remiss if we didn’t warn you about one more thing. Unlike other vampires, Count Clockula doesn’t just come out at night – he’s out all the time. Beware!

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A BIGG thanks to all our iTunes subscribers.
We just hit the top 100 business career online radio shows in iTunes!
Keep telling your friends!
Click here to subscribe to our show or to leave a review.

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Next time, we’ll chat with Seth Godin about his fantastic new book, Tribes. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00252-102808.mp3

Related posts

Are You a Victim of Your Own Success?

2 Tips for More Effective Project Status Reports

pm411_logo We visited with Ron Holohan today on The Bigg Success Show. Ron is a Certified Project Management Professional and is currently the Director of Program Management at Shure in Chicago. Ron also hosts a weekly project management internet radio show called The pm411.org Project Management Podcast, which has consistently been one of the top four project management shows on iTunes.

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icon for podpress  Hear us talk with Ron on The Bigg Success Show! Just click the purple play button.: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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marylynn We all know that project management can be a stickler. So we asked Ron to share two tips with us to create more effective project status reports.

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ronThe first tip is to focus only on the exceptions. What I mean by that is that you don’t want to throw everything in the kitchen sink into your status reports. No one wants to read all that. They want to be able to look at your status report and pull out just the information they need. So focus on the exceptions – those issues that have changed since your previous report. Your audience only gets the information they need so your status report is short and concise.

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georgeI think that’s a bigg one. It seems that you often see status reports that look like a “mind dump.” You see all the activity that’s happened since the last report. You get bored with it so you’re not able to help them. might call it stubborn.

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ronThat’s right. If someone wants to go back, they can always look at one of your previous reports for more information.

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marylynn Cut the fat … get to the meat. What’s another tip?

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ronAnother tip is to make your report as easy as possible to read. This is the same kind of ideas as Tip #1. You want to allow your audience to easily scan for details that interest them the most. One way to do that is by using something called “Stoplight Reporting” – you communicate progress by using different colors. A bullet point in green may mean this item is going according to plan. Yellow means that particular item needs to be watched. Red means action is required because that item is starting to go off track. You can actually use blue as well to indicate that particular item has been resolved or completed.

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marylynn Can you put a “Don’t Walk” in there?

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ronThat would be nice! Use short bullet points. You don’t want to write a paragraph; this isn’t going to win you a Pulitzer Prize. You’re just trying to convey simple facts to your audience. Also, use tables where you can. They’re great for listing things like milestones, budget information, or product material cost.

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georgeWhat’s interesting about this to me is that some people are good with words or numbers, but other people are very visual. So you’re giving your report in a way that allows your audience to consume it the way they prefer.

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marylynn I prefer stick figures!

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georgeIt’s a great system that you’ve outlined with the different colors. You instantly can see what’s going on. Now I assume what you talk about are the “yellows” and the “reds”.

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ronThat’s right. So if I was reading the report, my eyes would naturally look for those yellow and red bullets that need my attention the most.

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Ron’s freebie!
Ron has a free status report template available for you, complete with a Stoplight along with other great templates.

Thanks Ron for sharing your fantastic tips with us!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. 

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