English blogs
Time tracking: what gets measured gets managed
Time tracking is a work habit that helps you gain better insight into where your time goes: it increases the predictability of your productivity. Additionally, in some professions, it’s a necessity, as you work on a “billable hours” basis, and the administration needs to know how much time the client should be charged for. Time…
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Coasting towards the traffic light: finishing your day differently
Coasting towards the traffic light is an excellent work habit. By this, I mean that it’s smart to use the last part of your workday (and workweek!) to reflect on the day and week: What is still pending? What loose ends do you see? What’s relevant for the next day and needs immediate attention? This…
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How do you combine vacation with email?
The meaning of ‘vacation’ is very personal: where some like to raft down a high mountain, others seek peace and quiet, or just a holiday destination with children’s entertainment. So it is with the combination of work and vacation- because whether you are an employee or an independent professional, you will have to make choices…
Working smarter in a shared inbox
There are plenty of mailboxes managed by multiple people. These do not have to be just secretariats; even at a housing association, an IT department or customer service, people work together on messages that arrive at one central address. Together with my Management Support colleague Roel Peeters, I wrote an article for Management Support Magazine…
Getting rid of the mess on your to do-list
One of the basic principles of working smarter is: get everything out of your head. The purpose of your brain is to think, not to store stuff to remember. But when you’ve cleared your mind and have a long action list… What do you do then? Prevent your action list from becoming a mess. Bring…
Optimal channel management
In these digital times, keeping an eye on all the channels through which you receive information – whether or not it involves action on your part – is quite a task: you surf through the channels and see what’s inside. As the recipient of all these messages, it’s up to you to juggle, filter, and…