This blog entry is going to be brief. Since my return from maternity leave I find that I have less time for musings on topics like social media impact and the future of the press release and instead try to spend a majority of my time getting sh*t done (pardon my language, but it’s a mindset really). I’ve made a conscious decision to try (as much as possible) to not take my laptop home with me at night so I can spend the too few precious hours I have with my new baby. That means my day has to be as productive as possible. Now don’t get me wrong, I still find myself getting sucked in to links on Twitter that lead me to an interesting article, that links to another interesting article, that brings me to a great website…. But I’m trying to cut back. Really. In the six weeks I’ve been back to work I’ve discovered a few things that have allowed me to make the most of each minute and I’m going to share them with you.

1) Turn off your Outlook pop up window. I can’t begin to tell you know one little click has changed my life (well, my work day at least). I’m very easily distracted, which means that every time I got the pop up that a new email was in my inbox I left whatever I was doing to check it out (like something ground breaking was going to appear there rather than the 60th email that day from Bulldog Reporter).

2) Choose lunches/coffees/meetings wisely. I used to agree to meet anyone and everyone for a coffee – informational interviews, vendors, my cousin’s classmate’s brother… just in case there was a connection we could make. Now, if I know it’s most likely not going to be more than just a good cup of joe, I try to set up a phone call, or invite them to an event I’m already attending.

3) Make conference calls as productive as possible. Now dear clients, this tip does not apply when I’m on the phone with you. However, I unfortunately find myself on a fair amount of “other” category conference calls, where my participation is minimal. Instead of surfing facebook (which was my former favorite conference call past time), I now multitask with email replies, inputting hours, media list clean-up – anything that doesn’t take a lot of brain power so I can still pay attention.

4) Organize Outlook folders and delete the “deleted” folder every day. Yes, this one takes a little time upfront, but it pays dividends in the end. I used to use my “deleted” folder in Outlook as another file, which I visited daily. The problem is the more you delete, the longer it takes you to find something. Now, if I think there’s a chance that I will need an email again, I file it in a logical place. And anything that I’m certain I won’t need again is permanent deleted at the end of the day. That first big permanent delete as a little scary, but so far it hasn’t come back to bite me.

5) Leave the office for lunch, even if it’s just to walk around the block. Leaving the office to become more productive may not sound logical, but what I have found is that if I don’t go outside all day, even for five minutes, my afternoon is horribly unproductive. I can’t focus if I haven’t taken a breather and I imagine that’s true for most everyone.

There you go. That’s it. Now off you go.