5 Successful Job Search Strategies For 2013 !

With 12.2 million Americans currently unemployed and a reported 86% of employees interested in finding a new job in 2013, landing your dream job may be more competitive than ever.
Whether you are unemployed or satisfied in your current position of employment it is always important to know how to locate your next quality job quickly and efficiently. Know the five Successful Job Search Strategies For 2013.
Update Your Resume
A keyword rich resume is still the most valuable tool to unlocking the doors to getting a job. Keywords are those words that define skills and certifications that are specific to your industry. Keywords should be displayed in your summary as well as throughout your resume job descriptions.Update your resume before you need it and keep a list of running accomplishments throughout the year so if someone wants to see your resume quickly you will be ready.
Upgrade Your Skills
What’s trending in your industry? Which of your skills are rusty? What gaps are there between your skills and the needs of your industry? Gaining education doesn’t have to be expensive and doesn’t necessarily require a formal education. Read industry publications, follow the blogs of industry thought leaders, or make an investment in a class or degree program if you think it is warranted.
Know Exactly What you Want
For both the individual seeking a job and the colleague or friend trying to help them, nothing is more frustrating than when the job seeker doesn’t know the exact job they want to target. Determine Which strengths and skills do you want to act on? What kind of people, culture and work environment do you want to invest your time in? Answering some of these foundational questions will inform your job search strategies.
Time Management
Finding a job is a job. So if you’re looking for a full-time job, you need to spend full-time hours looking for it. If you are unemployed then you have plenty of time to conduct a proper job search, so manage your time efficiently.
Using LinkedIn Effectively
What do Microsoft, Ebay, Netflix, and Target have in common? All these companies (and many more) have used LinkedIn to recruit candidates for employment. LinkedIn is a Powerful Networking tool and if used correctly, you can land in your dream job quickly. LinkedIn has a surprising number of tools for helping your job search.  I recommend you to take the Online course by Lewis Howes to unleash the full power of LinkedIn for your job search.

Source:Internet

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"No" is the New "Yes": Four Practices to Reprioritize Your Life

I was sitting with the CEO and senior team of a well-respected organization. One at a time, they told me they spend their long days either in back-to-back meetings, responding to email, or putting out fires. They also readily acknowledged this way of working wasn't serving them well — personally or professionally.
It's a conundrum they couldn't seem to solve. It's also a theme on which I hear variations every day. Think of it as a madness loop — a vicious cycle. We react to what's in front of us, whether it truly matters or not. More than ever, we're prisoners of the urgent.
Prioritizing requires reflection, reflection takes time, and many of the executives I meet are so busy racing just to keep up they don't believe they have time to stop and think about much of anything.
Too often — and masochistically — they default to "yes." Saying yes to requests feels safer, avoids conflict and takes less time than pausing to decide whether or not the request is truly important.
Truth be told, there's also an adrenaline rush in saying yes. Many of us have become addicted, unwittingly, to the speed of our lives — the adrenalin high of constant busyness. We mistake activity for productivity, more for better, and we ask ourselves "What's next?" far more often than we do "Why this?" But as Gandhi put it, "A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
Saying no, thoughtfully, may be the most undervalued capacity of our times. In a world of relentless demands and infinite options, it behooves us to prioritize the tasks that add the most value. That also means deciding what to do less of, or to stop doing altogether.
Making these choices requires that we regularly step back from the madding crowd. It's only when we pause — when we say no to the next urgent demand or seductive source of instant gratification — that we give ourselves the space to reflect on, metabolize, assess, and make sense of what we've just experienced.
Taking time also allows us to collect ourselves, refuel and renew, and make conscious course corrections that ultimately save us time when we plunge back into the fray.
What follows are four simple practices that serve a better prioritized and more intentional life:
1. Schedule in your calendar anything that feels important but not urgent — to borrow Steven Covey's phrase. If it feels urgent, you're likely going to get it done. If it's something you can put off, you likely will — especially if it's challenging.
The key to success is building rituals — highly specific practices that you commit to doing at precise times, so that over time they become automatic, and no longer require much conscious intention or energy. One example is scheduling regular time in your calendar for brainstorming, or for more strategic and longer term thinking.
The most recent ritual I added to my life is getting entirely offline after dinner each evening, and on the weekends. I'm only two weeks into the practice, but I know it's already created space in my mind to think and imagine.
2. As your final activity before leaving work in the evening, set aside sufficient time — at least 15 to 20 minutes — to take stock of what's happened that day. and to decide the most important tasks you want to accomplish the next day.
Clarifying and defining your priorities — what the researcher Peter Gollwitzer calls "implementation intentions" — will help you to stay focused on your priorities in the face of all the distractions you'll inevitably face the following day.
3. Do the most important thing on your list first when you get to work in the morning, for up to 90 minutes. If possible, keep your door closed, your email turned off and your phone on silent. The more singularly absorbed your focus, the more you'll get accomplished, and the higher the quality of the work is likely to be. When you finish, take a break to renew and refuel.
Most of us have the highest level of energy and the fewest distractions in the morning. If you can't begin the day that way, schedule the most important activity as early as possible. If you're one of the rare people who feels more energy later in the day, designate that time instead to do your most important activity.
4. Take at least one scheduled break in the morning, one in the afternoon, and leave your desk for lunch. These are each important opportunities to renew yourself so that your energy doesn't run down as the day wears on. They're also opportunities to briefly take stock.
Here are two questions you may want to ask yourself during these breaks:
1. Did I get done what I intended to get done since my last break and if not, why not?
2. What do I want to accomplish between now and my next break, and what do I have to say "no" to, in order to make that possible?

Source:Internet

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7 Things Highly Productive People Do

Here are his tips for staying productive:

1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.
2. Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women). 
3. Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.
4. Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.
5. Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead. 
6. Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day. 
7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

Source :Internet

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10 Signs of an Incompetent Leader

Poor leadership surrounds us, it’s a fact of life and they seemingly find a way to keep their jobs. They are more focused on their personal needs and not of the professional needs of those below them. They have a hard time developing their employees because they lack the proper management techniques to do so. A leader is someone who you would follow to a place you would not go alone. Leadership is about action not status.

However, the question is, how do we know when we are dealing with these flaw ridden individuals. A lot of the time, a poor manager can make the perception that he/she is busy and organized. I have developed a small guideline that can help pinpoint these leaders.

Incompetent Leaders will:

1. Delegate work rather than balance work loads. This allows all attention to be diverted from them in case of failure. It may seem to them that are managing their people but in actuality they are creating work imbalances within the group. It can create unnecessary overtime for some and under utilization of others. A good manager is aware of the skill sets of all the people below them and should allocate work accordingly while trying to enhance the skills of everyone to be even more productive.

2. Reduce all answers to Yes or No rather than explaining their reasoning. This is an example of a crisis manager who can not think farther than a few hours ahead. A yes/no manager finds it a waste of time to find the real answer through intellectual thought. They are already thinking about the next crisis.

3. Not separate personal life from professional life. They will bring their personal problem to work. Working for these types of managers can be very dramatic. They are unable to separate their emotional imbalances while trying to manage people. They are less focused and will not give you the attention and direction you need for success.

4. Manage crisis. If you are a company that has crisis managers, then you can say goodbye to innovation and progression. Proactive thinking is critical to the success of any company. If you are not finding ways to stop or reduce the amount of crisis that has to be managed, then your competition will pass you by. Leaders have to think out of the box and make change.

5. Create an environment where mistakes are unacceptable. Being held accountable for wrong decisions is a fear for them. Making mistakes only helps you become a better person, manager, etc. I use the analogy of a basketball player that has no fouls. If they are not going for the ball and taking chances with their opponent, then they are trying hard enough. Take a chance and don’t be scared.

6. Humiliate or reprimand an employee within a group. This is a clear and visible sign of a poor leader. A good leader takes employee problems away from a group setting to a more private setting. If you have a boss that does this, it is time for a visit to human resources.

7. Not stand behind subordinates when they fail. Never leave your people to hang out to dry. Always back them up, right, wrong, or indifferent. If an employee tries their best in a situation and they fail to come through. They should be commended on their effort and not punished for the failure

8. Encourage hard workers not smart workers. I am not impressed with hard workers. A hard worker is usually defined by hours. Smart workers are the ones that I hire and embrace. Smart workers understand the concept of time management and multi-tasking. Poor leaders miss this connection. Smart workers are methodical in their thinking and can generally be successful because of their abilities management projects and time. Hard workers may take twice as long to do the work. It is important to assign work accordingly to the skills and personalities

9. Judge people on hours not performance. This is similar to #8. Again, I am not impressed with overtime junkies. They have lost all perspective on a healthy family/balance. Bad managers will promote the employees that work the most hours and not look at the smart ones who work less……….meaning have better time management. Stop watching the lock.

10. Act differently in front of their leaders. This is an indication of low self-confidence. They have doubts about their own ability to lead and they will act like little children when authority is present. A confident person acts the same around everyone. Remember, have respect for them, but also have self-respect.

Source:Internet

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Position of RF-Performance Lead- CDMA- Orissa/Ranchi

An urgent opening for a leading Telecom Company for the Position of  RF-Performance Lead- CDMA- Orissa/Ranchi-. If you or any of your friends are interested kindly send me your updated resume Urgently or feel free to contact at given mail address.

Please Mentation:

CCTC:-
ECTC:-

JD:-


Overall responsibility for the RF / RAN operations on the circle level and
co-ordination with NNOC for day-to-day to operational issues and
co-ordination with national planning and engineering team

The RF Lead has the authority to run the day-to-day operations. The RF Lead
should have sufficient latitude to exercise a wide degree of creativity in
performing this role.

Technical Skills
The RF Lead is overall responsible for

• Responsible for RAN related Key Performance Indicators as set by
Network Quality
• Helping Customer in the preparation of SACFA
• Ensure that there is sound and scalable “cook-book†designs for each of
the circle teams to implement.
• Manage & Lead teams for achieving end objectives with in time / cost
constraints.
• Plan / Schedule Drive tests & Routes in consultation with customer.
• Consistency in design and methodology across all circle teams
• Key interface with Site Acquisition team
• Generation of all management reports – internal and external
• Responsible for updating the centralized database for site configuration.
• Working level knowledge about MS access / MS excel.
• Experience with Site surveys and Search ring process.
• Experienced with CW survey and Propagation techniques/ modeling.
• Experience in RF Optimization using drive & Performance data.
• Knowledge about CDMA & RF Metrics & Parameters.
• Experience in managing & implementing Inbuilding solutions / repeaters
• Knowledge about Tools like Agilent Nitro, Wizard, TEMS.
• Knowledge about CDMA / GSM Air interface signaling.
• Knowledge about over all network architecture and call flow.
• Familiar with Traffic trending & performance trending.

Planning Skills
The RF Lead should be able to
• Anticipate and identify deviations and keep all participants and
stakeholders informed.
• Identify, log, analyse and manage potential and actual issues and risks,
taking corrective action by tackling day-to-day issues head on and reviewing
how more serious issues and risks might impact operations from quality and
cost perspectives.
• Identify where and when management of issues and risks or
accommodating altered requirements will involve extra time or extra resources
and where efficiencies can be made.

Communication Skills
The RF Lead

• Should be able to articulate and negotiate consensus with his team
members on a final vision for efficient circle operations.
• Must be courteous in written and oral communication, and be able to get
ideas across in a non-confrontational manner in one-to-one situations, small
groups, and before large audiences.


Team Management Skills
The RF Lead

• May work directly with the team members or with their team leaders to
estimate effort, plan activities and negotiate consensus among individual
team members on their appointed tasks.
• Should have Vendor Management Skills
• Should be able to create and use Gantt charts, spreadsheets or other
appropriate tools to manage people and tasks and keep up-to-date.
• Should be experienced in providing a team with direction and vision,
including motivating people to perform, listening to people, providing feedback,
recognising strengths and providing challenges.



Technical and Quality Tasks
The RF Lead

• Without necessarily being an expert, should make an effort to understand
the technology being used in order to understand and question requests
coming from specialists and technical staff and to evaluate what is reasonable
or possible.
• Must have an understanding of relevant methodologies, processes and
standards and ensures that all team members understand and follow these also.
• Is responsible for commitment to quality – also referred to as fitness for
purpose or specification level, and may need to call on specialists to assist in
creating or assessing quality standards.


Organising Tasks
The RF Lead
• May need to generate many types of document, including requirement specifications, schedules, communication (email) records, meeting agendas, minutes and status reports.
• May need to create a structure for project documentation and remain conscientious in using it and ensuring that the rest of the team understands and uses it.
• May need to create a structure for Circle Assets upkeep and remain conscientious in using it and ensuring that the rest of the team follows it.



Best Regards
Sanjeev.

mail cv : cv17@careershapers.in

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Time Management Tips And Tricks

Properly allocating your time is never an easy task, especially if you’ve never been the type to make the most of your time. However, there are a lot of ways in order for you to start up and slowly integrate your whole system into practicing effective Time management methods.

Here are a few tips in order for you to successfully initiate your time management skills.

Keys To Successful Time Management

Before you can use some time management strategies in your schedule, there are a few key principles you have to understand first.

You need to be aware of your goals. Having proper awareness of what your goals are will assist you in properly prioritizing your activities for the day. It also helps you to get motivated and avoid distractions in between work.

You also need to develop a flexible schedule for yourself. It must be flexible enough to make sure that if you need to fill in other things aside from your usual schedule, you can still take care of them when you need to.

Tips To Successfully Utilize Your Time

Here are a few tips to successfully utilize your time

1. Examine your old habits and look for ways to change them. – When you learn that your habits are not conducive to proper time management, then it’s about time that you start changing them. Bad habits are usually hard to change but when you’re able to overcome it, the results are rewarding.

2. Put up reminders at home and office about your goals. – Usually when you’re trying to pursue long-term goals, you slowly lose focus on them. Putting reminders everywhere would help you get reoriented with your goals motivating you to strictly follow your schedule.

3. Maintain a list of specific things to be done each day and set a top priority on that list. – Maintaining a list of things to be done everyday is a great way to start on successfully allocating your time properly. A checklist would help you to remember all the things that you need to do for the day and compel you to finish them at the end of the day.

Furthermore making a checklist would definitely help you to become a more responsible person. It is more than just a reminder, but is critical in how you follow that list to see if it effective for you.

4. Concentrate on one thing at a time. – Some people try to do all things at the same time. This happens because people need to do a lot of things but they do not have the luxury of time. Proper time management allows you to concentrate on one task at a time. When you feel that this task is more urgent than the other, then you must first focus on that task before moving on to the next most important task.

When you concentrate only on one task, the time needed to finish the job will significantly lessen giving you more spare time.

5. Enjoy what you are doing – When you enjoy what you are doing, it creates less stress. When you are not stressed, you are more likely to accomplish your tasks within a shorter time frame. Consequently, you will be able to do more in your typical working hours.

6. Continually look at ways of freeing up your time – It is important to try to free your schedule up. Looking for ways to free up your schedule improves the time spent on finishing up your activities. Remember that if you save a few minutes from each activity, and then you sum them all up, you’d realize that you have saved a lot of time.
Source:Internet

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Urgent opening for RF Performance Lead(Sr. Mgr)/J&K/Kolkata/CG

This is in regard of an urgent opening in one of the leading telecom company as a
(Sr. Manager) RF Performance Lead in Jammu & Kashmir/Kolkata/Chattisgarh
If you or your friends are interested, kindly send me your updated resume as soon as
possible for the same.

Exp:- 8 yrs to 16 yrs

JD:-

Overall responsibility for the RF operations on the circle level and co-ordination
with NNOC for day-to-day to operational issues and co-ordination with national
planning and engineering team

The RF Lead is overall responsible for

Responsible for RAN related Key Performance Indicators as set by Network Quality
• Helping Customer in the preparation of SACFA
• Ensure that there is sound and scalable “cook-book†designs for each of the circle teams to implement.
• Manage & Lead teams for achieving end objectives with in time / cost constraints.
• Plan / Schedule Drive tests & Routes in consultation with customer.
• Consistency in design and methodology across all circle teams
• Key interface with Site Acquisition team
• Generation of all management reports – internal and external
• Responsible for updating the centralized database for site configuration.
• Working level knowledge about MS access / MS excel.
• Experience with Site surveys and Search ring process.
• Experienced with CW survey and Propagation techniques/ modeling.
• Experience in RF Optimization using drive & Performance data.
• Experience in managing & implementing Inbuilding solutions / repeaters
• Knowledge about Tools like Agilent Nitro, Wizard, TEMS.
• Knowledge about CDMA / GSM Air interface signaling.
• Knowledge about over all network architecture and call flow.
• Familiar with Traffic trending & performance trending.

Planning Skills
The RF Lead should be able to
• Anticipate and identify deviations and keep all participants and stakeholders informed.
• Identify, log, analyse and manage potential and actual issues and risks
taking corrective action by tackling day-to-day issues head on and reviewing how more
serious issues and risks might impact operations from quality and cost perspectives.
• Identify where and when management of issues and risks or
accommodating altered requirements will involve extra time or extra resources and
where efficiencies can be made.

Communication Skills
The RF Lead

• Should be able to articulate and negotiate consensus with his team
members on a final vision for efficient circle operations.
• Must be courteous in written and oral communication, and be able to get
ideas across in a non-confrontational manner in one-to-one situations, small groups,
and before large audiences.


Team Management Skills
The RF Lead

Thanks & Regards
Sanjeev Singh
mail cv: cv17@careershapers.in

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What Makes a Good Manager?

Communication skill

A manager is the middle person in between the top management level and the team that reports to him. He has to ensure that communication is smooth and conveyed clearly to avoid misinterpretations and dissatisfaction. It’s useful to develop your negotiation and customer service skills, especially if you deal with clients.

A good planner

In order for you to achieve long term goals and commit to strategies for substantial earnings, you have to communicate the vision of the company to your subordinates. You break down and clarify the goals that each team or individual have to perform and assign work schedules and strategies.

It also involves thinking and planning out strategies on how to improve quality and also being cost conscious and effective. Having goals and planning out the directions allow for effective time management and saves cost and resources.

Decision Maker

The daily routine of making decisions include determining how to approach an employee who is not performing or lacking progress and how to bring about change to the organization and its team. It is essential that your day to day decision is based on what’s important, what’s right and not who’s right.

Interpersonal relationship skill

If you want cooperation from your team or employees, pay attention. Practice empathy and respect the personal values, opinions and ideas with the people you interact with. Listen and respond and offer praises and encouragements when they make progress. By doing that you will enhance their self esteem build trust. As the boss, your ability to develop trust and confidence, resolve problems and issues will result in a productive, goal oriented work group. You should encourage your team to ask for help, get involved and participate.

Source:Internet

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Recipe for success - Eat the frog

If you are wondering that a person who eats frog must be insane, then the answer is big NO. The long term benefits of eating frogs are substantial – glowing cheeks, shining hairs, muscular body, and a healthy heart. Even now if you are resisting eating frogs then let me tell you how to do it. Let’s start – hold the frog tight and put it in your mouth. Don’t think; just put it in your mouth. Ummm. How does it taste? Yummy, Yummy! What!! You don’t like eating it? Stop lying! Oh okay okay, it stinks, it got stuck in your throat. No, No please don’t vomit, hold your nerves. Yes, that’s it! See it’s over! It is not as hard as you thought. You have swallowed the frog and you are still alive (though the poor frog is not). Now you have gained all vitamins and proteins necessary for a healthy body in short time which pizzas, chips and drinks would have not provided during lifetime.

Daily, we come across activities which we don’t really enjoy. Jumping out of bed at the first alarm bell, making the first sales call, learning from criticism, following up with prospective clients, regular gym routine, planning the day in advance – all these are examples of eating the frog. One doesn’t really enjoy the process but once performed, the results are extra-ordinary. Eating the frog refers to performing the task which is crucial for our growth but performing the task might not be fun. We tend to procrastinate, avoid such task and then later regret our decisions.

The irony is the more displeasing the task appears, the higher is the rate of return attached to it. 80/20 rule applies here also. Generally 20% of your action will result into 80% of achievement. Prepare a to-do list for your day. Now observe and you will find that if you roughly complete 2 tasks out of 10, you will have a successful day. Yes! You have guessed correctly, those 2 tasks are the frogs, the ones which you want to postpone. But the case with the frog is that it is easier to eat it fresh, than to swallow it rotten. The more you procrastinate, the harder it becomes. If you give yourself time to think, the mind will come up with thousands of reasons why it is okay not to eat the frog and avoid brief pain. Do you recollect, last time you decided to sleep just for 5 more minutes and got up an hour later, last time you said to self that you will start exercising from tomorrow and you are still waiting for that tomorrow, last time you delayed reading that business book and now it has become a part of dusty shelf. The formula is simple – stop thinking and just do it!

The difference between highly productive people and others is that the former are good at eating frogs. Entrepreneurs take risk, athletes undergo rigorous practice, leaders take tough decisions – these are activities which ordinary people avoid. You know what is important, don’t procrastinate, just do it. The more frogs you eat the healthier you will be, the more difficult tasks you perform the wealthier you will be.

A quote from Michael Dell : “There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.”

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7 Easy Self-Improvement Tips

Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever imagined that life could be a lot better and more fulfilling than yours is right now? Are you eager to learn a self improvement technique that will make it so? I am going to lay down 7 simple steps for your self improvement plan. Whether you implement the self improvement steps I give you is your decision alone.

Self Improvement Tip 1

This tip will seem quite obvious and simple to you, but you'll be amazed how few actually take the effort to do it. Unless you're not a morning person this self improvement tip will drastically change the quality of your day towards the positive. Setting you in a good mood to face the days challenges and adversities.

Get Up Early!

This may sound more like a way to ruin your day by putting you in an awful mood, but bear with me on this. To be able to accomplish this and still avoid losing any any precious sleep. You can go to bed just a half hour earlier since to start with you only need to get up a half hour earlier than you usually do. To aid this purpose you should definitely use an alarm clock with persistent beeping. You may be wondering by now just what it is that you're supposed to do in this extra half hour when you would normally be dozing peacefully in bed and how this has anything to do with self improvement. For different people the answer can vary slightly. To start with you need to fully awaken yourself and get rid of early morning sluggishness. To suit this purpose you can take a cold or slightly cool shower. Or you might try doing stretches combined with deep breathing.

You might skip the shower if just splashing cold water on your face is sufficient to wake you. Use whatever works for you. After you're completely alert step outside of your house, apartment, etc... And if it's early enough and you have a clear view, watch the sunrise. This simple but immensely satisfying act will lift your spirits and help with self improvement. If you're unable to do this, take a brisk walk, jog or run depending upon what you prefer and what you're physically capable of. When you've been out for 20 minutes you can head inside and commence with whatever morning ritual you normally have.

Self Improvement Tip 2

Now this is extremely important but deceitfully obvious. Eat Breakfast.

To start your day out on the right foot and stay in keeping with your self improvement plan this is practically a necessity. You need the energy this will provide you with to accomplish your daily tasks. If you are overly pressed for time you might try cereal and milk or a few granola bars, even a few pieces of fresh fruit would do. Any of these are better alternatives than skipping breakfast. This is also a good suggestion for those watching their weight, because if you skip breakfast you're more likely to binge later in the day. And you certainly won’t be helping your self improvement by gaining unwanted weight.

Self Improvement Tip 3

When you go places, even if you find it a bit difficult at first, smile more at other people. Just curve your lips up a bit as you make eye contact with another human being. It's really that simple. This will not only lift your spirits as you see a good many people smile back, but it will lift other people's as well. Even the ones who are too shy to smile back.

Self Improvement Tip 4

Don't procrastinate! The more you put something off and something else off, the more all your undesirable chores pile up. Until they're an insurmountable task that would make a paid cleaning crew shudder. In fact take these chores and work them into your schedule so you will do them.

Self Improvement Tip 5

If you don't already keep either a schedule or make yourself a to-do list each night, this is your cue to start. A to-do list helps you with get things done because it gives you a urgency "must do this today" attitude. It will also help you remember things that you might have otherwise forgotten. You can put things on them that you're afraid of forgetting, or want to make sure you make time for.

Self Improvement Tip 6

This is by far the most important self improvement tip I could give you. Forgive and Forget. Either imagined or real slights should always be forgiven. To forget them is to not dwell on them and not remember the angry feelings if you ever look back on that moment. Let me just tell you this: Holding a grudge will not hurt the begrudged as much as it will hurt you and your personality. As well as your existing relationships. If there are any ancient or recent rifts or fights between you and a relative, friend, or spouse that are hurting your relationship or have ended it entirely, make amends.

This life is the only life you get, we'll never know when it'll be our or the begrudged person's time to die, and by then it will be too late to say "I'm Sorry". So pick up the phone or walk up to that person and apologize, even if it wasn't your fault. This may be the last chance you'll get to make amends. You will be surprised at the feeling you'll get after fixing things up between you. As if a burden has been lifted off your shoulders. This is definitely a step towards self improvement.

Self Improvement Tip 7

Do something kind for someone else. Today!
Not just on a birthday or anniversary, but spontaneously.

Buy a rose or other flower for a friend and tell them it's just "because". Because they mean a lot to you, and because you care for them. Tell your family and friends that you love them. Offer to help a friend with a chore. Babysit for someone you know so they can have a night out. Help teach a young niece/nephew, son/daughter, brother/sister, etc.... how to read or do some other "grownup" thing. The list of things you can do is endless, and I'm sure you can procure some ideas of your own on the subject.

To sum up:

1. Get up early and jog or watch sunrise
2. Eat breakfast
3. Smile at strangers when you make eye contact
4. Don't procrastinate
5. Keep a schedule or To-Do list
6. Forgive others and Forgive past wrongs
7. Do something for someone else

Remember it's all up to you whether you take these steps in your self improvement plan, but improve it they will.

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Manage Your Boss: 8 Ways to Manage Up Effectively

Is it really possible to manage your boss? If so, is it really necessary? After all, it can be hard enough managing those we're responsible for, without "managing up" also! Whether or not you agree with trying to manage your boss, it's still important to understand how he or she works. And from there, perhaps you'll be one step close to being a more effective manager yourself.

Crucially, we need to consider the quality aspect of time. How do we make our time most productive? What could be a more effective use of time than ensuring we have a mutually effective relationship with our own line managers?

1 - First Try to Understand Your Boss

In the classic Harvard Business Review article: “Managing Your Boss”, John Kotter and John Gabarro suggest several ways to achieve this. They state that you need to ensure you understand your boss, and her working context, by understanding her:

• Goals and objectives;


• Pressures and issues;


• Strengths, weaknesses and blind spots;


• Preferred work style.

Then, you need to do the same for yourself.

As Kotter and Gabarro discovered in their research, it may seem an unusual expectation to “manage up” but the need to do so is obvious. “Just think of the job and how to be effective in it. How do you get the resources you need, the information you need, the advice, even the permission to keep at it? The answers always point toward whoever has the power, the leverage – that is, the boss. To fail to make that relationship one of mutual respect and understanding is to miss a major factor in being effective."

2 - Manage Your Boss: Don’t Try To be a Reformer!

It is tempting to try changing the way your boss works. Especially if you feel things aren't going well. However, it's difficult trying to change personal preferences, habits, styles, and agendas. Difficult and not necessarily time well spent. The important thing is coming to understand what makes your boss tick, and developing an effective working relationship. Far better to work on the basis of that relationship, and the way in which it's conducted, than to try to change your boss. Ensure you meet regularly with your boss and try to develop a professional relationship based on mutual trust and respect.

Accept that your boss is human, with strengths and limitations just like yourself. As we've discussed in other articles, it's a far more productive approach to build on strengths, than trying to remedy limitations. If that's good advice for managing your own staff, it's equally good advice when trying to manage your boss. So ask yourself: “what can your boss do really well?” Where do her strengths lie?

Peter Drucker put it well when he said: "It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than to improve from first-rate performance to excellence".

We all feel good when we get better at what we're already good at!

3 - Build on Strengths

One effective way to manage your boss is supporting them in doing what they themselves are good at. Discuss their strengths and how they can be most effectively employed. Offer your own support in doing this, perhaps by taking on other roles yourself, especially those which utilize your strengths. Ensure your boss is familiar with the the concept of strengths-based management. Point out the value of this approach, both up and down the management hierarchy.

4 - Focus Strengths on Things That Matter

Of course strengths matter, but their real value only comes when they are applied to the things that matter. In his book: “The Effective Executive“, Peter Drucker suggested consideration of the following: To answer the question: “what does my boss do really well?”, ask “what has she done really well?” Where is the evidence of what she's very good at?
Then ask: “what does she need to get from me to perform?”
Encourage the activities which build on strengths, but which deliver the goals and objectives discussed in step one.

5 - To Manage Your Boss - Find Out What Works

Before you get the wrong impression, this is not an article about “crawling” to the boss. You need to start out with what you consider to be the right things to do. Then find ways to communicate these to your boss, and to get them accepted. Don't forget we are all different, so it's important to understand which method of communication and discussion is most appropriate for each particular boss.

In “The Effective Executive”, Drucker suggests that some people are “listeners” and others are “readers”. Some prefer to talk to understand, others must first read before discussing. If your boss is a listener, brief her in person and then follow up with a memo. If she is a reader, cover important points of your proposal in a memo or report, then discuss them. How can you encourage you boss to be involved in doing more things that they are good at? Remember this isn't something you're trying to do to your boss. Rather you're trying to do things and comunicate ideas in a way that relates to their strengths.

If your boss is particularly good with your clients, but demands of work are restricting her time to do that, then make sure that you invite her out to meet important clients on a regular basis. Show appreciation of what she has done, and the value that her involvement brings.

Ask your boss to do something, propose activities which you know build on their strengths. Your efforts to manage your boss should be guided by what works for your boss.

6 -To Manage Your Boss - Build Your Relationship

How you go about building your relationship does of course depend on many factors. We've already discussed the need for good, regular, open communication. This should ideally help build trust, respect and understanding. The ease with which you can support them will naturally vary. Your ability to influence your boss will depend on how well you've understood the four factors discussed earlier: goals, pressure, strength and weaknesses, and preferred style.

7 - How to Avoid Being Overloaded or Having Your Time Wasted!

Firstly your boss will need your time and that is legitimate. What isn’t legitimate is an over loading, or wasting of your time. There are still ways that you can influence your boss time management. So what things can you do, and what do you need to look out for?

• Tell your boss when you are reaching saturation point.


• Make your boss aware of the consequences if she tries to overload you: “yes I could get that done by then, but that would delay this…”


• Don’t say yes to everything your boss asks you to do, negotiate!


• Ask your boss to prioritize when she gives you a list of tasks.


• When asked to do something: find out details and, if possible, say you'll get back to her, or take a look at it. Then:
  
  
  
  • Work out what the job involves;
  
  
  • Find out who else could be involved;
  
  
  • Go back with an answer “ here’s what I can do”.
  
  
  
  

8 - Build a Bigger Network Don't shy away from seeking help with managing your boss. Try to develop a network of people who can be a positive influence for you. Depending on a single boss can be a career limiting experience. Whether you have a boss who is more authoritarian, or so weak that they don't have much influence within the organization, you need to take time to build a bigger network.

Find and get to know the people who really make the decisions in the organization. Find people who manage well. They are usually easy to find because everybody wants to work for them! Volunteer to help or work more closely with them on a project. Build your network both with managers at the same level to your boss, and with those higher up. Just ensure you look for those managers who create the right conditions for their people. And be sure to build this network with integrity and positive purpose. It's important not to jeopardize the hard work you've put in building a professional relationship with your own boss.

When Your Boss is More Effective, You're More Effective
The number one lesson here is this: work gets far easier for you and your colleagues when you're able to manage your boss. The result can also be a more effective boss. This article will probably not solve every boss management issue you have. Each situation is different and some suggestions will work, while others may not. The important thing is to realize the importance of understanding your situation, and of finding ways to manage it. And you probably can't do that without trying to manage your boss!

See you at the top soon as a boss!

Source:Internet

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