Hotel & Motel Management - August 2008 - (Page 17) www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition HotelMotel.com | H&MM August 2008 Management Trends If you get stuck, don’t stop. and doing it well. The more specific and vivid your visualization, the better. Don’t just plan to prepare and get ready to arrange everything so you can be organized to start. Do it! hmm@questex.com 17 Set goals to move past harmful procrastination habits IN THE details Putting off projects harmful Split tasks Prepare, reward yourself Move forth need. Have a place with enough light and quiet. Make a list of all the pieces to a project and work backward from the full completion date. Let’s say you have decid- plish. Tackle one task at a time, but make sure you start with the one that requires the most lead time. Avoid placing extra pressure on vendors. Respect your biorhythms. By Jeanne d’Orleans H&MM Columnist ed to participate in a tradeshow. There are many small but critical details to make this a winning venture. Figure out what will take the longest to accom- What time of day are your mental juices flowing best? Work on activities that require creativity or focus when you have the most physical resources for them. Pick up another piece of the project with a similar deadline or work in a different way. When you sit down to work and the computer screen just stares back at you, pick up a yellow legal pad and scribble notes. It will loosen up your mind and get you in the right mental groove. See yourself doing the task, Jeanne d’Orleans is principal of d’Orleans Hospitality Training (www.hotelEtraining.com). hat have you put off for so long that it’s now staring you in the face? Recession-proofing your marketing? Training your staff to be resilient in challenging times? Completing an inventory so you don’t have an emergency (expensive) order to place? You are not alone. Many good people procrastinate, but it can be a serious enough situation that an account, job or even a whole business can be lost. Here are 10 ideas for overcoming procrastination: Accept the truth. There is no magic wand that will make the assignment disappear. Ignoring it usually makes it worse. Think you work best under pressure? Name a day that doesn’t have pressure already built in. Why purposely add more to it? W Break tasks into smaller goals and give each one its own deadline. Often the task you avoid seems too big to tackle, which can paralyze you. Don’t try to finish a whole project in one sitting. Instead, write one month’s marketing plan or analyze one quarter’s figures Give yourself a limit. “I’ll work for no more than 45 minutes on this project and then I’ll walk the property for 15 minutes.” Is 45 minutes too much of a commitment? Use a timer set for 15 minutes and tell yourself, “I only need to spend 15 minutes on it.” You’ll find that 15 minutes gets you past the starting point and you’ll have less trouble continuing. Reward yourself. After your allotted task time, do something you enjoy. Be physically prepared to be mentally prepared. Gather all The easy way to buy and sell existing ® Choice Hotels brand properties. This is not an offering. An offering is made only by a Franchise Disclosure Document. © 2008 Choice Hotels International, Inc. All rights reserved. 08-387/05/08 of the project materials you will CIRCLE NO. 121 http://HotelMotel.com http://www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition http://www.hotelEtraining.com http://www.forsaleatchoicehotels.com http://www.forsaleatchoicehotels.com
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