Author: cameron-laird

3 Ways to Manage Meeting Schedules More Productively

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Get Shift Done: Management

Photo credit: Domenico Presutto via Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA

Setting up meetings can be tedious and time-consuming. How many email threads have you endured with a dozen messages asking, “How about Tuesday at 3? No? Monday at 4?” Surely, you think, there’s a better way. And with the help of these three guidelines, there is.

Meetings earned their bad reputations: They’re expensive, often ineffective, can perpetuate occupational inequality, and just scheduling them is too-often a four-step cycle of frustration. The tech world has responded with its usual “There’s an app for that!” reaction, to both good and bad effect.

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Filter Gmail To Delegate Routine Email to Your Assistants — Safely

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Plenty of managers are smart enough to get help with their daily email traffic. But many people don’t realize that they can give assistants access to only part of the load. Private correspondence stays private, while delegated items are routed to an assistant immediately. Here’s how this simple Gmail automation works.

You’re busy! To manage your time, you’ve identified slices of your work that someone else can do, and you found someone to do them. You naturally assume that the way to delegate this work is to share your e-mail password with the assistant: not so good.

Filter, don’t share. Here I show you how to configure an appropriate Gmail filter. The tip below applies equally whether you rely on fee-free Gmail or G Suite. (Apple Mail, Outlook, and other services offer similar functionality, but about one in six messages are read in Gmail.) Moreover, the configuration below works without regard to the e-mail system used by your assistant.

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