Laura Stack

how the effective executive spends time

Doing the right things right

The Productivity Pro Shows You How to Do More in Less Time...and Feel Great About It

Leave the Office Earlier

Various Authors

Zig Ziglar

Les Brown

Bob Proctor

Mark Sanborn

Chris Widener

Marcia Wieder

Larry Iverson

Sheila Murray Bethel

Various Narrators

Achieving Greatness One Thought at a Time

Thinking Big Lib/E

Presents strategies that reduce commitments, distractions, interruptions, and inefficiencies, and increase productivity so that more can be accomplished in less time.

Reduce Tasks, Increase Results, and Save 90 Minutes a Day

What to Do when There's Too Much to Do

Do you plan your life as carefully as you plan your vacations? Do you manage your time as well as you manage your money? Do you miss deadlines, stay up late at night, and encounter stress, crisis, and overload? Bestselling author Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(r), will show you how to effectively manage your time in a world largely out of your control. Laura will help you: *Create a realistic daily schedule and to-do list; *Avoid bottlenecks caused by people or processes; *Understand how much your time is worth; *Save time in bits and pieces; *Make productive use of downtime; and *Learn quick decision making techniques. When you manage your time effectively, you will experience results, recognition, free time, clarity, and focus. With proper time management, you will feel a sense of accomplishment each day. Laura Stack will help you take a good look at your current habits and learn how to use the time within your control. You'll increase your productivity and efficiency at work and home!

Controlling Your Day in an Uncontrollable World

It's hard to be productive when you want to put your head down on your desk and take a nap. In this eBook, Laura Stack, author of The Exhaustion Cure, will guide you in making the behavior changes necessary to give you vitality and productivity every day! You will: • Discover your level of burnout with her proprietary exhaustion quiz. • Test your level of sleep deprivation and change poor sleeping habits. • Chart your energy level throughout the day and select appropriate tasks. • Cherish yourself to regain high energy and lower stress levels. • Eliminate myriad low energy "bandits" and increase high energy "boosters." You'll learn behavioral techniques to help you gain the energy you need throughout the entire day. You'll find out how to dramatically impact your productivity by paying closer attention to your energy behaviors. And you'll feel like accomplishing more with your increased vitality!

Beat the Exhaustion and be More Productive

Maintaining Energy During the Day

Do you waste time checking your social media sites every day? Is Facebook time sinkhole for you? Social media can be a useful tool or an ‘attractive distraction.’ Learn how to make social media work to add to your daily productivity, rather than kill it. Bestselling author Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, is ready with tips to help you create an effective social media strategy. She will help you: • Understand your specific social media targets and goals; • Determine the best forms of social media for your purpose; • Make the best use of your social media time; • Eliminate manual processes and automate postings; and • Check in with your social media without wasting time. Laura Stack will teach you to set proper boundaries, so you don't waste half your day on social media sites. You'll connect with your community in a professional, efficient manner that will enhance your internet presence and boost your productivity.

Avoiding Social Media OCD

Digital Quicksand

Pleasing, Perfectionism, and Procrastination

Tackling Timewasters

Veteran professional speaker, Laura Stack, outlines the five steps to prepare for any presentation: 1. Develop your objectives. 2. Analyze the audience. 3. Structure the body and main ideas. 4. Create supporting information. 5. Develop your opening, closing, and transitions. Laura Stack will teach you how to control your speaking environment through proper room logistics: seating, set-up, microphone, and audio/visual arrangements. You'll learn to overcome fear and calm yourself down with myriad physical, psychological, and behavioral strategies. You'll be confident, competent, and composed for your next presentation!

Preparing for Success, Controlling the Environment, and Overcoming Fear

Creating an Effective Presentation

Are you tired of productivity consultants—or worse, your boss—pushing you to do more with less? You’re in luck. Laura Stack knows your to-do list is already packed to capacity, so she shows you how to accomplish more by doing less. Yes, you read that right. Stack’s innovative time-management system lets you work less and achieve more. Following Stack’s step-by-step Productivity Workflow Formula, you’ll organize your life around the tasks that really matter and—this is crucial—let go of those that don’t. Dozens of practical strategies will help you reduce your commitments, distractions, interruptions, and inefficiencies. You’ll shrink your to-do list and save time—around ninety minutes a day—while skyrocketing your results and maintaining your sanity.

Reduce Tasks, Increase Results, and Save 90 a Minutes Day

What To Do When There's Too Much To Do

Do you plan your life as carefully as you plan your vacations? Do you manage your time as well as you manage your money? Do you miss deadlines, stay up late at night, and encounter stress, crisis, and overload? Bestselling author Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, will show you how to effectively manage your time in a world largely out of your control. Laura will help you: • Create a realistic daily schedule and to-do list. • Avoid bottlenecks caused by people or processes. • Understand how much your time is worth. • Save time in bits and pieces. • Make productive use of downtime. • Learn quick decision making techniques. When you manage your time effectively, you will experience results, recognition, free time, clarity, and focus. With proper time management, you will feel a sense of accomplishment each day. Laura Stack will help you take a good look at your current habits and learn how to use the time within your control. You'll increase your productivity and efficiency at work and home!

Maximize Your Personal Productivity

A How-To Guide for the Modern Leader Inspired by Peter Drucker's groundbreaking book The Effective Executive, Laura Stack details precisely how 21st-century leaders and managers can obtain profitable, productive results by managing the intersection of two critical values: effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness, Stack says, is identifying and achieving the best objectives for your organization—doing the right things. Efficiency is accomplishing them with the least amount of time, effort, and cost—doing things right. If you're not clear on both, you're wasting your time. As Drucker put it, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” Stack's 3T Leadership offers twelve practices that will enable executives to be effective and efficient, grouped into three areas where leaders spend their time: Strategic Thinking, Teamwork, and Tactics. With her expert advice, you'll get scores of new ideas on how you, your team, and your organization can boost productivity.

How the Effective Executive Spends Time

Doing the Right Things Right

To be successful in the business world and reach your full potential in life, it's not enough to be simply competent. Our modern, super-competitive world is full of opportunities for the go-getter, but to take advantage of them, it's essential to become "SuperCompetent." The SuperCompetent person is one that companies fight to get, fight to keep, nurture as team players, and see as future leaders in their business growth. But SuperCompetence isn't something you're born with-it's something that you can learn, no matter where your strengths lie or what industry you work in. In SuperCompetent, productivity expert Laura Stack identifies the behaviors that build leadership skills, boost organizational efficiency, and blast high potential producers to the top of their fields. With Stack's Six Keys, you'll be able to consistently improve your performance, develop the confidence that will propel you forward, and achieve breakthrough results in your career. Activity: The value and importance you place on your tasks and priorities Availability: The ability to master your schedule and protect your time Attention: The capacity to focus intently and concentrate on critical activities Accessibility: The skill to organize your workflow and quickly find information Accountability: The extent to which you assume personal responsibility for your actions and outcomes Attitude: The intensity of your motivation, drive, and proactiveness With worksheets and quizzes that help you evaluate your performance at every stage, and invaluable resources for further information, you'll be able to integrate the Six Keys of SuperCompetence into your daily, weekly, and lifetime business practices. From the sales floor to the conference room, from board meetings to informal networking events, SuperCompetent enables you to build your focus, manage your resources, and maximize your ability to deliver at every level.

The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best

SuperCompetent

You have a sink full of dishes to wash, three loads of laundry to do, seventeen bills to pay, thirty-six e-mails to answer, a big stack of novels on the nightstand you’d love to read, and zero minutes of free time. You can’t add more hours to the day, but Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro®, will help you make the most of the time you have and get things done. The Productivity Pro® helps you determine what you have under control and where you need to improve. Are you good at managing your bills but can’t find time to exercise? Do you get your kids to all their activities but end up constantly behind on laundry? Laura Stack shows you how to improve every area of your life. Whether you need help on just a few things or feel like your life is totally out of control, Find More Time will help you organize your space, time, and information to reduce your stress and create and sustain a productive home environment, so you’ll have more time to enjoy your life.

How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It

Find More Time

Traditional productivity concepts look a bit different at the highest of senior leadership, and the standard approaches don't always apply. Executives need different guidance to maximize their performance each day. Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, identifies the six main productivity issues, concerns, and challenges faced by upper-level executives (CEO, CFO, CIO, Presidents, VPs, and Directors): 1. Prioritization 2. Scheduling 3. Focus 4. Organization 5. Efficiency 6. Attitude

Time Management Issues Facing C(x)o Leaders

Productivity Strategies for Executives

Do you spend hours every day wading through your email? Would you like to reduce the amount of time spent in your inbox? Communicating more effectively with your team members and professional contacts will maximize your time and avoid wasting others' time. Bestselling author Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, offers tips to help you: • Decide whether email is the best method in a particular situation. • Handle emotional responses professionally. • Use the proper etiquette with the To, CC, and BCC fields. • Use group distribution lists and subject fields effectively. • Learn the four C's of good email messages. Email can be a distraction, but it doesn’t have to be a time waster. When you know how to use email as an effective communication tool, you'll avoid having your inbox monopolize your day.

Courtesies, Protocols, and Time Savers

Communicating Effectively with Email

Faster Together Accelerating Your Team's Productivity There are more roadblocks to productivity today than ever before. Everyone who works must deal with countless emails, constant communication, cascading deadlines, and seemingly endless meetings. These can be managed efficiently, or they can be a huge time suck. When you're surrounded by slow-moving coworkers, you're stuck in a traffic jam of sorts. What makes the difference isn't individuals working harder or faster or smarter but “teaming well.” You have at your disposal what Stack calls “the most powerful productivity machine in existence”: your team. Individual productivity is just the beginning of business profitability; the real winner is team productivity. A good team can accomplish more, and more quickly, than any one Lone Ranger. Yes, there are always stars—in sports, Peyton Manning, Mia Hamm, and Stephen Curry come to mind—but they couldn't do their jobs without the rest of the team doing theirs. Bestselling author Laura Stack's FAST model mobilizes teams to be the most effective they can be, while keeping each other's best interests at heart. Using her original model, teams learn to work together Fairly, accept Accountability, apply Systems Thinking, and maximize available Technology. An interactive assessment helps you evaluate your team's current speed and rate of acceleration. By the end of this book, you'll truly understand the abilities of your team. Team members will ask themselves, “How can I help my team go faster together?” You work to save everyone else time, and they work to save you time. For your business to win, everyone must contribute. As Stack puts it, “Team up; don't slow down!” So, rev your team's engines, and you'll soon be roaring down the track together!

Accelerating Your Team's Productivity

Faster Together

Do you find yourself continually racing against time? Do you feel that you have so much to do that it's difficult to get anything done? Time management is much more complicated than making a list and checking things off. Managing time effectively is the key to managing your individual performance. Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro, will teach you how to set priorities; focus on what's truly important; and schedule your day. You'll learn how to: • Take advantage of the most valuable ten minutes of the day. • Identify the most important tasks on your to-do list. • Implement a four-step process to pinpoint your high-value priorities. • Schedule your day realistically and build in flexibility. • Work with your energy prime times and down times. • Identify the activities that steal your time. • Learn to concentrate and stop multi-tasking. If you're continually racing against time, Laura Stack will help you feel more in control of your days. You'll hear behavioral techniques to help you handle challenging, stressful schedules. And you'll find out how to increase output and decrease the number of hours you work!

Laura Stack

Books

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