Do you keep a “to-do list” on what you wish to accomplish each day? There may have been a point in time where you did this quite routinely, and perhaps it has dropped out. Most people will make a list of things they wish to accomplish in the morning and by the end of the day they didn’t get one thing off the list done. Sometimes this becomes so bad that many business owners decide not to even keep a daily to-do list anymore and just walk into the office and wait till the first employee gives them an order of what they need, and the owner does it for them. This is a backwards way of thinking.

The simplicity of placing a couple of targets on a to-do list and making that your known goal and overcoming whatever those not unknowable obstacles are in order to achieve that end, would make you more happy. Simply speaking, if you got your to-do list done each day, how would you feel at the end of the day? Would you feel good or bad? Likely good. Accomplishing any target or any goal that you set out to do will make you happy.

Too often there are a variety of different barriers that get in the way of achieving one’s goal. The unfortunate thing is we tend to put attention on the things that stop us, and not attention on things that allow us to win. Look at today. What are the problems that you are trying to handle outside of the basic production for the day? It’s likely that these problems do not have any impact on your expansion even if you never handled them at all.

Sometimes it is important to recognize the barriers that are in front of you that keep you from achieving your goal and just ignore them. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is nothing while carrying forward towards reaching your known goal. Let’s take a look at how simple this can be accomplished. Let’s say you walk into your office on Monday morning, and you look at how production occurred the prior week, and you have an immediate staff meeting, for say 30 minutes, and you say, with confidence that “we are going to get our production up by 10% before the end of the week.” And then you pose the question to the group: “what can each of you do?” Insist they actually give you an answer to this problem. And then write it down on your to-do list — those steps that your staff said they could do to get your statistics up by 10% that week. And those would be your known sub-goals toward the overall goal of a rise of production by 10%. And then you overcome whatever obstacles are in the way of achieving those goals until you accomplish the end result you are searching for. Certainly you do this fairly routinely. Most business owners do this or if they don’t, they should be.

This inability or difficulty in getting things done transcends from the owner to the staff. If you give your staff random orders without any recognition of what is important and what’s not, the staff member will take the unimportant to be equal to the vital task. So it is key for you to delegate towards expansion.

By simply delegating toward expansion, putting together a real list of actions to take each day that will result in expansion and completing what is on the list you will increase the productivity of your business. It is that simple.

Jeff F. Lee is Co-Founder of Measurable Solutions Inc., a consulting firm engaged in all areas of business management. He has found that all the basic principles of how to expand a business apply to any business when delivered in a very precise way. With his partner, Shaun Kirk, he has built the most rapidly expanding company of its kind in the world. Visit his website at http://www.measurablesolutions.com

When it comes to GPS tracking systems and employers there is a lot of talk about how they can be used to help make certain that employees are doing what they are supposed to do, when they are supposed to do it. There is no doubt that many an employee has been caught going somewhere they were not supposed to, driving faster than they were supposed to, or leaving the car idling for much longer than is necessary or economical. And, yes, as an employer you may find yourself making an example of an employee through reprimand or other action once a GPS tracking system singles out someone as an abuser of company property.

It is also possible that you may find that there is some extenuating circumstance or reason other than flagrant rule-breaking that accounts for an employee’s lackluster performance. It could be anything, really. An employee who has started drinking a lot of water for health reasons could be stopping off to use the restroom more frequently. Adjustments can be made, but this is something that you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t installed a GPS tracking device in your company vehicle.

There is also another use for all of the information that you get with a GPS tracking system. What about using that information to reward employee excellence. If your GPS tracking devices show that there are employees who consistently complete deliveries on time, stick to the assigned route, obey the speed limit and do not waste exorbitant amounts of gas idling, why not find a way to let them know you appreciate their efficient work?

Now some people will say it makes no sense to reward someone for doing what they are supposed to do, and I can understand that line of thinking. There is not need for a grand ceremony to honor a person for performing the job duties they agreed to perform. You can, however let someone know that you are aware that they take the time to do good work.

GPS Tracking Systems
McCord Web Design

Workaholism is rife in the business world. To many it is a badge of honour, worn with pride. A workaholic sees work as their life - the means and the end in their search for successful living. If this picture fits you it is worth noting that, of the people on the 9/11 hijacked planes who were able to make a last-ditch call from their mobile phone, none of them called the office.

For generations now, we have been conditioned to believing that work is the core of successful living. The world’s economy and our individual material benefits depend on it. Emerging generations today however are working to live, not living to work.

Why do you work? Is money the purpose of, or the means to, your definition of successful living? What are the qualities that go towards creating a successful life for you?. They are likely to include achieving a sense of:

- belonging

- commitment

- connection with others, being part of social change, being part of life

- contributing to the betterment of society

- dignity,

- enjoyment

- independence

- learning

- professional and personal growth

- purpose

- recognition, status

- satisfaction, self worth, self esteem, self belief, self confidence, and

- valuing self

Passion pays! When you ‘lose’ yourself in an interest you love, you ‘find’ yourself. For many, this is the attraction of work. When you have a job that you love, you come alive as a unique individual. Time flies when you become lost in the pleasure of using your natural skills , abilities and talents in ways that give you a feeling of intense personal satisfaction and fulfillment. Work is not the only way to get this sort of fulfillment. It also happens when you enjoy passionate interests away from work.

“I enjoy a sense of dignity, high self esteem, achievement, recognition and status. I wish I could get the same feelings from my job!”. Regrettably, not everybody enjoys their job. They find themselves looking elsewhere for life satisfaction. Personal interests don’t have to be physical - they can be intellectual, social, artistic, manual, environmental, or spiritual. For example, singing in a choir does it for me.

Excellent workers who can sustain high levels of productivity generally also often find pleasure in their family or other passionate interest away from work. They recognise having the right “fight and flight” mix sustains high work productivity and enriches their lifestyle.

Successful living is about getting the mix right, balancing the yin and yang of:

- harmoniously blended, mutually-energising work and personal life interests, and

- work and personal life experiences that are “complementary opposites” to each other.

In the 21st century world of 24/7 pressure and stress, people are increasingly seeking quality of life benefits through interests away from work. A harmonious mix of enjoyable work and personal interests not only increases the range of options for successful living. It also generates and sustains the energy, enthusiasm and enjoyment needed to maintain personal health and wellbeing.

Such health is needed not just for today or next week. Implementing a ‘quality of life’ plan now, with a good mix of interests, greatly improves your chances of actually having a long and happy life!

You are invited to visit http://www.workleisure.com for further information on Peter Nicholls’ approach to lifestyle management affecting work productivity.

Peter Nicholls can be contacted at peter@workleisure.com.

When a friend of mine announced that she did not think time management training was worth doing, I had to take notice. She is an experienced trainer who had just started working for a large company and usually knows what she is talking about. Her comment did, however, cause me to question her, so she expanded on her statement.

She went on to explain that she had nothing against time management training in itself. Her issue was the way in which it was being used in her organisation.

Typically, line managers would send their staff on time management training whenever issues about efficiency or productivity cropped up. Little thought was being given to whether time management training was the right approach.

Her frustration stemmed from the fact that managers were effectively trying to fit the problem to the solution rather than the other way around. They were not making any real attempt to work with individuals to find the root cause of the issues they were having.

The outcome was that people were attending whole day training courses run by my friend but getting very little out of this. The training she inherited was generic and had not been tailored to the needs of the business, let alone the individual participants.

Over a bottle of wine we spent sometime discussing how to fix this problem, and came up with a plan.

Step One: My friend would contact all managers requesting time management training for their staff, and probe them so she could understand the need. This would include revisiting what has been discussed with individual staff members so far. In many cases individuals were not aware that their efficiency was in question.

Step Two: Where necessary, she would conduct some on job observation to understand the situation first hand.

Step Three: She would design a new training solution based on the needs of the business areas and linked to specific business issues. However, she would also make alternative recommendations in individual case where she considered time management training would not be appropriate.

Step Four: Individual nominees would be briefed by their line managers three weeks before the training. Both parties would agree the outcomes to be achieved. The individual participants would also be briefed to complete a daily time log for two weeks, to help identify how they use their time now. A key part of the training event would be to link with the briefing and the time log. Individuals would not be allowed to attend the training without completing this step.

Step Five: The training event itself would end with each individual producing a plan of action.

Step Six: Follow-up one to one coaching linked to the action plan produce during the training. . In some cases this would be carried out by the line and in some cases by my friend. The amount of time spent on this phase would depend on the needs of the individual. This important step ensures that the training is set down to practical outcomes.

With a proper structure now built around time management training my friend confessed to being confident of success. She also admitted that time management training is worthwhile after all. Or was that just the wine talking?

© 2007

Wolfgang Halliwell is a learning and development consultant who has authored a number of courses for Trainer Bubble. For more learning resources visit: http://learningresourcefinder.com

MOMENTUM

Think of a period of time when you were so engrossed in what you were doing, that almost every moment of every day felt productive. When things are going right, energy flows, and action propels us forward. Candice Carpenter in the book Chapters describes this feeling as being in “the zone”. When we are operating on momentum it is easy to lose ourselves in our passion.

The reality is that no one stays in this kind of high-energy state forever. We transition between periods when we are firing on all cylinders, to times when we aren’t as motivated, to times when we feel just plain stuck.

When things are NOT flowing, it can be hard to gain momentum. We may struggle with a complex business problem and feel overwhelmed. And sometimes, it’s hard to even define the problem - we just know something isn’t “right”. Everyone goes through down or less-than-optimal operating periods. However, sometimes they go on too long, and we are ready to move on, but can’t seem to figure out how.

BACK TO BASICS

In a car, an automatic transmission works just fine, but car enthusiasts will tell you that a manual transmission is the only way to go, even though it requires more effort and concentration. Why? Because a manual transmission gives the driver more control of the car, allowing the driver to navigate actively rather than passively, and to be more involved in the process. The driver needs to make decisions based on driving conditions, and needs to think more clearly and be more aware of what he is doing - and this not only increases the driver’s enjoyment of the driving experience, but also helps him deal more effectively with trouble spots on the road, such as bad weather conditions or bad driving by other drivers. Just as when driving a car on automatic, in business (and in life), sometimes we operate on automatic for too long - and when we do, it is often difficult to get out of “bad driving conditions”. If you are ready to take back control, it may be time to take yourself out of automatic and take a closer look at the current conditions.

OUR REALITIES

“Be careful how you interpret the world: It is like that.”- Erich Heller

Taking a fresh look may seem simple, but it isn’t always as easy as it sounds. If only we could fly up in the air and look down objectively on our own situations.

Our deeply formed assumptions and beliefs can create blind spots that prevent us from looking at situations from new angles. These beliefs become what is “true” for us, creating a framework we call our “reality”. Sometimes we get stuck in our own frameworks, “boxing ourselves in”, so to speak. To break out of the box often requires someone or something from outside, to challenge our assumptions and test our realities.

I frequently hear statements like the following: “If I don’t do it myself, it won’t be done right. Nobody could possibly care as much as I do.” “If we take time off to plan, the business will fall apart.” “We must work 10-hour days — there is no other way we can keep up with our customer demands Everyone in our industry does it.”

Despite the fact that often people desperately want to improve their situation, their “truths” might be preventing them from moving forward. To change behavior often requires re-exploring beliefs.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
- Marcel Proust

A good way to start exploring our beliefs is by looking at our situations from some new perspectives. By consciously shifting into manual, you force yourself to take a closer look at the current situation. From each of the following perspectives, ask yourself some important questions.

Look at yourself

Are you satisfied with your career?
Are you applying your full potential?
Are you stimulated socially, mentally, and physically?
Are you living your values?
What if you applied more of your full potential in one of these areas? What differences would you expect? What if your employees did?
Where are you trying to get to long-term?

Where do you want to be in 5, 10, 25 years?
How do you define success?
What does your ideal day look like?
What trends are now occurring in your industry or in the marketplace that will impact your business, not just today or tomorrow, but years from now?
What’s different about the markets you serve and the markets served by your customers?
What will be different tomorrow?
How can these changes influence the products and services you offer?
What are you doing right now?

What are your priorities?
Do you have a plan to increase productivity? Improve time management?
Are you moving forward on your long-term goals?
Look at your business

Is your organization easy to do business with?
Do you understand your customer’s needs, wants, and expectations? Once you do, you have the ability to structure your company so that you have a true competitive advantage.
What do your employees care about? What are their long-term goals? What do they value?
What does the outsider see?

Ask questions to see how you (or your company) is viewed from the outside:
What do our clients think about us?
Why do our customers buy from us and not the competition?
What is going on in the world and how might it impact how we need to do business?
What is really going on inside?
By looking at a familiar situation from a variety of angles it becomes easier to identify what is really important, and see exciting new possibilities.

SUMMING UP

In any organization, and individually in your own professional life, to gain momentum it’s important to shift out of automatic. By shifting perspective with some strategic questions it becomes possible to innovate, problem-solve and challenge the status quo!

As Benjamin Franklin once said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”

Helene Mazur, MBA, CFP is the founder of Princeton Performance Dynamics, a business coaching company. Helene coaches professionals, business owners and their teams to reach out of their comfort zone to achieve important goals and do more of what makes them come alive.

Her website is http://www.ppdbusinesscoaching.com

Safety precautions in the office or factory have never been of greater importance.

The simple truth is that, although the workforce may be at risk of injury, and that is obviously the prime concern, employers are also susceptible to being reported to industrial tribunals. This can be very costly, particularly given the growing volume of aggressive personal injury lawyers. According to the RSPOA, around 1.6 million workplace injuries happen in England every year, however in very many instances these injuries could have been avoided without too much effort.

It is a well known fact that a safer work environment benefits everyone. By taking up a few easy steps it’s easy for both employees and management to advance safety whilst at work.

Change routine tasks

This is particularly essential for anyone doing monotonous tasks for prolonged periods, such as being employed on assembly line production or being a computer operator, as it helps reduce repetitive strain injuries. See if there is a different job which could be done, variety is the spice of life.

Seek to reduce stress

Stress is amongst the most frequent employment health problems, accounting for upto twenty percent of all reported work related health problems. Psychological health is as significant as physical health. Look after the ‘whole person’, not just the body, perhaps learn some techniques for relaxation. If you believe you have too much to do, you are allowed to request help. At the end of the day, it won’t hurt you to be late.

Carry out risk assessments

Risk Assessments are a marvelous method of reducing risk of accidents way before they happen. One great tip is to undertake cross-departmental risk assessments, where workers from other departments within an organisation audit one another. A fresh pair of eyes may frequently see things in a different way, plus it gets people from different departments working together.

Become an expert on regional safety laws

For some types of company, such as those concerned in the production of corrosive chemicals, keeping on top of complex health and safety legislation is of extreme importance. Just the same legislation of one form or another is binding on all businesses. A starting point for any organization is to get in touch with the Health and Safety Executive. They are responsible for increasing awareness of the extent of health and safety legislation that covers workplaces in Great britain.

Slips and trips

These are common occurrences in any workplace loves office to heavy machinery site. Look out for uneven floor surfaces, stairs, dangerous holes, trailing electric cables; the list is long. Ensure that you do away with problems wherever possible. Consider the value of warning signs, a soaked floor might look clean and shiny but it is very dangerous. In addition think about adequate lighting to keep the area well illuminated, as poor lighting can cause a danger being ignored.

Take care when moving objects

It is exceptionally important to think through the difficulty of the task, load and surroundings before starting to move equipment large or small, light or bulky. A massive amount of injuries take place each year due to physical handling. Personal capabilities and health limitations will decide your maximum limits for lifting objects. Make sure to adopt a suitable posture, don’t strain too hard and request help to lift heavy or bulky items.

Medical aid training

In the event of an adversity it is worthwhile to recognize who in the company has the knowledge to administer first aid. If you’re the type of individual who likes to get involved think about putting yourself forward for medical emergency training - it’s an additional string to your bow, employers consider it as a positive and it’s actually quite interesting. Moreover employers should be encouraging employees to get first aid skills.

If you take up these basic procedures, you should be able to keep company employees and companies safe, in good health and efficient.

Roger Wakefield is a staff writer at:
Reagent Laboratory Chemicals, (http://www.reagent.co.uk), a manufacturer of specialist laboratory chemicals and reagents.

Learning - the acquisition of new information or knowledge,
and Retention - the ability to capture that information and
recall it when wanted or needed, is actually a process that
involves five steps:

First, is Impact. That is, actually receiving the idea in your
mind. Impact can be in the form of a word, a visual
observation or a concept. It makes no difference. Your mind
isn’t capable of making a distinction between a visual or an
actual experience. Nor is it capable of determining the
difference between a conscious or an unconscious impact
an idea may have on you. As far as your mind is concerned,
those experiences are all the same and your mind will
accept them, regardless.

If information or an experience appears real to your mind,
your emotions and nervous system will react as though it
were actually real. To illustrate this point, try this simple
experiment:

*-Seat yourself in a comfortable chair, feet flat on the
floor and your hands resting comfortably in your lap.

*-Close your eyes, take a deep breath, let it out
slowly and relax. Take another one. Let it out slowly. Relax
even more.

*-Picture in your mind, a lemon resting on a table in
front of you. Visualize it. See it clearly. Look at it’s shape -
it’s color - it’s texture.

*-Now, mentally reach out with your hand and pick up
the lemon. Bring it up to your face. Look at it closely.
Squeeze it. Do you notice how firm it feels? Feel the texture
of the lemon’s dimply and waxy skin. Notice the lemon’s
yellow color and round shape, with its pointy ends.

*-Now, hold it up to your nose. Smell it. Do you notice
the lemon’s citrusy smell?

*-Place the lemon on the table and mentally pick up a
knife that’s laying nearby. Cut the lemon in two.

*-Pick up one half of the lemon and see the juice
dripping from it. Bring the lemon up to your nose. Smell it
again. Now bite into the lemon.

What’s happening to you right now? Is saliva flooding your
mouth, both in your mind, as well as physically?

Consider what just happened. In actuality, there was no
lemon. You just pictured one in your mind. While this was
just a mental exercise, and the lemon was just imagined,
chances are, if you are like most people the mental image
you were playing on the screen of your mind triggered
certain responses which manifested themselves physically.
This simple demonstration demonstrates that Impact is a
critical step involved in the process of learning and
retention.

The second step is Repetition. One university study
revealed that an idea that was read or heard only one time
was 66% forgotten within 24 hours. But if that same idea
was read or heard repeatedly for 8 days, up to 90% of it
could be retained at the end of the eight days.

One of the most effective ways to learn from a book or an
article, is to read through it, and then go back and read it
again. But the second time you read it, be sure you have a
highlighter, a pen and notepad handy. Mark up the book or
the article. Write down the ideas that you feel fit your
personal business situation. This repetition will help you
retain more of the information than if you had read it only
once.

The third step in the learning and retention process is
Utilization. This is the “doing” step. It is here that
neuromuscular pathways are actually developed, creating a
“mind muscle memory.” And according to the study quoted
earlier, once you physically experience an action, it becomes
twice as easy to recall as if you had heard it only.

Fourth, is Internalization… actually making the idea an
integral part of you. That may involve some customizing or
tailoring of the idea to fit your situation or style, but it is
vitally important for you to personalize the idea and make it
“yours.”

The fifth step is Reinforcement. In order to maximize the
effectiveness of an idea you should continually be looking
for ways to support and strengthen it. The more you can
support the idea, the more you will believe it, the longer
you will retain it, and the more effective it will become in
helping you serve your customers’ needs.

Now, what does all this have to do with your business?
Simply this. In your daily business and personal activities,
as well as throughout your experience with the information
you come across, that you hear, see or read, you are going
to be exposed to a great number of ideas. Some will be
brand new… that is, you’ve never heard them before. Some
will be ideas you have heard in the past, but have
forgotten. And others will be ideas you come up with on
your own as a result of something that was triggered in
your mind as you read. Understanding and applying these
five steps in the learning and retention process can help
you retain more of what you read and experience.

TopLine Business Solutions CEO Martin Howey, a 40+ year consultant to some of the world’s corporate giants including Black & Decker, AT&T, Mobil Oil, Bank of America and countless small and medium size businesses has developed a step-by-step training and support system to show you how to leverage your skills and experience to become a highly paid business development consultant. Receive your free information kit at: http://www.TopLineInfoPacket.com

We’ve all had them, intelligent, talented, and educated employees, who have been assigned certain tasks on which they never take initiative, or never finish - but are always one step away from the great breakthrough that will make all this talk without results pay off.

Procrastination is simply continuing to put off doing something, a decision or an activity, for whatever reason. But you may not want to lose that intelligent, talented, and educated employee. People procrastinate for a variety of reasons. On the job, reasons may include any one or combinations of the following:

Fear of failing or succeeding. The employee may be concerned with the consequences of failing at the task or the consequences of outstanding achievement which might bring more workload with higher expectations.

Negative belief about the end reward. Past experience tells the employee that hard work on this type of task will not be recognized or rewarded, so why bother?

The work environment, including other people. For some tasks, the physical environment where the task assigned may be too noisy, quiet, bright, dull, hot or cold, or the other people around may be demanding too much attention on other tasks.

The belief or knowledge that the task is too big. A task can be assigned that really is simply too large for the employee to manage. For example, an administrative assistant who has been in charge of inter-office communications, business letters, etc. might be given the task of writing company policies and procedures. As time moves on and the scope of such a project sinks in, the employee may start to doubt having the ability to accomplish it or know they can’t complete the task.

Tips to help managers overcome procrastination problems

The first thing the manager or task owner needs to discover is the reason for the procrastination. Talk with the employee about the reason for the problem, then give them direction for completion or make necessary changes in the task assignment. What are some positive directions or changes management can make to help bring the task to completion?

If the employee may be concerned with the consequences of failing or succeeding at the task, then address those issues and be clear about what the consequences actually might be. If the employee is still uncomfortable with the task, it’s time to assign the task to someone else.

If the employee believes the task will not be recognized or rewarded, explain the importance of the task to the company’s bigger picture and as above discuss real outcomes.

If the employee is distracted by the physical environment or other people where they are expected to perform the task, see if you can limit distractions or move the location for task performance and make sure the employee is not having to multi-task for other people when working on the problem task.

If the employee believes or knows the task is simply too large, your first action should be to go over the task with the employee and determine if this task is really too large or difficult for the person assigned or if that is a misperception on the employee’s part. If you believe the task can be completed by the employee, brainstorm solutions with them, help them break it down into achievable chunks, and set deadlines. However, the task may actually be too large for one person or that particular person as in the example given above with writing policies and procedures. If this is the case, decide which solution will be the best course of action. Should you assign a team to the task? Can you spare that kind of manpower, and do you have teamwork down? Should you hire a professional consultant to work with the assigned employee, at least to a point where it becomes a manageable task for the employee? There are lots of options here.

After these types of positive action on the part of management are taken, the employee should be motivated to stop procrastinating and finish the task.

Vickie Adair is the senior technical writer at Media A-Team (http://www.mediaateam.com) and also publishes as a freelance writer. She writes for several websites such as http://www.houstonmanufacturers.com, an online directory and news site for the Houston manufacturing community, and http://www.natural-products-directory.com, a directory of online business that sell or manufacture organic and/or natural products.

Following death and taxes, the third guaranteed ‘thing’ in life seems to be that you’ll *never* have enough time to put into action, all of your great ideas and plans for expanding your business and streams of income. That is why so many of the great ideas we entrepreneurs have, seem to end up on the ‘back burners’ of our excessive compulsive, clickity clacking brains. Sometimes never to be seen or remembered again…

The problem is that sometimes that back burner of ideas seems to get crowded to the point where you have to decide what really is a priority and what needs to be tossed out with the scraps.

Here are a couple ways to help you sort these ideas and keep yourself from wasting valuable time you could be spending on more fruitful ventures.

First, keep a written list of ideas. This can be very simple. In my case, I use a composition book that I bought for a dollar at the grocery store. Every time I have a new idea, I write it in this book that I always keep next to my keyboard. This way, I don’t end up getting distracted from what I’m working on and I don’t forget the crazy ideas that pop into my head almost constantly. Once a week I go through the ideas I’ve written down and decide which ones are really worth pursuing and which ones to scrap.

Next, I decide what ideas I’ll put into action on my own and which ones I’ll outsource to someone I trust. Hiring a third party to do your dirty work can be one of the most profitable things you can ever do in your business. The trick is learning to let go of the high level of control that you have when you are doing everything yourself. If you’re a control freak / perfectionist like me, this can be a true test of your will but the end almost always justifies the means.

Another great method of idea implementation and time management is to joint venture your golden ideas with trusted partners. This method saves me time by splitting the work load between myself and a partner or even among three of us if the project is labor intensive. The only downside to this method is that you of course have to split the profits but I’m sure you’ll agree that this is much better than having a great idea that goes nowhere because you simply didn’t have the time to implement it on your own.

Now take a look at your own ‘back burner’ of ideas…

Is it time for you to do a little clean up? If so, try to apply the methods here to your own great plans. You’ll be surprised at the progress you can make.

For more free information about improving time management and discovering new ways to make your business more productive visit the online business and
search marketing blog at http://www.elprezidente.com

What would happen if you had a fire and all of your files were destroyed? This could have a devastating impact on your business. Fireproof file cabinets are a very cost-effective insurance, protecting you against such a potentially terrible loss. When you are buying fireproof file cabinets, there are a few things that you should look for to make sure they are not going to fail you when you need them the most.

The first thing to look at is the UL rating for the safe. The UL rating is done by Underwriters Laboratories, a not-for-profit independent testing organization. UL ratings are done by temperature and time. For example, a file cabinet with a 1 hour UL 350 rating will last at least one hour in a fire. During that time, the temperature inside the file cabinet will not exceed 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Since paper will burn at around 400 degrees Fahrenheit, you will want to make sure that the rating is at least UL 350. A 2 hour rated safe will last at least 2 hours in a fire.

You will also want to make sure that whatever product you buy has been tested with various other tests. A quality fireproof cabinet should be tested with a 2,000 degree explosion test, a 1,550 degree fire abuse test, and a 30 foot drop test. This way, you can be sure that your files will be safe if your file cabinets are in a building that collapses during a fire. You will also be protected if someone tries to break into them.

You may also want to look at the quality of the file cabinet’s security. Since your files are also vulnerable to theft, you want to be sure that they have highly secure locks.

There are quality file cabinets out there with all of these specifications. Make sure you find a respected name in the industry, and that all of their products have the above specifications. You can do some research to find out who fits these qualifications.

Be sure that you don’t shortchange yourself by investing in cheap fireproof file cabinets - it’s just not worth it. You can find a quality product that won’t break your budget, and it’s a great insurance to protect your business from a fire or other natural disaster.

The File Saver offers high quality Fire King fireproof file cabinets at a great price.
Fire King fireproof file cabinets