Meetings - Sigh. Perhaps biggest threat to sanity is meetings, especially endless meetings with no agenda, no real purpose and too many people. The key to surviving meetings are simple:

- Understand what meetings are for: spreading knowledge and information to others (these are usually longer), gaining consensus and announcing decisions. There are few other valid reasons for meetings.

- Schedule them just before lunch or just before people want to go home. People go to lunch at noon? Schedule meeting for 11:30 or 11:00. I guarantee that everyone will want to leave around noon.

- Control your meetings ruthlessly. I am personally master of ten minute meetings. Simply keep it under control.

- Set an agenda, stick to it and don't let people wander off subject.

- Schedule informational meetings separate from decision-making meetings. These have different purposes and usually different audiences. Keep them separate.

- Only invite those that are needed. If people don't have a good reason for being there, don't invite them.

- Don't grandstand or play games. The objective of meetings is to share knowledge, gain consensus or announce decisions.

Email - This is one of best tools invented by mankind to date, if used properly. If abused, it's a wonderful way to waste hours and hours of time every single day. How to keep it down to a manageable level? Avoid sending carbon copies to unnecessary people (you rarely, if ever, really need to send an email to more than a half dozen people). If someone includes you on a carbon copy and it's not necessary, then ask them why they did so and if there is not a good reason, then ask them to knock it off. Read emails only once, then act on it, then delete it or file it. Don't endlessly go through your inbox. Finally, insist (at least from your own employees) on short emails and to-the-point subjects (to allow you to quickly filter out junk).

Don't do other people's jobs - Want to really destroy your schedule? Start doing other peoples jobs. Insist that people do their own jobs, and if you find yourself having to do theirs (say if they cannot) then get them corrected and/or trained fast. Don't do theirs because "you can do it better", "they are overworked" or any other excuse. Remember, success at their job DOES NOT SHOW UP ON YOUR REVIEW. No one will thank you, and you will eventually burn yourself out fast.

Maintain your daily schedule - Arrive at work at a set time, go to lunch at a similar time every day and leave work when it's time to leave work. If you starting working through lunch or staying, then it's a good indication that you are NOT managing your time well.

Don't being your work home - Again, except in dire emergency, it's wise to leave work at work. Why? Because you should be filling your work days with enough tasks to keep you busy and productive, but not so much that you cannot get it done. if you find you have to start bringing work home, then prioritize better, delegate more often, and hire when necessary. Or just throw way what's not important.

Keep your life - Don't ever let work (except in dire emergency and very infrequently) impinge upon your personal life. Do you really want to make yourself and your family unhappy? Just let work constantly intrude. You will find your life ripped from you at some point, because your family will not put up with it forever.

How do you approach business?

Go to Better Whois, at http://www.betterwhois.com/ and get business owner's contact details.

Now you're going to fax, mail or email a message.

Let's say you've decided to email manager of business. Your message's Subject line could be: "Proposal ---Web site proofing".

Because of all spam on Internet, you're going to make it clear that although this is unsolicited, it's a normal business communication, not a message that you're firing out at random to a thousand businesses on Web.

Construct message as you would a postal letter, with name of owner or manager, business name, and date on first few lines.

Next comes salutation: "Dear Mr Smith".

Introduce yourself immediately.

"My name is John Brown. I'm an independent writer. I visited your Web site at _________."

At this point, make some kind and generous comments about site, to that show that you've actually visited it. Say anything you like here, as long as it's a compliment.

Then describe problem --- mention typos, in other words. DON'T be explicit. Don't mention where typos are. (You're looking for work, remember.)

Outline solution: you can proof site content.

Tell Mr Brown why you're person to handle proofing.

Tell Mr Brown how to contact you.

Close message in usual way.

Add all your contact details: phone, fax, and address.

By addressing your email message clearly, and putting in all your contact details, you've established that you're not a spam artist. You're a business person sending a proposal.

Great! You've written your first proposal. Now go and write another one. And another one after that.

Proposals are great fun to write, and no matter what kind of work you're after, they will get you more work than you can handle.

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