Use The D System To Get Organized And Reduce Clutter!Written by Gordon Bellows
There is a simple system, known as D system, that can help you to be better organized and may also help to reduce clutter. This system can be used at home or at office with regular mail, email, and inboxes. It can also be used with voice mail messages. This effective system uses 6 D's:Do - Delegate - Decide - Delete - Dump - Document files The goal with this system is to use one of 6 D's with every letter, memo, report, email, newspaper, and magazine that enters your home or office. Select D that is most applicable for each item before moving to next item. Do: If something only takes a few minutes to do, do it now. If you need to review and sign a memo, do it and return item to originator or send it to next person on routing list. If you need to reply to a voice mail message or an email, do it now. By doing it while it's fresh on your mind, it'll be taken care of, plus you'll save time by not having to shuffle papers or listen to voice mail message again. Delegate: If an item requires action, decide if it is best for you to take action or if task can be delegated. Entrust task to person most suitable for responsibility. Make a call, use an interoffice routing envelope, send an email, or whatever method is appropriate to inform person to whom task has been delegated. Decide: If you are not able to read it or complete task right away, decide which action file that item belongs in. Suggested files/bins include, "to be read," "to be copied," "to be faxed," and so forth. It is essential to do whatever needs to be done with these items within a few days. Magazines and newspapers should be read and then recycled before accumulating too many issues of same publication. If there are articles or recipes you want to save, save only that part and not entire publication. Create files to keep your clippings organized. Also, review clippings once or twice each year to dump any that you no longer want. Delete: If you keep getting items you don't really want, do something to keep them from coming to you again. Don't renew magazines you don't read, opt-out of ezines or newsletters that you're not interested in, and remove yourself from routing list for things that don't apply to you. If you get items you know you don't want and you're not able to remove yourself from mailing list or subscriber list, then just toss it out as soon as you know what it is. Recycle as much as possible.
| | Resolve Disputes the Easy WayWritten by Andrew Taylor
Now we can do this easy way or we can do it hard way. No, I am not selling a new financial product and I do not hold your arm up your back, nor a gun in your ribs. My message is " Don't litigate - mediate!"That is message from Andrew Taylor, a full time commercial mediator who is dedicated to increasing knowledge and understanding of mediation in business. He goes on, "Compared to litigation, mediation is faster, cheaper and more civilized. It avoids risk of damaging publicity and it offers scope for imaginative solutions." In fact, Andrew Taylor is so enthusiastic, he has even written a book about it! Everyone knows what mediation is, yet few people are really confident about how much they know, how it works, and whether they can use it. Mediation is a process in which a third person, "the mediator", helps parties in dispute to find a mutually satisfactory outcome. You could say there is nothing exciting there. Mediation must have been used long before any court system was invented. Despite that, we tend to overlook mediation as a possibility for settling disputes between employer and employee, business and business. These are characteristic advantages of mediation over litigation: Speed - A dispute can be resolved by mediation in a matter of weeks rather than years it might take in court. If case is particularly urgent and parties are prepared to pay for priority and premium time, there is no reason why a commercial case could not be concluded in a fortnight. The usual time scale for a small commercial case is around six weeks, and for a more complicated commercial case, around six months. The same case might take five years to go through court system. Cost - In most cases, saving over comparable litigation costs is very large. Because litigation is expensive. It is obviously advantageous to settle a dispute before litigating. The Civil Procedure Rules encourage solicitors to do this. How far you use your solicitors is up to you, but however you deal with it, a case over in weeks will cost a lot less than one that drifts on for years.
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