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Vol. 2 No. 11, November 2010 Copyright 2010 by Wolf
J. Rinke
Feel free to forward this eNewsletter to other Nutrition Professionals.
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1. HOW TO SAVE UP TO 16% ON CPEs
2. NUTRITION NEWS YOU CAN USE
3. AN INEXPENSIVE ONE-OF-A-KIND HOLIDAY GIFT
4. HOW TO MAKE YOUR EMAILS WORK FOR YOU INSTEAD OF AGAINST YOU
5. HEAR WOLF "HOWL"--I MEAN SPEAK
6. HUMOR BREAK
7. ABOUT THE EDITOR
8. PRIVACY STATEMENT AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
INSIGHT BREAK
The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.
-Joseph Priestley
1. HOW TO SAVE UP TO 16% ON CPEs
To save up to 16% on all of our easy to use, high quality CPE products
go to www.easyCPEcredits.com and use
the coupon on the "home page."
Hurry-coupons expire 12/15/10.
BTW--you can now search CPEs by learning codes at our website. Just
go to www.easyCPEcredits.com, type in the learning code you are looking
for and the search engine will list all the courses that apply. It's
just another way to make your life easier.
2. NUTRITION NEWS YOU CAN USE
MORE SLEEP MAY HELP CLIENTS LOSE MORE WEIGHT
Past studies have demonstrated that a lack of adequate sleep contributes
to obesity. A new study assigned 10 healthy adults to sleep either 5.5
hours or 8.5 hours each night in conjunction with moderate caloric restriction
and measured changes in weight and metabolism. After 5.5 hours of sleep,
participants lost less body fat and more fat-free body mass, had less
favorable changes in metabolic hormones and in substrate and energy
utilization, and were hungrier than after 8.5 hours of sleep. The conclusion:
Sleep restriction may interfere with your patients' ability to lose
weight on calorie restricted diets.
ACTION STEPS:
Encourage clients and patients to get adequate rest (>8 hours/night)
so that they can lose weight healthfully and maintain their weight permanently.
For additional information read Making Weight Control Second Nature:
Living Thin Naturally, by Susan Burke March, MS, RD, LD/N, CDE (C205,
26 CPEUs).
Source: A. V. Nedeltcheva, et al. "Insufficient Sleep Undermines
Dietary Efforts to Reduce Adiposity," Ann Intern Med October 5,
2010 153:435-441; http://www.annals.org/content/153/7.toc, accessed
10/20/10.
3. AN INEXPENSIVE ONE-OF-A-KIND HOLIDAY GIFT
Click here.
4. HOW TO MAKE YOUR EMAILS WORK FOR YOU INSTEAD OF AGAINST YOU
By Wolf J. Rinke, PhD, RD, CSP
Emails, and other electronic correspondence such as texting, instant
messaging, etc., have become for many of us the Achilles heel of productivity.
And no wonder many of us get too many emails. (One expert estimated
that the typical Internet user gets an average of 71.51 email messages
per day.)
Even though emails seem to be very "urgent" it's important
to remember that most are not very important and actually not at all
urgent. (If it's really important that someone gets a hold of you, they
will.) Given that you are very likely not being paid to do emails, but
rather produce results, I would like to suggest the following ten productivity
enhancing guidelines which will enable you to make email work for you,
instead of against you.
Don't Check Email on Demand
Many clients I coach make it a habit to check email as it comes in.
Don't do that! You don't need to see every piece of email the second
it arrives. If you're using an email program that announces the arrival
of new email, turn off the program's announcement features, such as
making a sound or having a pop-up screen announce the arrival of email.
Checking email on demand can seriously interfere with whatever other
tasks you're trying to accomplish because you will likely read the email
when you check it. (See #3 below.) Instead, set aside a particular time
each day to review and answer your email. Schedule the hour or whatever
time it takes you to answer the volume of email you get, and stick to
that schedule as regularly as possible. Just this one strategy has the
potential to dramatically increase your productivity.
Don't Answer Email at Your Most Productive Time of Day
For many our most productive time is the morning. If you start your
work day by answering email, you will lose that time. Answering email
isn't a task that calls for a great deal of creativity. So by ignoring
emails until later in the day will help you make the most of your working
day.
Don't Multi-Task
Most of us are overwhelmed by too much information (TMI). To address
it we multi-task. Much of the multi-tasking involves monitoring or writing
emails. I see it all the time. In some meetings I attend participants
spend more attention to their PDAs and PCs than the person conducting
the meeting. There is only one problem-multi-tasking does not work.
(I know it sounds counter intuitive.) According to a study reported
by Schwartz in the November 2007 Harvard Business Review, a temporary
shift from one task to another, let's say answering an email or "twittering"
while working on a project "increases the amount of time necessary
to finish the primary task by as much as 25%" (p.68). In fact,
interruptions which have increased exponentially in recent years are
costly. They consume about 28% of the knowledge workers' day, which
translates to 28 billion lost hours to companies in just the United
States (http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/News/News-Analysis/The-high-cost-of-interruptions-14543.aspx).
So get in the habit of working on one project at a time, which likely
increase your productivity by up to 25%. (Multi-tasking does work if
you can transform inactive time into productive time, such as checking
emails while waiting for your car pool. For other productivity enhancing
strategies read my Time Management: How to Stretch Your Time Rubber
Band, http://www.wolfrinke.com/CEFILES/cepd.html#C198)
Do Emails No More Than Two Times Per Day
Related to #s 1 and 2 above I suggest you get in the habit of answering
your emails no more than two times per day. Ideally once just before
going to lunch and the other just before going home. That way you will
be motivated to spend the least amount of time on this unimportant activity.
Let Your Email Program Manage Your Email As Much As Possible
Effective email management starts with setting up and using filters.
If you're using an email program such as Outlook, you can configure
email rules to send your spam directly to the trash can, or spam folder,
meaning that you don't waste your time reading and deleting it.
Declare One Day a Week Email Free
I've made this suggestion to many of my clients with dramatic results.
What it means is that on Fridays (most companies prefer Friday) you
may not initiate or answer any emails, period!
Avoid Email Wars
While coaching a number of high tech managers I had to mediate an intractable
disagreement between two of them. It all began when they started an
email argument that resulted in about a dozen emails going back and
forth on the same subject. With each email the intensity of the arguments
escalated. And all of this happened … are you ready for this …
while they were both on vacation. That incidence resulted in the IT
department instituting a new email rule. The person who wants to initiate
the fourth email on the same topic is responsible to pick up the phone
instead. (For more on why this happens see Recognize the Limitations
below.)
Always Ask: "Is There A Need For This Email?" Before Writing
Anything
Writing emails is just too easy (compare it to writing a traditional
letter and you'll see what I mean). So we write a lot of them, and forget
that every time you are sending an email, you are imposing on someone's
time and energy.
Avoid CCs and "Reply To All"
Only send a copy of your email to people who have a real need to know
and who know what you want them to do with the information. Avoid sending
CCs just to cover your "behind" (CYA). Similarly minimize
the use of the "Reply to All" function. Only use it if you
really need your message to be seen by each person who received the
original message. I belong to several Dietary Practice Groups (DPGs)
that suggest that inquires from their LISTSERVs (an automatic mailing
list server) be answered using the "Reply to All" function.
It resulted in totally overwhelming my in-box to the point that I unsubscribed
to all of them except one. Always remember that sending an email is
an imposition on someone else's time-act accordingly!
Recognize Email Limitations
Email, like any other mail, provides you only with one-way communication.
All you have is words, and words alone doth not communication make!
Words are often the least important. What really counts, especially
if you are trying to persuade someone, is your body language, facial
expressions and voice modulation. (For more help with this read The
Power of Communication: How to Increase Your Personal and Professional
Effectiveness http://www.wolfrinke.com/CEFILES/cepd.html#C197.) Hence
even though email works well for information sharing, it should never
be used for important stuff like negotiation or persuasion. For example,
if you are negotiating for a raise, or if you are attempting to persuade
a patient, go make a personal visit or at the absolute minimum pick
up the phone.
There you have my top ten productivity enhancing guidelines which will
make email work for you, instead of against you.
For further strategies read my new CPE program: Manage Electronic and
Traditional Meetings and Correspondence More Effectively (C210, 10 CPEUs),
from which this article was extracted, http://www.wolfrinke.com/CEFILES/cepd.html#C210.
5. HEAR WOLF "HOWL"--I MEAN SPEAK
Recommend me to the meeting planner of your upcoming state or local
dietetic association and I will help make your next meeting a "howling
success." As a way of giving back, I speak to ADA groups at significantly
reduced rates.
6. HUMOR BREAK
A father had been teaching his three-year old daughter Kylie the Lord's
Prayer for several evenings at bedtime. Each time she would carefully
repeat the lines from the prayer, and although she didn't always get
it right it made her Dad proud.
Finally after the fifth day she decided to go it alone. Her father listened
intently as Kylie carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end
of the prayer: "Lead us not into temptation," she prayed,
"but deliver us from email. Amen."
7. ABOUT THE EDITOR
Dr. Wolf J. Rinke, RD, CSP is the president of Wolf Rinke Associates--an
accredited provider of easy to use CPE home study programs for nutrition
professionals since 1990 available at www.easyCPEcredits.com. He is
also a highly effective management consultant and executive coach who
specializes in building peak performance organizations, teams and individuals,
and an author of numerous CPE home study courses, audio/video programs
as well as several best selling management, leadership and self-development
books including Make it a Winning Life--Success Strategies for Life,
Love and Business. In addition he is an internationally recognized keynote
speaker and seminar leader who delivers customized presentations that
combine story telling, humor and motivation with specific "how
to" action strategies that participants can apply immediately to
improve their personal and professional lives. Preview a demo at www.WolfRinke.com
or call 800-828-9653. If you have questions, or would like him to address
a specific issue or topic please e-mail him at WolfRinke@aol.com.
8. PRIVACY STATEMENT AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
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