Time Management

Your desk isn’t the only thing that needs occasional decluttering. Our lives could use some decluttering, too, says Gail Blanke, author of Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life. Blanke calls the extra physical and emotional debris “life plaque.”

It’s not merely information overload that’s overwhelming administrative professionals. The data fog is thickening at a time when many com­panies are asking people to do more. Try these tips for weeding out unnecessary information:

You may take it as a given that browsing the Internet makes you less productive, just as eating lunch at your desk makes you more productive. According to studies, though, both of those statements may be myths.

Make your email more readable by crafting enticing subject lines ...  Why wait for an annual review to get feedback? Ask for one-minute feedback at every opportunity ... Knock out more of your critical to-dos by whittling down your to-do list each day ... Go ahead: Ask for a $100,000 salary ...

Your smartphone is supposed to help you get more things done and faster. But these mistakes could take you a step backward: 1. Answering it all the time. 2. Not learning the shortcuts. 3. Hiding your phone. 4. Not backing it up. 5. Checking emails constantly.

Smart time management doesn’t always guarantee you’ll work productively. You’ll operate most efficiently if you banish aimless anxieties and the urge to procrastinate. Follow this road map to actually increase the amount you accomplish at work.

As workloads expand under the pressure of diminished staff, administrative professionals grapple with how to best absorb all the new work coming their way. One executive admin recently asked, “How should I tell managers we can’t do it all?” Other admin pros weighed in:

More important than getting everything done is getting the right things done. How do you figure out which priorities are most worthy of attention? A structured to-do list is the solution offered by Peter Bregman, Harvard Business Review blogger and author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get The Right Things Done.

Feel like a Jack or Jill of all trades? Pretty soon, the rest of the office may be feeling the same way, if they don’t already. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, we’ve entered the era of the “superjob” ...

In a perfect world, office equipment would never break. Colleagues would be as dependable and timely as a Swiss train. And creating a foolproof schedule for a project would be a cinch. But in the real world, well, not so much. What happens to that disciplined road map—your schedule—when you hit unexpected snags, as you’re bound to do?