There are certain times of the year when getting things done is just hard. During these times, for whatever reason, the amount of time it takes to get anything done seems to double or triple. Probably one of the worst examples of this begins at Thanksgiving and ends a week after New Years. The dreaded “Holiday Trifecta”, you have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all within weeks of each other, a killer combination when trying to get anything done. What really hurts you during this time are vacations. Everybody starts taking time off, and not just a few days here and there. Nope, this is when all of that vacation time that everybody has been saving is put to use. One week, two weeks, three weeks, even a month, there really is no limit during this time. This means that key people, people you need to approve decisions, etc. can be gone at crucial times thus crippling your effectiveness.

Is all hope lost then? Should you just forget about getting anything accomplished until January? Absolutely not. While problems during this time are unavoidable, you can take steps to mitigate their impact on your work. Here are things you can do to make sure that if you can’t be at 100% during this time, you are as close as possible:

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It’s that time of year again: Winter. Besides long lines at the mall and turkeys hiding in fear, this unfortunately means that it’s getting colder outside. Now in a perfect world, all offices would keep themselves at a nice and comfortable temperature, regardless of the time of year. However, this is sadly not the case. For example, my office is freezing in the winter. I’m not sure what the problem is, but even when the heat is on it’s cold. Another unfortunate fact is that my office mates and I are not the only ones to suffer from this problem. To combat the cold, many people will wear their jacket, bring a light sweatshirt, or some other type of extra clothing. The question is: How acceptable is this at the office?

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Monday…the one day of the week that everybody agrees is the worst day of the week. Everybody that is except me. Oh sure, Monday is no walk in the park, and it’s no Friday, but I think there is a day more sinister, more diabolical, and more insidious than Monday. What day could this be? Brace yourself: It’s Wednesday. I’ll give you a second to pull yourself together.

That’s right, in my opinion, Wednesday is the worst day of the week. It’s so evil that it slips under most people’s radar, just because it’s in the middle of the work week. Don’t be fooled though, it is the worst day of the week. To prove it, I present the following three reasons (in no particular order):

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Pay attention. Follow directions. Do these phrases sound familiar? They should, from day one these two phrases are repeated to us over and over again. Parents, teachers, coaches, you are bombarded by these phrases in all facets of your life. With all of this reinforcement, you would assume the last thing we would do is forget them. Explain this to me then: How is it that when we get to the corporate world we seem to scrap these lessons all together?

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With the advent of the Internet and all of its email and instant messaging glory, the emphasis on developing good writing skills has seemed to fall by the wayside. While it’s true that many of our communications today are less formal, this is no excuse for not being able to turn the writing switch to “professional” and create a clearly written document. This is a key business skill that many young professionals today do not take seriously enough.

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To preface, I look at the review process one goes through when analyzing anything as working on a bell curve. For those not familiar with it, a bell curve has a single high point where maximum efficiency is reached. Before that high point, your efficiency in whatever you are doing is increasing. After that high point, your efficiency is decreasing. With this in mind, we can move on to the purpose of this article.

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I’m of the firm belief that every once and awhile, you need to rearrange the furniture in your office. If nothing else, it gives you small sense of freshness. I just did this recently, and I love the new configuration. Give it a shot, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.

There is an unspoken rule when using the elevator: Let the people who are on the elevator get off before you get on. We don’t think about it, we don’t talk about it, but it’s there never the less. It’s taken for granted that EVERYBODY will abide by this rule. The question becomes, what happens when they don’t?

The other day a buddy of mine and I were taking the elevator back up to our office, after a rousing trip to Safeway (otherwise known as: hey, we’ve been at work for five minutes, we need a break). As we get to our floor, the elevator doors open. Suddenly, the person waiting to use the elevator WALKS IN. We’re both stopped in mid-stride, confused and bewildered. Are we on the right floor? Are we at work? Have we slipped into a parallel universe where the laws of the office don’t apply?!?! All these questions raced through our minds. We barely made it out into the hallway before the elevator doors closed.

Shaken, we stumbled back to our office, discussing the matter. It had to be a one time thing. Lo and behold, the next day it happened to me again. This time however, the person had a crapload of PACKAGES, making it almost impossible for me to get out. What the hell is that all about? Who does that? They had to know nobody could get out when they walked in. I couldn’t believe it. In my head, I told them off. In reality, I said “Excuse me..”.

Over the past few weeks this seems to be happening more and more often, like that first incident opened the floodgates. What rule will be the next to follow? Waiting in line for the water cooler? There would be water and fists everywhere! We must take it upon ourselves to educate out co-workers before chaos reigns, and NOBODY passes the cake down at the next office party!

It’s 6:00, and time for you to head home for the day. Just as you’re about to shut your email down, you get a new message. It’s one of your co-workers, and they need a few documents from you ASAP. In this situation, you have two choices:

1. Ignore the message and pretend you didn’t get it until tomorrow. It’s a completely possible scenario, as it is the time you usually leave everyday.
2. Take 10 minutes and find those documents for them.

Which route would you take? At first, choice number one might seem to be the best option. You’ve had a long day, right? They know you leave at this time, and should realize you probably wouldn’t get the message until the morning. However, this is the wrong attitude to take. You should take the time to help them out. Not only is it not going to kill you to stay an extra 10 minutes, but I assure you they will be grateful. Hopefully the next time you need something ASAP from them, they’ll return the favor. Even if it’s not emergency help, they most likely will be more inclined to help you in the future when you need it.

One of the reasons I think a lot of people don’t use Visio more often is because they simply don’t know what to use it for. To help this problem, I thought it would be a good idea to share some common ways that I’ve used Visio.

Here are three common projects where using Visio has worked well for me:

• Software Design - This is a pretty obvious one, just because you can easily diagram both how the software will function and what the inputs and outputs will be using a Flowchart. For instance, if you are creating a software module that calculates the taxes for several different companies, you can use Visio to plan out how these taxes will be calculated and how the module will handle calculating them for each company. Even if you are writing a description of the design, you should include a Visio diagram as it’s easier for some people to understand a visual representation than a written one.
  
  
• Process Diagrams - If you have any kind of defined process, it can almost always be represented in Visio. An example of such a process would be how a product goes from the design phase to the production phase. While a “warehouse” type example easily comes to mind, another process could be financial in nature, such as how someone applies and gets approved for a credit card or loan. Visio offers a wide variety of tools for creating these kinds of diagrams, giving you lots of options to work with.
  
  
• Hierarchy Structures - To expand, what I’m talking about here in particular would be personnel hierarchy structures, such as how your project is laid out. For example, at the top could be your boss, then you, then the three people that work for you. This also works well for client personnel structures. These kinds of diagrams are essential for new people to your project, as well as for everybody else if you have a large or often-changing project.

These are just three of the projects that I have used Visio for in the past, and continue to use it for today. Once you have used Visio a few times, you’ll get a better feel for the best ways it can work for you.