In his best seller, Timothy Ferris promised his advice would grant you The Four-Hour Work Week. Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, says that's over the top, but he offers some tips that he suggests can save as much as ten hours off your work week:

• Limit the time you spend online. The web is a wonderful place, but it is sucking up more and more of our time as we surf mindlessly. Before we know it, a few hours a day are squandered.
• Touch e-mail once and only once. Often, we read the message over and over again. "Guess what? The information hasn't changed. That's right. You are procrastinating," he writes on his From Where I Sit blog.
• Follow the two-minute rule. If you can do something in two minutes -- make a call to someone, write a note -- do it immediately rather than entering on your to-do list. "You will be amazed at how much this 'bias toward action' will reduce your workload," he notes.
• Stop attending low-impact meetings. If the content is irrelevant to you or your job, or you don't feel you can add much to the discussion, ask to be excused.
• Cultivate the habit of non-finishing. Not every project you start is worth finishing. Sometimes you will get into it and realize it's a waste of time. Give yourself permission to quit.
• Once a week, take time to review the past week and plan what you want to accomplish in the coming week.

Many new ventures fail because the entrepreneurs behind them aren't prepared to deal with the twists and turns -- and roadblocks -- they meet. Stephen C. Harper, a professor at the Cameron School of Business at the University of North Carolina, says success in a new venture is contingent on satisfying three dimensions that he calls "the entrepreneurial triumvirate":

• The entrepreneur must have the skills and capabilities to start and manage the new venture.
• A gap in the market must exist that can be transformed into a profitable new venture opportunity.
• A sufficient amount of resources must be available to create the venture and keep it running until it generates its own momentum.

"The three areas can be similar to the confluence of three rivers. When they come together, they form something that can makes waves," he writes in SMEE Review.

The entrepreneurial triumvirate uses three tests to screen the merit of a potential venture. The first test is the mirror test: The entrepreneur must step back and see if he or she has the right capabilities. The second is the market test: Is the market opportunity under consideration lasting and lucrative? The third is the wallet test: Does the venture have access to the necessary resources?

Which is most important? None of them -- you need all three, working together, to achieve success.

Marketing is serious stuff. Your business depends on it. But consultant Sam Horn, in her e-mail newsletter, says you should study your signage, web copy and ads to see if they make people laugh. If not, they could be costing you money.

Humorist Art Buchwald said, "I learned when I made people laugh, they liked me." And many companies are finding that's true in business.

Coca-Cola had success when it advertised Coke Zero with the phrase, "Tastes so much like Coke, our lawyers have contacted our lawyers." Turtle Island Foods draws attention, and sales, with its Tofurkey alternative at holidays. "We're fine with the fact that people think the name is funny. People remember jokes," says its founder, Seth Tibbott. And the Gateway airport in Sioux City Iowa thought of applying to change its three-letter identifier, SUX, but instead marketed it under a FlyingSUX campaign, drawing attention to the destination.

Philosophy teacher Charlie Gilkey offers the following meditation on his Productive Flourishing blog after corresponding with a friend who is burning himself out by trying to do too much -- the success he has found exceeds his ability to keep it going:

Try to be everywhere, and you will find yourself nowhere.
Try to be there for everyone, and you will be there for no one.
Try to always be available, and you will never be available.
Try to work all the time, and you will not work anytime.

Build a small fire and sit close to it,
and you won't need as much wood.

• Consultant Peggy Klaus says procrastination is not necessarily a bad thing and that it is usually telling us something. It can pinpoint when you don't have the information, resources or the help that you need. It can also mean that a certain project or a certain kind of work is no longer interesting to you and you need to stretch yourself.
  (Source: New York Times)
• "Yes we can." "I have a dream." We remember the stirring speeches in which Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. repeated those phrases. Presentations expert Garr Reynolds notes that repetition is a classic technique in presentation, speech making, and design.
  (Source: Presentation Zen blog)
• When checking references, listen for tone of voice -- whether the answers are enthusiastic -- and important pauses, which might indicate uncertainty about how to answer without damaging the applicant.
  (Source: Just Tell Me How To Manage blog)
• Put dates consistently in file names. If you can't remember a client name four years later, at least you'll probably remember when you were working on the project and still be able to find a file.
  (Source: Productivity 501 blog)
• It's difficult to be strategic or creative when you are sitting in the same place, looking at the same wall, day after day. So when you have some big picture planning to do, get out of the office. Take your team to a coffee shop, park, or other place you can escape the daily grind and let your mind run free.
  (Source: Drew's Marketing Minute)

As I prepare to answer, I think back to my first job and can still see in my mind's eye the stacks of empty Irish Coffee glasses on the table when my printing salesman used to take our three-person magazine team out for a holiday repast. The word "excess" comes to mind, and so trimming back is a good idea, whether driven by economic concerns or just a questioning spirit.

But the Irish Coffees were memorable (amongst other things). And that's the key to giving. You want to find something special that each person can remember. The key is not cost, but personalization.

Personalization can be extended to the individual's family, should they have one. A gift that will be enjoyed as well by the individual's spouse or children will make them all feel better about you and your organization.

A monetary gift is not sufficient, unless you can make it fit those first two criteria. Giving a certain sum of money and insisting it be shared with the person's spouse at their favourite restaurant fits those two criteria -- it will be a memorable, shared experience. Just giving money in an envelope means it goes into the bank account without much impact.

Write a list with the names of the people you want to give gifts to. Beside each, note what they like to do in their leisure time and how your gift might be able to connect. Has their favourite author just published a new book that they mentioned they would wait to buy in paperback? Surprise them with it now. Did they just get excited about a new singer whose previous CDs they don't have? Gifts can be small in cost but big in impact.

If you're not sure, see if you can find out more about their personal interests the next time you're chatting -- there is still time. Or go the gift certificate route, allowing them to pick out what they want. At least it will give them something memorable that will always be tied in their mind to you.

Consensus building is a process that considers all concerns and helps a group make a decision that is "the best one we can make for the team at this time, and one that I will support." It can be a time-consuming approach.

A distinctly different process, reaching a compromise, involves negotiating tradeoffs where everyone gives up something they want. Or the old, familiar tool of a majority vote may a better way to move forward when time is of the essence and you can live with lingering discontent or disappointment among the minority who lost the vote.

Consensus building is particularly appropriate when you widely share or perhaps completely lack the authority and power needed to make a decision. This technique may also be your best option when you lack expertise, or need to consider a wide range of different perspectives on some issue -- for example, when trying to determine the facts of a controversial situation. When the success of strategy implementation hangs in the balance, a thorough discussion of different concerns, together with efforts to address them, may be required before team members will wholeheartedly commit to supporting an action plan.

8020Info advises on and facilitates effective team decision-making processes. We would be pleased to discuss your needs and welcome enquiries at (613) 542-8020, or by email at watercooler@8020info.com.

"Lose an hour in the morning, chase it all day"

   - Yiddish Saying