Soft Skills Mastery

10 Practical Ways to Improve Time Management Skills

by
Time Management Workshop in Singapore at Intellisoft

Do you often feel stressed out with too much work or too many responsibilities?

Even if you work harder in completing the tasks, it seems that you have more tasks on hand than you have time to do them…

This creates a feeling of overwhelm, and a sense of being out of control.

Living in such stress and confusion is not really necessary or required.

There’s a simple way. The technique is to organize your tasks and use your time effectively to get more things done each day.

It can help you to lower stress levels and improve your productivity both at work and at home.

Time Management Skills take time to develop and will look different for each person. Finding what works best for you and your busy schedule is key here.

To help you overcome these problems, here are 10 ways to improve your time management skills, get more done in lesser time, and increase your productivity.

  1. Prioritize Your Tasks to Stay focused

  • Before you start work each day, make a list of things that need your immediate attention. You must be able to distinguish between the urgent and the important.
  • Many unimportant tasks can take up much of your valuable time. Often, we actually tend to devote such tasks too much of our energy because they are easier or less stressful to do.
  • However, identifying urgent tasks that need to be completed on that day is critical to your productivity.
  • Once you know where to put your time & energy first, you will start to get things done in the right order, which would work for you and your schedule too.

Get more Things done by prioritizing Tasks

  1. Create a Schedule

  • Carry a Bullet Journal, planner or notebook with you and list all the tasks that come to your mind in it.
  • Then as you complete the tasks, you can check them off. Did you know that checking things off as you complete them actually gives you an adrenaline rush, and will give you a sense of accomplishment and keep you motivated to move to the next task.
  • Having a simple ‘To Do List’ before the start of the day, prioritize the tasks, and focus on essentials. Make sure that these tasks are attainable, too.
  • If there is a big task you need to complete, make that the only thing on your list. You can push the others to the next day.
  • If you haven’t read the Bullet Journal Method, or The One Thing, these are excellent books to get started in your journey to save time & get more done. They both have a following of millions on the Internet.
  • Just check Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook for multiple communities of people.

Create Schedule To manage time effectively

  1. Delegate Tasks & Involve the Team

  • It is quite common for most of us to take on more tasks than what we can complete. This can often result in unnecessary stress and burnout.
  • Delegation does not mean you are avoiding your responsibilities. Instead, you are learning proper management of your tasks. Delegating them to key members of your team, according to their level, skill and expertise helps you to get more done.
  • Plus, everything may not require only you to do it. Proper delegating will not only free up time for you but will help your team members feel like an integral piece of the work puzzle.

Delegate Tasks To Manage Time Effectively

  1. Beat Procrastination

  • Most people, near their end, feel that they have wasted their lives, and their best ideas were never put to test. Most great works of art would not have been produced if people had procrastinated. Yet, often the fear of failure keeps us form doing what we are destined to do.
  • Procrastination is one of the things that has a huge negative effect on productivity.  It can result in wasted time and energy.
  • Procrastination could be a major problem in both your career and your personal life.
  • We tend to procrastinate when we feel bored or overwhelmed. Try to schedule in smaller, fun activities throughout the day to break up the more difficult tasks.
  • This will help you to get stared, and get more done. Once the momentum kicks in, you are on a ball.

Beat Procastrination With a Training at Intellisoft Singapore

  1. Set up Deadlines

  • For whatever task you have at hand, you must set a realistic deadline and stick to it as much as possible.
  • Once you set a deadline, it may be helpful to write it on a post it note and put it near your workspace. This will give you a visual cue to keep you on track of your task.
  • You can also set a Tomato Timer, which will set a timer for 25 minutes, which is about the time it takes to stay focused and get something worthwhile done.
  • Challenge yourself and meet the deadline. You may reward yourself for meeting a difficult challenge. All these will give you a dopamine rush to your brain, and keep you going for long.

Set Deadline & Be Productive. Join Intellisoft

 

  1. Avoid Multitasking, Focus on Single-Tasking

  • Most of us were taught that multitasking is an efficient way of getting things done, but the truth is that we do better when we focus and concentrate on one thing. Finding your ONE THING is the Key to getting more done, according to Gary Keller & Jay Papasan, the authors of the New York Times bestseller, The One Thing.
  • Multi-tasking hampers productivity and should be avoided to improve time management skills. Make use of to-do lists and deadlines to help you stay focused!
  • Do one thing at a time, and focus on it only. This way you can do better at what you’re doing. Wait until you finish one before starting another.
  • You’ll be surprised by how much more you’re able to get done.

Avoid Multi-tasking & be productive. Join Intellisoft

  1. Deal With Stress, Actively

  • Stress often occurs when we accept more work than we are capable of accomplishing. The result is that our body starts feeling tired, which can affect our productivity.
  • The key is to find what works for you when it comes to lowering your stress response.
  • If you do not have time for anything else, try a couple of Breathing Techniques.
  • These can be done in a few minutes and have been proven to lower stress-inducing hormones. Yoga or Meditation can also help you de-stress.

Deal With Stress at Singapore with Intellisoft

  1. Learn to Say No

  • At times, you’ve got to politely refuse to accept additional task, if you think that you’re already overloaded with work. Take a look at your to do list before agreeing to take on extra work.
  • Saying No doesn’t come naturally to most of us, but is an essential skill, similar to Delegating, that will help you achieve more.
  • Many people worry that saying no will make them look selfish, but the truth is that saying no is one of the best ways to take care of yourself and your time. Treat your time with respect, and don’t let unnecessary activities hog it.
  • When you take care of this important activity, you’ll find that you have more energy to devote to the important things, which the people around you will ultimately appreciate.

Learn To say No at Intellisoft Singapore

  1. Take Regular Breaks

  • Whenever you find yourself feeling tired and stressed, take a short break of about 10 to 15 minutes. Too much stress can take a toll on your body and affect your productivity.
  • You can even schedule your break times. It helps you to relax and get back to work with more and renewed energy later.
  • If you know a break is coming, you’ll likely be able to overcome boredom or a lack of motivation to push through the task at hand.
  • Take a walk, listen to some enlightening or motivating music, or do some quick stretches. The best idea is to take a break from work completely and spend time with your friends and family.

Take Regulsr Breaks. Join Intellisoft & Learn Time Management Skills

  1. Start Early

  • Most successful people have one thing in common — they get up early, and start the day way early, as it gives them time to sit, think, and plan their day.
  • When you get up early, you are more calm, creative, and clear-headed. As the day progresses, your energy levels start going down, which affects your productivity, motivation, and focus.
  • If you’re not a morning person, you can just try waking up thirty minutes earlier than your normal time. You’ll be amazed by how much you can get done in that bit of time.
  • If you don’t want to use it to work, use it to do a bit of exercise or eat a healthy breakfast. A bit of Yoga and 20 minutes of silent meditation can help you focus better too.
  • This kind of routine will also contribute to your productivity during the day.

Start the Day Early. Manage Time effectively with a Training at Intellisoft

Conclusion

When you get clear about your tasks, your priorities, responsibilities and your life, you’ll be more focused and get more done in less time.

Good time management requires a daily practice of prioritizing tasks and organizing them in a way that can save time while achieving more.

It is a personal victory, and a professional one too.

It is time to move out of your comfort zone, and reach your true potential.

Join our Time Management Workshop to learn more ideas & strategies that will surprise you to know much more time you seem to have.

P.S: Do check this out to Write Effective Business Emails.

5 Impressive Features of Power Point You Never Knew

by
Microsoft PowerPoint Training at Intellisoft

Been using PowerPoint For Long?

See if you know these hidden features to make impressive presentations & Seal The Deal!

They say a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. The most memorable presentations are those that not only deliver powerful content—but also include visual appeal.

Microsoft PowerPoint has the much-needed powerful and visual punch to make your live presentation or video conferences awesome.

You can create unique storytelling opportunities that will captivate your audience, whether your deck will be client-facing, or you are presenting internally.

A recent Forbes survey found that 70 percent of workers agree that presentation skills are critical to their success at work. Even if all the employees are believed to have Microsoft Office Proficiency, the same survey finds that workers’ skills may not be up to par, with nearly half of those surveyed (46 percent) admitting to dozing off and losing interest during work meetings and presentations.

To compile a compelling presentation, you must first understand all that your slide presentation software has to offer. Today’s design tools and features are more impressive than ever.

Let’s just talk about a few interesting featured of Microsoft PowerPoint to help you create dynamic & memorable Presentation.

5 important Feature of PowerPoint

Designing slides has never been easier

Create well-designed, impactful slides with the help of Designer and Ideas in PowerPoint. This simple feature can add the extra oomph to make your slides look sexy and well thought of.

The new Designer feature can provide you with more than 10 different ideas to present your boring slides into visual treats, with Smart Art, Colors, Positioning & Style

3D isn’t just for the movies

Now you can easily insert 3D objects and embedded animations directly into PowerPoint decks from your own files or a library of content.

With this feature, you can make your presentations come alive with some action, subtle movements, and captivate audience easily, in the first time!

Interact naturally using voice, touch, and ink

Easily ink onto a slide, then convert handwritten notes into text and make hand-drawn shapes perfect in seconds.

With your own handwriting, and the ability to draw on the spot to explain complex points, it becomes way easier to engage the audience and make gains in their attention span.

Nail your next presentation

With Presenter Coach, practice your speech and get recommendations on pacing, word choice, and more through the power of AI.

Practicing with this simple feature, your presentation skills will shine. Now you can make a stellar presentation deck, and then present it with flair, with the right words, speech, pacing and hand gestures.

Be on the same page

Collaboration is the key in getting multiple team members to share ideas, and provide inputs to you to build a better proposal to pitch your ideas & seal the deal.

Always know where you are in the editing process. With the while you were away feature, track recent changes made by others in your decks. With this, collaboration is a breeze.

LEARN THE NEW POWERPOINT & GO BEYOND BULLETS & BORING SLIDES

Intellisoft offers you a practical Hands-on Workshop to enhance your PowerPoint Skills.

Register Online today to make your presentations more livelier & more meaningful by using the PowerPoint tool effectively.

How to Read Unspoken Signals & Read The Body Language

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Understand Body Language to Impress People in Business

Communication is made up of more than just the words we use. It is maintaining eye contact with the person you are talking to or your hand movements as you speak.

Nonverbal cues such as tone of voice, gestures, and posture all play their part.

Let us discuss on how we define what body language is, and how we can interpret it to understand and communicate with people more effectively.

What Is Body Language?

Body language is the unspoken element of communication that reveals our true feelings and emotions.

Statistics say only 7% of a message is conveyed through words. The other 93% comes from body language.

It is taken from Mehrabian’s Communication Model.Understanding Body Language - Mehrabian's model

It states that body language is more important than tone of voice & choice of words when communicating true feelings.

Body language is the range of nonverbal signals that you use to communicate your feelings and intentions. These include your posture, facial expressions, and hand gestures.

Your ability to understand and interpret body language can help you to pick up on unspoken issues or negative feelings in others.
You can also use body language in a positive way to add strength to your verbal messages.

Body Language for a Good First Impression

If you are meeting someone for the first ever time & you want to make a good impression, Body Language is the Key.

Here are some Ideas:

  • Have an open posture.
    • Be relaxed, but do not slouch! Sit or stand upright and place your hands by your sides.
    • Avoid standing with your hands on your hips, as this can communicate aggression or a desire to dominate.
  • Use a firm handshake.
    • But do not get carried away! You do not want it to become awkward, aggressive, or painful for the other person.
  • Maintain good eye contact.
    • Try to hold the other person’s gaze for a few seconds at a time. This will show them that you are sincere and engaged.
    • But avoid turning it into a staring contest!
  • Avoid touching your face.
    • If you do while answering questions, it can be seen as a sign of dishonesty.
    • While this isn’t always the case, you should still avoid fiddling with your hair or scratching your nose, so that you convey trustworthiness.

These tips are a good general guide for interpreting body language. Reflect on how you use your body language – and avoid making assumptions!

Interpreting body language should be a complement to talking and listening attentively, not a replacement for it.

Got an outline of What body Language is & why is it mandatory for everyone to learn it?

Sounds great! Now to inculcate the ability to read and portray the right Body Language skills, Intellisoft is offering a one day course that is perfectly designed to teach a Positive, Professional and Self-Assured Attitude.

This course even covers how to read Body Language, Body Language Mistakes, Nonverbal Communication & Facial Expressions.

Why wait? Join Intellisoft’s practical training now!

P.S. 50% of all employees will need Re-skilling by 2025, Soft skills like reading & understanding body language, Time Management Skills, Critical thinking and Problem-solving are the top key skills employers believe will grow in prominence in the next five years.

Make sure you are ready!

Effective Presentation Techniques for the Board Room

by
Creating Killer Presentations @ Intellisoft

After years of slogging, you are finally getting a chance to do a presentation in the board room. Do not take this lightly. And do not blow this chance to impress senior management about your skills.

Many a career have been contained when engineers, who are domain experts, completely knowledgeable, are called to the board room, and because of fear, or in-experience, are tongue tied, mutter, splutter, and mumble something incomprehensible.board-presentations

It is true, Fear of Public Speaking is the worst fear in the world. It is the highest fear, even ranking higher than the fear of death.

Do you want to stifle your career too soon, all because you are un-prepared for the big boardroom presentation?

Practice now. Get ready. Be prepared for your big chance. And play it safe, play it well, and present to win, present to wow, present to amaze your audience!

Effective presentation techniques for the boardroom can be easily acquired.

1. Prepare a Solid Presentation
This should not be a problem as you have the content, and you have the domain expertise. But it is an art to prepare a presentation. Do not present a 100 slide presentation full of bullet points. This leads to Death by PowerPoint.

The Secrets of a Great Presentation are:

A.  Tell ’em what you are going to tell ’em.
B.  Tell ’em.
C.  Tell ’em what you have just told them.

What this means is that a. Have a clear and thought about Agenda. State it in the beginning, so there is no mystery. Stick to the agenda.

boardroom-presentation

Secondly, have only 3-5 points to cover in the presentation. Keep slides simple. And stay away from amateurish PowerPoint Animation effects. Fly in objects, slow animation, corny graphics or too much use of clip art is sadly lost on the boardroom. Do a slick presentation with corporate like graphics, simple round or square bullets. Keep to only 2-3 bullets on a slide.

Show less information, and talk more from these bullet points. So that people are not reading your PowerPoint, but rather they are listening to you.

Thirdly, summarize the information. Tell them the key points, your own justification/stand, and the final outcome.

2. Rehearse it well.

You must rehearse your presentation a few time in front of the mirror, or in an empty room. Time it, so that you know you will not overshoot the allocated time. And practice how to open the speech. How to close the speech. Some speakers start with a joke. But this must be done with care. What if no one laughs on the joke? It can back fire on you. So choose your opening carefully. You can go to YouTube to watch some good presentations at Ted.com.

Another good way is to record your presentation using a Video recorder, or a audio recorder on your phone. Listening to your own voice can seem odd, but you will catch many mis-pronunciations, and many pauses which you were not aware of.

3. Maintain Eye Contact & Good Body Posture

Many people are so afraid of the audience that they try to hide behind the podium, or they look at some remote corner of the room while speaking. In one of my earlier presentations, someone from the audience congratulated me on observing their new curtains. When I told them I didn’t find anything new about their curtains, she told me that I was staring at the curtains all entire time I was speaking. What a polite way to tell me that I lacked eye contact. I was so naive… but then I realized the mistake and thanked her for being so thoughtful. I then worked upon improving my eye contact, and learnt how to work a room.

You can look at their foreheads and continue for a few seconds, then move to another forehead and so on… It will seem to the people that you are talking to them, and not staring at some remote corner.

Similarly, it is important to maintain a good body posture. Stand straight. Do not slump. Keep your hands in the front. Not in the pockets, not dangling like a pendulum. And do not keep jingling the key chain or loose change in your pockets to avoid any nervousness. Nothing is more distracting than jingling change or key noise in a presentation. Do not pace the room from left to right. Stand firm in one place. You can move to different areas to illustrate the points, but do not dangle like a pendulum. It should look natural movement, not deliberate, for the sake of moving.

4. Have Enough Time for Questions & Answers

Anticipate some questions. In fact, you can have a Frequently Asked Questions section, and show standard, canned responses to some standard questions.

Keep some time for audience questions. Once the question is asked, repeat the question, so that everyone can hear it, and thank the Enquirer about the thoughtful question. Do not ridicule the question if it is a simple or silly question. Then answer the question completely. And get a confirmation from the enquirer about whether you have answered their question completely or not.

empty_boardroom

Finally, once everything is said and done, thank the audience for giving you a chance to listen to you, and for their time and patience.

These are simple tips. Easy to master if you at least take notice, and practice on improving them. And once you apply them, you will be amazed at how powerful your presentations will begin to be.

If you would like to learn more practical tips, you can always attend a training program at Intellisoft, and learn from the gurus on how to improve your soft skills.

– This article is written by Vinai Prakash, Founder, CEO and Principal Trainer of Intellisoft Systems. Vinai is a sought after trainer in the area of soft skills, project management skills, data analysis, business intelligence and IT courses. Vinai’s articles are published in the Straits Times, and many other books and magazines all over the world. Contact us to book Vinai for your next training or seminar.

Related Training: Presentation Skills: Speaking to Impress in our 1 day workshop. Full of exercises and practical examples, it is a totally immersive workshop that will work wonders to your Presentation Skills. Do check it out here: Presentation Skills: Speaking to Impress

How Good Are Your Soft Skills?

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valuable_employee_cartoon

Most people learn the hard skills in college, and be a good engineer, architect, doctor, or a specialist based on the skills learnt in the academia. This is fine, and it helps in the initial years. However, as time goes by, you use less and less of these specialist, hard skills, and you need more of other soft skills. This is because as time goes by, you rise in your career, and have bigger and larger responsibilities. You will also have bigger teams to manage, and bigger amounts will be at stake.

This is the time you realize that the hard skills you learnt are not always of great use. What you really need is expertise, mastery and experience in using the soft skills – which is what really matters. Most of all, you have to realize that as you rise higher, you do less and less work, and you need to get other people to do more and more of the work. How do you push others to do the work? What skills are needed to do this?

What are soft skills really?

Wells, soft skills are communication skills, negotiation skills, presentation skills, general management skills, motivational skills, and leadership. These are really people management skills. To do any project, you need people, and to manage the project well, to get it done on time, cost, scope, quality, you need to work with your team, your people effectively.

These skills are generally not taught in school, as we focus to learn the hard skills. However, if you want to accelerate your career, move far, higher, faster, then you need to master these at a great speed. The thing with soft skills is that it improves with experience. But you must practice them. You can’t learn communication by reading a book on communication… just like you can’t be an expert swimmer just by reading the Advanced Manual of Swimming. You need to get into the water, learn to navigate your way, try, make mistakes, and learn from them. It is OK to make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them, so that you don’t repeat them, and use this experience to get better and better.

Learning soft skills is like learning an art. It takes time, patience, determination, and perseverance. You can do it. Only thing is to become aware about it, take note of your current skills, and the areas where you need to improve. Then work out a plan, and practice to improve your skills in each area.

Today, there are several courses available to improve your soft skills – there are numerous Communication Skills courses, there are several Time Management courses, Stress Management Courses. Most of these courses are short, 1-2 days, and they are good because they tend to teach you a few techniques, a few ways to improve your communication. You will not become an expert in a day or two, but it will be a great start.

Any improvement can only be seen when you first become aware of the short coming, and measure where you are, and where you want to go. Once you know where you are, and what your plan is, then from then onwards, it is easier to take some steps, measure your progress, and see how small steps are shaping up your future, helping you grow, nurture your nature, and improve your skills, improve your life.

It is worthwhile to live a meaningful life, and life rich of experiences, of abundance, of contribution. Do not waste your time. Make the most of this opportunity. Do good, learn, help others grow by applying the principles of self mastery, and self growth. Once you improve, you improve the people around you.

Improve your soft skills. Invest in your future. You do not have to spend a fortune. There are several courses available for free on YouTube, Articles abound on the Internet, and there is a plethora of applications on the mobile phones that can be used to learn new things, grow your knowledge, and grow yourself.

Written by Vinai Prakash,
Master Trainer at Intellisoft

Related Training: Effective Communication Skills, Body Language, Interview Skills – Prepare for An Interview.

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