Active Listening – What Did You Say Again?

You’ve been there before, talking on the phone while checking your email and sipping coffee, trying to multi-task when you should be focused on the conversation. But active listening goes beyond providing non-verbal cues, in this fast-paced world it also requires you to be bold, timely and attentive to retrain the way people communicate with you. Here are some ideas that have worked well for others:

Turn-off your computer monitor - Even the screen-saver can be a distraction, so just turn it off.

Set your email to receive new emails every 30-minutes - This helps with anxiety around waiting for incoming emails. It also trains people to call you with urgent issues rather than email.

Ask if you can call someone back – There is no rule that says you must answer every phone call. If you won’t be able to focus, either don’t answer or make a quick request to call the person back at a specific time.

Create a to-do list for your day and keep it handy - This keeps your mind from “re-running” through your list of tasks when you should be listening.

Ask for an objective to the conversation - In a fast-paced world, people want to know the purpose. If possible, ask people to send the purpose of the call or meeting in advance so you have time to prepare.

Discourage spontaneous chatter - If someone is trying to shoot the breeze, ask if you can call them back at a later time. Having casual conversation is important, but if you aren’t able to focus it won’t benefit either person.

Politely drive the conversation to get to the point - If someone is repeating themselves, politely let the person know that you understand the issue and drive the conversation to possible solutions. This will protect against your mind running when it’s no longer collecting NEW information.

Schedule time with people - If you manage a staff, schedule a regular time to discuss key items. Let the team know you’re always available for urgent issues but save the other topics for your standing meeting.

As you can see, some of these are not only about you but about the way you invite others to communicate with you. It will take time to set your barriers and preferred methods of communication. For more ideas and a related post checkout eMBC, Inc.

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Making It Known – Advertise Your Goals to Others

It can be difficult to share your goals with people because it may lead to criticism and doubt from the people you care about. But, it can also lead to the critical support from those that want you to succeed. A goal isn’t really a goal until someone else knows about it. Here are several resources to help you publicize your goals.

1) HassleME

This website makes it easy to arrange reminders that get sent to your email on a schedule that you define. This can be great for routine goals such as exercising or writing in a journal.

2) eLifeList

This site gives you the ability to list all your goals online, share them with others on the website or invite your friends to share in your progress. It may seem odd to have other web-surfers pushing you to achieve your goals but this site usually attracts very positive people that are ready to help.

3) Aimbitious

Choose from pre-set goals or create your own and interact with others trying to achieve similar goals. This can be a lot of fun to see what others are going to achieve and perhaps collaborate.

Goal-setting is the fun part but executing your goals is tough. By inviting the support of others, you will greatly improve your chances of achievement.

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