Paper
Get rid of it; recycle it; pass it on.   Keep the essence: tear out the magazine article or the book chapter that contains just the information you want to keep.   Develop a filing system that works (this goes for your hard drive too).   If you can't find it, you don't have it.   Respond immediately. If you must respond to a letter, do it right away even if it means scribbling a note on the bottom of the original.   Informal is better than weeks late.   Lastly, open mail over the waste basket.

E-mail
Install a filter.  Cyber servants are still in their infancy, but right now filters come with some e-mail software that allows you to screen and file it according to preset parameters.   Scan headers.   Learn to quickly determine what's important by the subject and sender.   Delete.   Get in the habit of clearing out your mailbox regularly.   Lastly, don't distribute your address.

Voicemail
Move the work along.   Each voice mail message you leave on someone's system should explain clearly what you need or expect.   Make fewer calls. You'll get fewer in return.   Compose succinct outgoing messages that tell people where and how to get information to you.   Listen only to as much of an incoming message as you need to figure out what the sender wants.
This article was taken from "Juggle" a webzine for facility managers.  You can find it @ www.hermanmiller.com.

Education Calendar

Golfsmith Tour

Alternate Offices

62% of the companies survey are using some form of AWS, with team environments the most commonly used approach.   Telecommuting rates are expected to grow the fastest of all AWS over the next 3 years.   While dramatic examples of saving from hoteling exist in the accounting industry, nearly 71% of companies who have hoteling have not found any significant cost savings.   In fact about 40% of companies reported increased costs, due to technology requirements.

Costs associated with AWS may be offset, however, by employee happiness. “The overall impact of these various workplace strategies on employee morale has been very favorable,” says Shari Epstein, IFMA’a associate director of research.   Respondents reported the greatest gains in employee productivity from the virtual office and team environment strategies.

The real value of this study is that we are building a more accurate picture of how many companies and how many employees are actively using new ways of officing, says Epstein.   As companies use AWS more, anecdotal discussions have be increasingly replaced with analysis grounded in best practices and benchmarks.   For more information on the study, contact IFMA @ 713-623-4362.

Friday the 13th!

Officer Retreat

New Officers

Red Cross needs your Help

Passing of the Guard

As a new president of IFMA, I relied on Jack to be at the other end of 335-1177 every-time I was facing something new, and he patiently listened, asked what I thought should happen or be and guided me and the members through it.   When it worked, he never took credit and when it didn’t, he gently lead me in a direction that he knew all along I was going to have to find by experience.   There is a lot of work behind the scenes of an association.   It is not always glamorous, but it always effects people and how they work together to achieve their goals.   Our goal for 1998 was to “Prepare the Austin Facility Manager for the 21st Century.” May I say, that Jack Drummond has been preparing the members of IFMA-Austin for the last 7 years.

Thanks, Jack! For being a good friend, a seasoned coach and association businessman.   We are better off for having known and worked with you. And IFMA Austin will do it’s best to not look back over our shoulder at what you helped to build, but to the future and all the things that we deserve to accomplish.

On behalf of the present membership of IFMA-Austin and numerous members of years past, many who you have worked with shoulder to shoulder... please accept our deepest thanks and good wishes.