How Do You Finish Your Day Strong?

You discovered your productivity trigger. You are more productive in that all-important first hour of your day. You set boundaries around technology intrusion on your productivity.

You are well on your way to doing more in one hour than most business professionals do in a month. But there is one more question to answer for greater productivity as you start the final quarter of 2012:

How do you finish your day strong?

The concluding actions of yesterday ring loudly as you greet tomorrow-becoming-today.

Here are three strategies for you to finish your day strong:

Complete a Task

Yes, you're far more productive now than you were a month ago. Yet you still face interruptions. You put out fires.

These chronic productivity hiccups prompt you to experience incompleteness. You rarely complete a task and that's an emotional drain.

Find a task, even a small one, to complete before you leave for home. Arrange your desk. File papers or documents. Make tomorrow's to-do list. Anything.

Completing one task at the end of your day creates a positive sense of satisfaction that greets you the next morning. It's refreshing to walk in and re-experience yesterday's success. It launches your confidence for completion in a new day.

Commit to fun with family and friends

You read a lot about work/life balance which looks great from 30,000 feet. Yet from where your feet hit the ground, it's a tough act to balance.

Just do this: commit to fun with your family and friends. Define fun with them. Playing "Pretty, Pretty Princess" with your daughter. Tossing football with your son. A romantic meal you cook at home for your honey. Shooting hoops with the guys. A spa trip with the sisterhood. It's all fun!

Commit to fun. Schedule it. Budget it. Do it.

Increase your productivity with it.

Cut off the TV

If you go to sleep immediately following the evening news or an episode of The Walking Dead, guess what your subconscious works on overnight? Fixing the national deficit. Catching a murderer. Running from zombies.

Instead, cut the TV off at least 10 minutes before you go to sleep. Write in your Work Positive Gratitude Diary. Give your mind something positive to process. Wake up more refreshed.

Finish your day strong. Do more in an hour than most business professionals do in a month so you can leave the office earlier to do what you love with those you love as you Work Positive in a negative world.

How Can I Manage My E-Mail Storm? Issue 1

During a recent conversation about business processes, a thinking participant asked the question which I have used as my title.

Who does not understand this urgent call for assistance? It is a universal cry for help which is uttered by all who use e-mail in their business. Whenever it is voiced, there is always an outpouring of advice, most based on personal experience and some based on deep thought.

The options offered on this occasion fell into a number of broad categories:

• Multiple e-mail addresses/silos

• A comprehensive filing system to get e-mails into the client/customer file

• Hosted e-mail services which allow recipients to handle e-mail wherever they might be

• Improve spam management

• Automatic deletion of e-mail after a certain period, which demands anything requiring to be kept being filed elsewhere

• Do it, delegate it, deliberate over it or dump it

• Replace e-mail where practical, but what with?

1. Multiple E-mail Addresses or Silos

For a user with a slight overload situation, breaking down your e-mail traffic into a number of different repositories may make things feel better.

This can be done by creating subject folders (silos) in Outlook. You can drag e-mails from your Inbox into a subject folder which you reserve for that sort of material. At least it makes your Inbox look a lot better.

But you must do better than that. The e-mail should be dealt with, I mean completed, before being moved from the Inbox to the subject folder, otherwise you will probably forget what it was about or what was required of you and so let your correspondent down.

Alternatively, you could give your friends, contacts, business associates, clients and customers different e-mail addresses for contacting you. This would obviate the process of dragging e-mails into the subject folders in the single e-mail address process mentioned above. The failing is that you must go looking for new e-mail in a number of accounts to ensure you stay on top of the e-mail storm.

Outlook can be configured to display a number of Inboxes at a time, but there is a limit imposed by the screen real estate.

My guess is that you would then begin to create subject folders in each of your main Inboxes "to make finding e-mails easier".

Multiple silos are a real personal management challenge. I would recommend avoiding them like the plague.

In between these two extremes, I can see a role for having two e-mail addresses.

The primary address is for your most lucrative correspondents. People who send e-mail to this address require your urgent personal attention. This Inbox should be perused regularly during the day and all incoming e-mail read and dealt with before you leave your desk at the end of the day.

The secondary address would be directed to your administrative assistant, PA or secretary. This person would be responsible for actioning the contents of e-mails coming in to this address. If an incoming e-mail fitted the category for your primary address, it would be forwarded for action. Spam would be deleted, client e-mails filed in your document management system, brochures of interest forwarded to the appropriate person within the business and the rest left for your review.

This secondary address would be the recipient of magazine subscriptions, newsletters, marketing brochures, in fact anything that does not directly assist you in achieving what you are at work to achieve. At a prearranged time during the day, your PA would tell you what is in the secondary Inbox that has not been actioned and then action the content as you determine. So long as you are at work, this secondary Inbox should be empty at the end of every day.

Whichever multi silo option you consider for your e-mails, you need to assess the risk, productivity impacts and convenience of using Outlook as your primary store. Over time, the subject folders will grow in number and it will be the devil's own job to find a specific e-mail. Outlook search is so slow. It may be easier to simply ask your sender to resend. How embarrassing that the sender can find the e-mail and you cannot!

I find it very hard to recommend this approach. A corrupted Exchange PST or OST file is a serious challenge and often not recoverable. Many Exchange users are lax about backups and ignore backing up Exchange! Its worth checking.

Much information received into a business via e-mail needs to be placed in a matter or job folder. While it is in Outlook, it generally cannot be shared or made available to others in your project workgroup. Think seriously of moving this information into an environment which makes the information available to those who need it.

Once in that space, DELETE it from Outlook. This approach will make your Inbox really better, not just look better.

My next article will deal with the making of a truly comprehensive electronic file (eFile) which will contain not just e-mails, but all files relating to a job, contract or matter.

I have over 40 years experience in Office Technology, Information Technology and process re-engineering behind me. I work for business to help it make the very best use it can of its IT and OT infrastructure.

My business works with its clients to identify what they are doing now, to document where they want to be and develop a path to get from where they are to their nirvana. We assist with the development of an IT and OT plan, provide input toward the budget and supply process management and support to achieve the planned results.

How to Implement New Business Processes Without Affecting Productivity Levels

A business process is basically a collection of related tasks aimed at product or service delivery. It comprises a set of activities with specific goals and objectives targeted at value-addition in an organization. I believe you sometimes implement new business processes in your entity so as to produce more, cheaper, better, quicker and generally offer more service, don't you? At the same time, you desire to implement these new processes without retarding productivity. Isn't it so? Sometimes these two appear to be conflicting. What must you do to reconcile the two? How do you implement new business processes without affecting productivity level? Let's consider some options.

- As a starting point, good people management approaches are vital. You should understand that implementing new business processes is part of change and hence change management guidelines should be considered. Don't you think so? For example, you should ensure that there is effective communication of the new processes and various implementation aspects. Psychological readiness and buy-in by the people are important. Additionally you need to empower, involve, engage and motivate your people.

- Training your people in advance is another powerful approach to implement new business processes without adversely affecting workplace productivity. Do you appreciate the value of this approach? Without advance training and orientation you will have an uphill task. But when your people learn the new approaches before their implementation, your chance of success is very high. Won't you be glad to achieve this?

- It is said that practice makes perfect. In fact perfect practice makes perfect. Practical learning methods such as work simulation, test runs, parallel runs etc help prepare people and the organization at large. Following such methods will ensure that productivity will not lag behind once you start implementing the new business processes.

- Project management approaches such as the critical path approach can additionally guide you in focusing on the critical aspects of implementing the new processes. This approach enables you to identify and place emphasis on the critical areas of change. If these critical areas are adequately handled, your process implementation most likely will not adversely affect productivity.

- The gradual and incremental approach to new processes implementation also avoids negative impact on productivity. Don't you think so? While speedy execution is desired in organizational change processes, the gradual alternative has its advantages also. Surely you don't desire speed to totally disrupt productivity and hence business continuity while implementing change. Now, why not try a slower approach?

- What about the aspect of leadership? You need strong leaders to ensure sustenance of organizational productivity while implementing change. You need capable and good leadership to monitor the change process so that productivity does not drop. Don't you agree with me on this? Just try effecting change in an organization without competent leadership, then you will appreciate the point I'm making here. Can your leaders and managers reconcile change management and high productivity?

In conclusion, productivity is extremely vital in your organization. It affects your strategic and tactical plans, staff motivation, pricing, investment analysis etc. While implementing change in your entity, you need not forget productivity. Of course your organization will keep on changing over time. The smart approach is this - you should change for the better and without destroying the good in the past. Why not consider this in your next change assignment? You can certainly improve your business processes without reducing productivity, can't you?

What Are the Benefits of Remote Deposit Capture for Businesses?

Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) is a process that uses bank check scanners to create digital images of checks, which are used in place of paper checks. By eliminating manual check processing and the physical transportation of checks between financial institutions and their customers, RDC offers businesses the following benefits, among others.

Faster Clearing Time

RDC allows businesses to capture check deposits in the branch location without transporting checks to the branch. By eliminating the need to transport the documents to the branch location, RDC allows businesses to process more checks in a given period. Ultimately, the ability to process a higher volume of checks is representative of a faster clearing time.

Improved availability of funds

A faster clearing time results in improved availability of funds. Instead of waiting days for funds to appear in accounts, businesses often see the funds on the same or the next business day. For example, research shows that image processing results in a ninety-five percent next-day availability in "transit" items (items that are beyond the Federal Reserve District), which is especially valuable in the case of high-value checks.

Improved cash flow

Using remote deposit capture to achieve a faster clearing time and improved availability of funds results in improved cash flow. The financial benefit of improved cash flow can be calculated by using a business' Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC), which is the return the business gets on every dollar it invests. Improved cash flow often results in an annual financial benefit of thousands of dollars.

Lower transportation costs

Using bank check scanners reduces the need for businesses to have employees leave the office or use couriers to transport financial documents to the branch. Although some financial documents must still be presented to financial institutions in paper form, research shows that implementing an image processing system can reduce the cost of transporting financial documents by as much as eighty percent.

Lower processing costs

Just as image processing lowers transportation costs by reducing the need to transport documents to financial institutions, it lowers processing costs by eliminating the need to balance deposits. Furthermore, RDC allows businesses to converge remittance processing and financial transaction processing into a single platform-an arrangement that is made possible by Check 21 legislation.

Improved Data Storage

By creating digital images of financial documents, RDC allows businesses to store check data in digital form instead of as canceled paper checks. This makes it easy to store data offsite with a provider of disaster recovery services, which protects the data from destruction in the event of a disaster. Storing the data offsite also allows businesses to reduce operating expenses and increase workspace by decreasing onsite data silos.

Conclusion

Remote deposit capturere lies on bank check scanners to create the digital images of checks. After the images are created, they take the place of the original documents to expedite item processing and eliminate the need for documents to be transported from one party to another. These accomplishments offer businesses the benefits listed above, and give financial institutions a competitive advantage at the branch level.

What Steps Does a Bank Take to Implement Image Exchange?

Image exchange is a process in which financial institutions create the digital images of checks and transmit them in place of the original documents. At a time when transaction speed, data processing, and data storage are some of the top banking concerns at the branch level, image capture for banks is a competitive technology that allows banks to offer important benefits to business customers, such as:

    Faster clearings
    Improved availability of funds
    Improved cash flow
    Reduced return risk

Below are steps a financial institution commonly takes to implement a system for processing and transmitting the images of checks.

Form an initiative

Implementing a document scanning system should be preceded by forming an initiative that establishes what the system means financially to the institution. The institution should ask whether the system supports corporate objectives, how it will help the institution save costs and generate revenue, and how business would be affected if the system were not implemented.

Enable check image processing

The next step is to decide whether the system will be located in-house or if scanning needs will be outsourced. If the former option is chosen, the institution must calculate the cost for purchasing, installing, and maintaining the equipment for the system.

Start a cross-functional project team

The project team for implementing the system should be cross-functional. Ideally, it should include a manager who is familiar with image capture for banks and the image exchange process, the manager for item processing, and an IT expert who understands the connectivity and configuration issues associated with the software that supports the system.

Alter workflow operation to accommodate the system

Implementing the system will change the workflow procedure for item processing. Changes that may need to occur include implementing a duplicate image detection program, installing fraud filters to review images, and implementing an image statement program.

Establish a single exchange connection

A single connection that receives image transmittal from multiple capture sites should be established. In addition to simplifying the system, establishing a single connection-in contrast to establishing a separate connection with each partner in the system-allows the system to be implemented faster.

Define processing procedures

Partners in the system must establish the rules and procedures for exchanging information, especially concerning what type of transmission will be supported, where the Electronic Check Presentment (ECP) data and images will be received, and how present sending times and sending volumes will be affected.

Conduct staff training

Staff should be trained for the switchover from a paper processing environment to an image processing environment. Training involves familiarizing staff members with new workflows and training them to use new equipment.

Run tests

Testing the system at least twice over a two-week period is usually sufficient to reveal issues that must be addressed before the partners in the system agree to go forward with the implementation.

Conclusion

Image capture for banks offers several advantages to banks and their customers. To learn more about using image exchange to simplify check processing, consult with a provider of imaged-based financial solutions today.