When everything in your life is screaming “I NEED ATTENTION NOW!”, no time management tool, mobile app, project management system, wall planner, organiser or ‘to do’ list is going to help. What you need is a reality check. I used to have a boss whose only answer to my workload problems was “work smarter”. I
Communication skills
7 time management tips that have little to do with managing time
17 Feb / by: Lorraine Forrest-Turner / 2 comments /
You’ve interrogated the brief, developed the strategy and created a stonking proposal. How do you ensure you don’t blow everything by delivering the world’s dullest pitch presentation? While you’re unlikely to win new business with a poor proposal, you’re very likely to lose it with a poor presentation. So before you go in with your
Hitting the wall: why politicians need to start telling it like it is
05 Oct / by: Lorraine Forrest-Turner / 0 comments /Lee Taylor has had enough of political jargon and PR spin. He urges UK politicians of all persuasion to wake up and see the writing on the wall. The first time most Japanese people heard the voice of their Emperor was on August 14th, 1945. In a radio broadcast from the imperial palace he announced Japan’s intention to
The ‘m’ word – why we um and what we can do to stop it
20 May / by: Lorraine Forrest-Turner / 5 comments /Do your carefully-considered words trip perfectly from your mouth like golden honey from a warm spoon? Or do you punctuate every new thought with a long drawn out um, er or uh? While linguists agree that everyone uses fillers in speech, there are different views on who uses what – and whether they help or
If you’re a fan of the US TV show ‘Lie to me’, love the observations of Sherlock and can generally suss out pretty rapidly who to avoid at parties, you’re probably into non-verbal communication, or body language. But is there any truth to it? Is ‘reading’ eye contact, facial expressions and gesturing as reliable as
Surprisingly few, it would seem. While the Oxford English Dictionary lists the meaning of over 600,000 words, most of us get by on 20,000 – and just 100 words account for around half of what we say and write. So what are the benefits of expanding our vocabulary? Would knowing that an ‘aglet’ is the
While the Christmas holidays are indeed a time to rejoice, switch-off and pig-out, they’re also a time of endless obligations. So if you find yourself having to muck-in when you’d rather chill-out, be nice to not very nice people or “make good use of your downtime and do some useful chores”, here are seven easy
To leave or not to leave, that is not the question
18 Sep / by: Lorraine Forrest-Turner / 0 comments /The announcement a few weeks ago that David Cameron was forced to rewrite the EU referendum question (after the Electoral Commission ruled it too biased) made me think about how we ask questions generally in our daily lives. When we’re after some information from someone, or want someone to do something for us, are we
Black Friday? It’s enough to make you Laugh Out Loud!
04 Dec / by: Lorraine Forrest-Turner / 0 comments /When I first saw the words ‘Black Friday’ in an email from Amazon last year, I immediately thought of ‘Black Wednesday’ (16 September 1992 when the UK pulled out of the ERM) and other equally ‘Bad Days’ in history. One year on and many ‘salemails’ later, I worked out that ‘Black Friday’ is yet another import from
7 phrases that make you look like an amateur
19 Oct / by: Lorraine / 0 comments /The internet has turned us all into publishers. Sadly, it’s also made many of us think we’re copywriters. Just because you CAN put your own content up on the web for the world to see doesn’t mean you should! Ideally, unless you are a gifted communicator, get your content produced by a professional who knows
