{"id":384,"date":"2008-10-12T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2008-10-12T18:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/how-to-keep-working-in-a-worsening-economy-cont\/"},"modified":"2015-12-10T13:31:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T19:31:58","slug":"how-to-keep-working-in-a-worsening-economy-cont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/10\/how-to-keep-working-in-a-worsening-economy-cont\/","title":{"rendered":"How to keep working in a worsening economy, cont."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I started yesterday a list of ten tips to improve your communication skills so that you can stand out &#8212; in a good way &#8212; from the crowd and thereby keep working in a worsening economy. <\/p>\n<p>I wrote <a target=\"five\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/how-to-keep-working-in-a-worsening-economy\/\">five tips yesterday<\/a>, and here are the remaining five tips.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tip 6. Put it in writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bosses, fellow employees, and customers have less time to meet with you as the economy worsens and they feel increasing pressure to focus on the essentials.<\/p>\n<p>Do them a favor by putting any of the following in email messages:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>action items;<\/li>\n<li>confirmations;<\/li>\n<li>deliveries of documents;<\/li>\n<li>information;<\/li>\n<li>questions;<\/li>\n<li>requests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can even start your email subject line with &#8220;Action:&#8221;, &#8220;Confirmation:&#8221;, &#8220;Delivery:&#8221;, &#8220;Info:&#8221;, &#8220;Question:&#8221;, or &#8220;Request:&#8221;, so that your message recipient will know right away why you are writing to him or her.<\/p>\n<p>By following this tip, you will:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>learn to become succinct in your communications;<\/li>\n<li>let others respond on their schedules; and,<\/li>\n<li>develop a reputation for being thoughtful about others&#8217; time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tip 7. Write more often.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This tip both supports tip #6 and is an outgrowth of tip #6.<\/p>\n<p>This tip is really simple: By writing &#8212; and rewriting &#8212; what you want to say, and by doing this daily, you will improve your ability to organize your thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, most meetings, whether by telephone or in person, do not encourage organization of thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>The regular habit of <em>writing<\/em> will force you to become better at organizing your thoughts, which is essential for better communication.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tip 8. Write more succinctly.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is another tip that both supports tip #6 and is an outgrowth of tip #6. This tip also supports tip #7.<\/p>\n<p>To automatically write more succinctly, use lists. (Did you notice that these tips are in a list?!)<\/p>\n<p>If you are not accustomed to writing lists, then learn about <a target=\"mind-mapping\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mind_map\">mind mapping<\/a> at Wikipedia, start using mind mapping, and convert your mind maps into lists.<\/p>\n<p>People generally love lists because lists show that you thought about what you wrote and because they facilitate skimming.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tip 9. Grow your vocabulary.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I saw a television infomercial the other day that claimed that the average size of a U.S. high-school student&#8217;s vocabulary dropped from 25,000 words in 1950 to only 10,000 words in 2000.<\/p>\n<p>High-school students probably are not the only ones with weaker vocabularies these days.<\/p>\n<p>Here are three recommendations to help you to grow your vocabulary:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>check an online source such as Dictionary.com daily for a &#8220;Word of the Day&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>get a page-a-day calendar that shows a new word and its definition every day;<\/li>\n<li>read a book specifically targeted at expanding your vocabulary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although this fourth recommendation might seem odd at first, also consider taking a course in medical terminology. I took one many years ago, and it dramatically improved my knowledge of the Latin and Greek roots of many English words, which is essential to understanding their meanings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tip 10. Give speeches.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Giving speeches increases your visibility and increases your self-confidence.<\/p>\n<p>Increasing your visibility &#8212; whether in your job, with your customers, or in your community &#8212; leads to greater awareness by others of your skills, knowledge, and aptitude. This greater awareness in turn can lead to promotions, requests for bids, and even more opportunities to let &#8220;the world&#8221; know about you.<\/p>\n<p>Increasing your self-confidence is crucial to performing better in job interviews and to handling sales calls and marketing presentations with greater ease. Your increased self-confidence will put others at ease and will increase their confidence in hiring you or giving you business.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tip 11. Keep reading this blog.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I could not resist adding this bonus tip. I enjoy delivering more than promised!<\/p>\n<p>If you already read my blog daily, thank you; you know its value.<\/p>\n<p>If you are new to my blog, then I invite you to review the <a target=\"archives\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/\">archives<\/a> and then start reading it daily for even more ideas to improve your communication skills.<\/p>\n<p>Remember: Learning never ends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I started yesterday a list of ten tips to improve your communication skills so that you can stand out &#8212; in a good way &#8212; from the crowd and thereby keep working in a worsening economy. I wrote five tips yesterday, and here are the remaining five tips. Tip 6. Put it in writing. Bosses,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to keep working in a worsening economy, cont. - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/10\/how-to-keep-working-in-a-worsening-economy-cont\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to keep working in a worsening economy, cont. - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I started yesterday a list of ten tips to improve your communication skills so that you can stand out &#8212; in a good way &#8212; from the crowd and thereby keep working in a worsening economy. 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