Ten Simple Ways to Make Your Boss Think You’re Brilliant (And Indispensible)

The briliant minds over at the Dumb Little Man blog put together this nice list of ten ways to make sure you stand out to your boss and to make sure you dont end up on the chopping block come time to cut back…

1. Beat the Clock
   Most bosses are pretty consistent on the time they get into your office. Take note. If yours always arrives at 7.50 – get there at 7.45 (even if your official start time is 8).

   Bonus to you: Arriving earlier than the boss makes you look keen and eager. Plus, when you’re skiving on Twitter or Facebook later in the day, you can justify it to yourself by those 15 extra minutes in the morning.

2. Say “Good Morning!”
   However hungover, knackered or grumpy you’re feeling first thing in the morning, plaster a great big smile on your face and say, “Good Morning!” to your boss.

   Bonus to you: Two friendly words can go a long way in putting you in your boss’s good books first thing in the day. And (if you’re following the first tip), your boss will know you’re in the office bright and early.

3. Volunteer Strategically
   If you’re in a meeting and someone asks for volunteers, be the first to put your hand up. That way, you’ll look keen and engaged. This will be a tough one to swallow if your workload is already jammed but volunteering for the right, high visibility project can increase the perception of you.

   Bonus to you: You’ll ­­get the task you want (i.e. the one with least effort but highest visibility) and not get lumbered with what the boss assigns you.

4. Be the Printer Guru
   Even if it’s nothing at all to do with your job description, learn where the spare ink/toner is kept and how to fit it. When there’s a paper jam or error, get someone to show you what to do.

   Bonus to you: When your boss is running around in a flap before a big meeting, you’ll be the hero who fixes his very-important-report-won’t-print crisis.

5. Say “Thanks”
   Been given a pay raise, promotion or extra day’s holiday – or even just some of your boss’s valuable time and advice? Make sure you say “thanks”. If possible, thank him/her at the time, and follow up with a short note to express your appreciation.

   Bonus to you: It takes ten minutes of your time and perhaps a couple of dollars to buy a “Thank You” card for your boss. If you feel strange with this one because a man giving a man a card is out of the norm, just send an email. In the end, it’s the thought that really counts here. Guess who’ll be first on his mind when the next round of pay-raises comes along?

6. Make Coffee
   This will make most of the people in the office like you, not just your boss. However for you boss, occasionally take a minute to say “I’m just making myself a coffee, can I get you one?” (doing so multiple times per day will have the opposite effect as you’re labeled as a brown-noser).

   Bonus to you: For virtually zero effort, you give your boss the impression that you’re a considerate, friendly employee who cares about him/her – bosses often feel unloved.




7. Use The Right Jargon
   Pay extra-close attention to the buzzwords that your boss uses. Drop these into the things you say at meetings, and into your emails. This isn’t a chance to play buzzword bingo – what you want to demonstrate is that you’re on the same wavelength as your boss.

   Bonus to you: Sometimes you can get away with something with just the right words. You’re not filing your emails for lack of anything better to do – you’re “implementing new communication management protocols to further the client-company relationship”.

8. Create Procedures
   Closely related to using the right buzzwords is creating the right procedures – that is, any which get you out of hot water. If something goes pear-shaped at work, explain that it was “due to a procedural error” or “a fault in the procedure”. Then, try to correct the process.

   Bonus to you: Explaining that the same mistake can’t possibly happen again “once I’ve changed the procedure” makes your boss think you’re on top of everything. Even when you so, so aren’t.

9. Leave An Email Trail
   If you’re ever working from home, a cunning way to demonstrate how many hours you’re (supposedly) putting in is to make sure that your boss is the recipient of, or copied in to, at least one of your emails first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

   Bonus to you: Your boss will think you’ve been hard at work between that first email at 7.30am and that last one at 9.00pm. You actually sent that first email in your jammies (and went straight back to bed), then took the afternoon off to catch a movie…




10. Fake Enthusiasm
    Even if your job is as dry as dust, fake enthusiasm wherever possible. Plaster a big smile on your face and wave your hands around when enthusing to customers or colleagues about your company.

    Bonus to you: Your boss will think you’re truly (and possibly even a bit madly) dedicated to your job. You might find yourself enjoying it more by being enthusiastic, too.

How do you get into your boss’s good books – without doing too much work? I’m sure you’ve got plenty more tips to add to my list, so let’s hear them in the comments!”

Download The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Audiobook, Free!

via LifeHacker.com

Audible.com is offering a free audiobook download of the best-selling Stephen Covey book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Since its original publication in 1989, Covey’s book has sold over 15 million copies and is part of the early canon of productivity and self-improvement books that launched popular interest in the genre. Follow the link below to download a copy of audiobook for free and listen to some time-honored advice on your next commute.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

by Paul Graham

The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.

When Microsoft and Apple were founded.

As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a bad time to start a startup. I’m not claiming it’s a particularly good time either. The truth is more boring: the state of the economy doesn’t matter much either way.

If we’ve learned one thing from funding so many startups, it’s that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s rounding error compared to the founders.

Which means that what matters is who you are, not when you do it. If you’re the right sort of person, you’ll win even in a bad economy. And if you’re not, a good economy won’t save you. Someone who thinks “I better not start a startup now, because the economy is so bad” is making the same mistake as the people who thought during the Bubble “all I have to do is start a startup, and I’ll be rich.”

So if you want to improve your chances, you should think far more about who you can recruit as a cofounder than the state of the economy. And if you’re worried about threats to the survival of your company, don’t look for them in the news. Look in the mirror.

But for any given team of founders, would it not pay to wait till the economy is better before taking the leap? If you’re starting a restaurant, maybe, but not if you’re working on technology. Technology progresses more or less independently of the stock market. So for any given idea, the payoff for acting fast in a bad economy will be higher than for waiting. Microsoft’s first product was a Basic interpreter for the Altair. That was exactly what the world needed in 1975, but if Gates and Allen had decided to wait a few years, it would have been too late.

Of course, the idea you have now won’t be the last you have. There are always new ideas. But if you have a specific idea you want to act on, act now.

That doesn’t mean you can ignore the economy. Both customers and investors will be feeling pinched. It’s not necessarily a problem if customers feel pinched: you may even be able to benefit from it, by making things that save money. Startups often make things cheaper, so in that respect they’re better positioned to prosper in a recession than big companies.

Investors are more of a problem. Startups generally need to raise some amount of external funding, and investors tend to be less willing to invest in bad times. They shouldn’t be. Everyone knows you’re supposed to buy when times are bad and sell when times are good. But of course what makes investing so counterintuitive is that in equity markets, good times are defined as everyone thinking it’s time to buy. You have to be a contrarian to be correct, and by definition only a minority of investors can be.

So just as investors in 1999 were tripping over one another trying to buy into lousy startups, investors in 2009 will presumably be reluctant to invest even in good ones.

You’ll have to adapt to this. But that’s nothing new: startups always have to adapt to the whims of investors. Ask any founder in any economy if they’d describe investors as fickle, and watch the face they make. Last year you had to be prepared to explain how your startup was viral. Next year you’ll have to explain how it’s recession-proof.

(Those are both good things to be. The mistake investors make is not the criteria they use but that they always tend to focus on one to the exclusion of the rest.)

Fortunately the way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible. For years I’ve been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. The cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. Fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession will if anything make it cheaper still.

If nuclear winter really is here, it may be safer to be a cockroach even than to keep your job. Customers may drop off individually if they can no longer afford you, but you’re not going to lose them all at once; markets don’t “reduce headcount.”

What if you quit your job to start a startup that fails, and you can’t find another? That could be a problem if you work in sales or marketing. In those fields it can take months to find a new job in a bad economy. But hackers seem to be more liquid. Good hackers can always get some kind of job. It might not be your dream job, but you’re not going to starve.

Another advantage of bad times is that there’s less competition. Technology trains leave the station at regular intervals. If everyone else is cowering in a corner, you may have a whole car to yourself.

You’re an investor too. As a founder, you’re buying stock with work: the reason Larry and Sergey are so rich is not so much that they’ve done work worth tens of billions of dollars, but that they were the first investors in Google. And like any investor you should buy when times are bad.

Were you nodding in agreement, thinking “stupid investors” a few paragraphs ago when I was talking about how investors are reluctant to put money into startups in bad markets, even though that’s the time they should rationally be most willing to buy? Well, founders aren’t much better. When times get bad, hackers go to grad school. And no doubt that will happen this time too. In fact, what makes the preceding paragraph true is that most readers won’t believe it—at least to the extent of acting on it.

So maybe a recession is a good time to start a startup. It’s hard to say whether advantages like lack of competition outweigh disadvantages like reluctant investors. But it doesn’t matter much either way. It’s the people that matter. And for a given set of people working on a given technology, the time to act is always now.

Put It On Paper and Watch It Get Done

Ali Hale over at Alpha Student, a great college blog with resources on class, finance and life in general, wrote up this great article on how writing things down can help you out in all aspects of your life.

One of my favorite tricks for improving many areas of my life is really simple: I write things down. This is a hugely powerful way to focus your attention, keep track of life, create a permanent record for the future, and much more.

If you think writing is a waste of time – read on for some great reasons to get in the habit of putting pen to paper on a regular basis.

The Act of Writing Helps Your Memory
Have you ever noticed that when you write a shopping list you can remember almost all the items on it without glancing at it? Or when you have a bright idea and scribble it in your notebook, you can remember it all day? The very act of writing things down helps to get them lodged into your long-term, not short-term, memory.

Boost your memory by:

• Writing out your to-do list at the start of each day
  
• Recording ideas and thoughts as they occur to you
  
• Memorizing facts for tests by writing them out several times
  

Written Words Form a Permanent Record
When you’re engaged in a new project or venture, why not keep a log of some sort so that you can look back on your experiences in future years? By writing down day-to-day details, you create a permanent, clear record of what would otherwise be a vague cloud of thoughts about a particular time or event in your life.

Make your thoughts last by:

• Keeping a diary or online blog
  
• Recording significant events in an “achievements book”
  
• Writing milestones and memories in a baby book for your child
  

Writing Shows You’re Serious
I’m sure you’ve heard the advice “get it in writing”, about business transactions: it’s much easier to weasel out of something we’ve said, but writing down a promise or contract shows that you intend to honor it. This doesn’t just apply in the business world, though. What means more – saying the words “I love you”, or handing your partner a beautifully-written letter? Which will they treasure for years?

Show that you mean what you say by:

• Sending a letter instead of making a phone call
  
• Putting your goals in writing
  
• Writing down what you want your life to be like in five years’ time

Writing Keeps You Accountable
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight or cut down on your spending, you might have kept a food diary or a spending log. It’s much easier to track your progress when you have something in writing – and much harder to lie to yourself. When you’re working on a goal that requires daily action, keep a record, in writing; you’ll be surprised at what a difference it makes to your motivation and self-discipline levels.

Stay accountable by:

• Having a weekly review of how your life is going
  
• Keeping track of daily goals, like fruit and vegetable intake, or regular exercise
  
• Regularly reviewing what you’ve written down to see where you could do better

You Can Work Through Things In Writing
When you’re faced with a knotty problem or a difficult situation in life, try writing about it. Just thinking about how to resolve something can end up making you feel more and more stressed as your thoughts will often go around in circles. Setting aside some time to write about it will help you to process emotions, see the problem in a different light, and work your way towards a solution.

Try working through problems by:

• Writing a dialogue between two voices, if you’re struggling to pick a course of action
• Stating your problem on the page, and brainstorming around it
  
• Spending ten minutes listing as many ways to deal with the situation as possible
  

Has writing already helped you to improve your life? Do you think any of the above ideas will be useful to you in tackling an area that you’re currently working on?

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/11/power-of-writing-things-down.html

HOW2: Cake in a Cup

The Wired Wiki has a quick and easy, and pretty delicious, HOW2 for a Cake in a Cup. Great for cold winter nights.

What You’ll Need

Buying hot chocolate mix in bulk saves having to rip open the little packages.

A microwave oven

A large microwavable mug

A tablespoon for measuring

4 Tablespoons flour

9 Tablespoons hot chocolate mix

1 Egg

3 Tablespoons water

3 Tablespoons oil

Cooking Spray
Makes enough for one enormous serving.

Combine the Ingredients

Spray a little cooking spray into the mug.

Measure out the flour and hot chocolate mix into the mug. Stir.

Crack the egg into the mug. Stir a bit after adding the egg so the cup doesn’t overflow.

Add water and oil.

Stir until thoroughly moistened. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the mug with your spoon to avoid any leftover pockets of dry ingredients.

Bake

Put the mug in the microwave on high and set the timer for 3 minutes.

As it bakes, a cylinder of cake will start to rise out of the mug. Way cool!

When done, it will settle back into the mug.

Serve

The handle of the mug may be hot, so use a potholder to remove it from the microwave.
Tip your cake cylinder out of the mug into a dish. Your cake may look a little damp and wrinkled. This is normal.

Use a fork to break it up into quarters. This will allow steam in the center to escape. Arrange so that the more attractive interior of the cake is showing.

Enjoy your Treat

Mmmm. Chocolate chips.

Make sure the cake has cooled enough to eat before digging in. Add whipped cream or ice cream if desired.

Variation

For added sweetness and gooeyness, after you mix up the batter throw in a few chocolate chips. They may sink to the bottom, but they will taste fine. Mini marshmallows also add a great taste to the cake. They do tend to bubble out, so be sure to protect your microwave tray with paper towel for easy clean-up.

If you want a glaze-like layer on the outside of the cake, try using some chocolate or butterscotch syrup. This absorbs into the cake and makes it more sweet and delicious.