Do you remember one of those strategies that most performance coaches would recommend in regard to articles and columns from industry trade magazines? Every sales person should have a folder in their briefcase, and when you ran across an article in a magazine, you should tear it out and place it in your folder. When you had a few minutes, you could remove the folder and catch up on your articles. Using this technique kept you from lugging around 20 magazines and gave you the freedom to read them when you wanted to.
So, when’s the last time you skimmed through a hard copy of a magazine? Most of our information comes to us through social media or email today. Are we supposed to print out those pieces and save them? You could, but I doubt most of you would go through that trouble – I wouldn’t. I recommend two ideas that are much more efficient…
- I use an app called Pocket. When I open an article or blog post on my smart phone that interests me, but I don’t have time to read it, I simply save it to Pocket. (Think of sticking it in your pants or coat pocket.) When I have a few minutes, I open Pocket, and there are my articles nicely organized for me to select and read.
- For email newsletters, I use a folder in Outlook “@To Read”. I use the @ symbol because it positions the folder at the top – a trick I learned from Reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. There are about a half dozen e-newsletters I receive that I like, and dozens from which I’ve unsubscribed. When the e-newsletters that interest me show up in my inbox, I simply move them to the @ To Read folder. When I have a few minutes, I open that folder and catch up.
That’s it – pretty simple, huh? I admit – I still carry a folder because I receive some magazines the old fashion way, but most of my reading is done on my smart phone.
Try out these ideas – I think they’re perfect for a busy, hectic sales professional.
