Debbie Mayo-Smith: Upskill during the holidays

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"OH NO!!!! Not Patricia Flipp"

The children would moan in unison making a joke of her name. When they were younger, I did sometimes give in to Iron Maiden. Metallica. Or Rihanna. Now they're all individually plugged into their music on their phones.

If I'm not clamouring for peace and quiet, or if dad isn't in the car - he's the boss, I listen to one of my business CD's, Patricia Fripp (a US Speaking coach) or for sheer pleasure audio murder mysteries. Of course if you have an iPhone, you can put your CD's on iTunes, and load them onto the phone to listen to in the car, as you walk, relax or exercise.

Just one little sentence

Over the past two years, how many business CD's, mp3's or books have you bought? Seminars, conferences, workshops attended? It's an investment of time and money that can pay off dramatically for you - personally and business wise. It's that one little sentence you'll read or hear - that one little idea when applied, will make significant impact.

With the summer upon us and a disquieting economic environment, it has not been so important to be at peak productivity and in the forefront as it is now. So please view this as a timely reminder not to be too busy.

Make time to improve your effectiveness - both personally and in business. Be on the lookout for ways to enhance how you work, how you "sell", market, deal with clients, and manage your time......

Where can you go to further your development?

1. Library / Bookstores

2. Networking functions

3. Blogs

4. Itunes

5. Associations - join them and use their websites

6. Sign up for newsletters

7. Conferences

8. Internet searches on a subject

You'll notice I haven't added in social media - Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It's too easy to get distracted within those sites and way too much fluff hiding the good posts with the links to articles. Going straight to a search engine and finding the topic of interest will save you some of your most precious asset - your time.

Written by international speaker and bestselling author Debbie Mayo-Smith For more tips, sign up for her monthly newsletter here.