Photo by Daniel Friesenecker (CC0 1.0)

When I first started in business, meeting notes were a formal thing. There was someone in on the meetings who knew how to take minutes, the format, and the important information to contain therein. As time has passed, I see less and less of this in the professional space, and I honestly don't see that we're missing much by keeping notes in new, less-formal ways. As always, though, innovation can lead to complication if we forget the reasoning behind the practice. With all of the note-taking options available to us, it can be easy to sacrifice efficiency and effectiveness for the sake of the new and shiny.

Photo by Sebastien Wiertz, Licensed under CC BY 2.0

It's funny: I've never been more connected with my coworkers, yet I don't know that I've ever seen more office confusion than I have as of late. We're catering to the communication habits of millenials, and in a lot of ways, this has benefited the office environment. However, with an ever-increasing variety of communication methods, the need to ensure that we are using effective communication has never been more paramount to success. Here are some ideas for ridding your office of confusion by communicating effectively.

E-mail is a tool intended to facilitate communication and help you get your work done. If well managed, the inbox can become the central hub of your workflow through which you coordinate your work and conveniently exchange information that is essential to your business goals. Here are some practical and effective strategies for taming your e-mail inbox.

Photo by Gavin Llewellyn, Licensed under CC BY 2.0

Team-building is vitally important for a company of any size. Employees who are comfortable with one another are happier at work and are more likely to have an open dialogue, which can only help your company in the end. Here are some great activities for building morale that I've seen work over the years.

I've been in my fair share of business meetings, some of them effective meetings that followed some agreed-upon business etiquette, some not so much. One thing they tend to have in common is a certain set of jargon, probably intended get a certain message across but usually succeeding only in confusing or angering people. There may be no perfect way to run a meeting, but there are some best practices. Here are some of the phrases I wish I could just erase from the business person's lexicon.

Photo by Stephen Depolo (Flickr), Licensed under CC BY 2.0

Whether you're running a company or a department, it can be easy to focus your attention on your bottom line, increasing production and decreasing cost. Of course, focusing exclusively on money can mean sacrificing time you could spend focusing on your people, and since it is your people who make it possible for you to accomplish your business goals, this is an unacceptable option. So how do you ensure that you maintain office morale, whether the business is thriving or barely surviving? Here are a few ideas borne from lessons I've learned along the way.

It was a crazy start to the week, new things kept coming in by the minute and I noticed, with great annoyance, that responding to my e-mails constantly disturbed my workflow. Do you feel the same way sometimes? Then you are one of many. Studies show that e-mails are among the top ten productivity killers at work. I compiled tips that help you manage your e-mails more effectively.