I know many readers are huge fans of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers (Business Plus)(affectionately known among commenters as NGDGTCO). I’ll be honest here: I haven’t read it yet myself! But I knew enough to sit up and take notice when the author, Lois P. Frankel, PhD, emailed me personally to see if we would be interested in running an excerpt of her new book, Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It: 99 Ways to Win the Respect You Deserve, the Success You’ve Earned, and the Life You Want (coauthored with Carol Frohlinger, JD).

This excerpt is on a topic near and dear to my heart: people who don’t write or speak in brief, to-the-point messages. One of my biggest pet peeves is having to weed through someone’s email message or voicemail to get to what they want, what the answer is, or what they’re trying to sell me. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Excerpt of NICE GIRLS JUST DON’T GET IT

Readers, what were some of your biggest take-aways from NGDGTCO?  What do you think the best way is to craft meaningful messages to people?

Reader M had a question about post-interview anxiety, something I notice coming up in the comment threads a lot…

I had a second round interview this week, and I’m waiting to hear back. The job is working in-house for a big company. Their legal team is spread throughout their offices, so my first interview was with HR, then my second interview was with their VP Legal Counsel and another Senior Counsel attorney. I think it went well, but I’m so anxious. My first question is what to do with anxiety while waiting to hear back about a job? My second question is if anyone has stories from successful interviews that might shed light on whether or not it went well.

The wonderful thing about interviewing for jobs outside your own company is that they have no idea what a stressball you may be after the interview. (Of course, for jobs inside the company you have to keep your cool, which is even tougher — but hopefully less stress-inducing given that you can “read” the personalities better and they know you better.) There are two interesting questions here: what to do to ease anxiety, and how to know if an interview went well.  I’ll take the second one first.

How to know an interview went so well that you’ll get the job: You can’t. Unless you know the interviewer (or the interviewers), you really won’t have any idea if things went well. I’ve been on some interviews that I thought went laughably bad (and then was offered the position) and some that I thought went over-the-moon great (and then didn’t get the position). (I fondly remember one interview, during interview week at law school: I sat down, prepared to talk about the law firm, and was shocked when the interviewer said “Yeah, so, based on your first year grades and the fact that you’re on law review, we’re going to extend an offer. Can I answer any questions you have?” — couldn’t they all be so easy?) But interview success depends on that fine mix of who else is interviewing for the position, what the company is looking for (which may be something as simple as “someone different than the last person to hold this job” in ways that you can’t really identify), what MOOD the interviewer is in, where they are in the interview process (too early and they may not have figured out what they want; too late and it may just be a polite gesture). So how do you handle interviews? You focus on what you can control: you. You give the best interview you can, you prepare as much as you can, you follow up to the extent that you feel comfortable (there is a wide spectrum, on both sides, of what is “go getter” versus “pushy”) — and you let the cards fall where they may. It isn’t necessarily a personal reflection on you if you don’t get the job.

But all of this is easier said than done — the anxiety after an interview can be intense. We’ve talked about ways to relax before, and now might be a great time to reopen that discussion.  I think general stress is one thing, but I think of anxiety as really strong stress that is triggered by one particular situation or one thing, which you probably can’t do anything about.  Personally, I do the following kinds of things when I’m anxious:

- Exercise. A walk, a run, a good aerobics workout — it’s amazing how I can feel my shoulders and neck “unlock” in the middle of the workout. You carry so much stress with you, and you don’t even realize it.

- Make dates with a lot of friends. This way you keep occupied enough that you don’t dwell on the anxiety too long, and by seeing a lot of different people you won’t drive any one person crazy with your own anxiety. In my experience, I’ve found that friends have to be very, very close to sit through more than 3 conversations about the same stress points, especially when there a) is no clear way to resolution, or b) they’ve suggested things to handle the situation (more appropriate where it’s boyfriend- or family-related stress) and you haven’t taken the advice.

- Brain candy. When I’m stressed, I find that focusing my full brain power on anything else seems impossible. So I turn to things that I call brain candy — reality TV shows (America’s Next Top Model is a particular favorite — so many of the contestants are unintentionally hilarious) or easy-to-read books that are well-written but lurid enough to suck me in. I just devoured (again) Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse mysteries always capture my attention. I particularly find that these books are great before bedtime, because they get my mind away from things that are stressing me out.

- Make lists. Maybe I’m alone here, but lists sometime help me solidify my thinking. I’ve used them to nail down what I’m worried about (you’ll be amazed at how the list goes on once you start writing them down), and to make pros and cons lists to remember that there are both pluses and minuses to getting the situation.  I find that lists are also helpful to realize that some of the thoughts in my head can be kind of silly when I’m stressed — for example, write out “this one job will make or break my entire career” — see, doesn’t that look fairly silly? (This isn’t to say that there aren’t hugely important, singular opportunities — things like a Supreme Court clerkship, for example. But those are few and far between, and if you have gotten to the interview point on something like that, your career already sounds golden.)

- Sleep. Everything looks better in the morning.

- Avoid anxiety loops. Every so often, I let myself get overwhelmed by stressful, anxious thoughts, and I go into what I call “loops” — StressPointA takes me to slightly-related StressPointB which takes me to slightly-related StressPointC (and so forth) which leads me back to A. When I find myself caught in a loop, I can’t actually make any decisions or come to a helpful point of view — I just get panicked and frenzied, leading to sleepness nights and totally unproductive days.  Avoiding the loop is critical — getting enough sleep (see above re: brain candy and exercise), keeping occupied, etc.  I also try to avoid too much “alone in my head” time when I’m in one of those moods — I once broke down in tears in a yoga class because my brain was looping.   (Once you’re in a loop, well… a glass of wine may help you ease up or cause you to loop further; it really depends on you and the moment. If you find yourself frequently in this situation, talk to your doctor because there may be a prescription that can help, either on a sometimes basis or an every day basis.  Be careful, though: anxiety drugs can be very addictive, so don’t borrow a friend’s pill — talk to your doctor about them, and follow his or her instructions.)

Readers, what do you do when you’re trying to relax from anxiety, either from a job interview or from a particularly stressful situation? And, do you have any fun interview stories to share — times you knew you nailed it, or wondered how it could go so wrong?

I’ve posted before of my love for Remember the Milk, but it’s come up in two separate conversations I had recently, so I thought I’d post on it again.

As a reminder, this is a free, web-based application, and it e-mails you when your “due date” is up.   (You can also check items off it before the due date, and e-mail it “to dos” from your Blackberry — it’s also available as a free “app” on the iPhone and Android, I believe).  I head there at least 4-5 times a week for the following kinds of things:

a) Online purchases – If, say, you’ve done a lot of online buying recently (cough, cough — great sales, I swear!) — then this can be handy to remember what you think is arriving in the mail, as well as by when.  (Or am I the only one who returns home sometimes to be surprised by a delivery of clothes I hadn’t remembered ordering?)  If I remember, I’ll also add “return by” dates as separate to-dos… and if I actually do return something I try to generally ballpark a date (yet another task) by when I should have received the refund on my credit card.

b) Group Coupons - If you’re a fan of the group-buying sites, it can be a total pain to remember what restaurants / spa treatments / etc. you’ve got discounts for, and by when those coupons/vouchers/discounts expire. Enter Remember the Milk…  I just throw everything in the bucket and it reminds me what deals are about to expire, by when.  (If you’re curious what group-buying sites I’m a member of (and want invite codes), click here — there are so, so many! And really good deals.  (In fact, the deals are SO good that Business Insider recently(ish) opined that “there are now so many daily deals for these services that anyone who lives in a major city and pays full price for a massage is being lazy and financially irresponsible.”))

c) Expirations - I blogged about this before, but I really do use it to remind myself of expirations — just in the past few months I’ve been reminded that some prescription eye drops went bad, and that I should really use that quinoa I bought a zillion years ago.  (I made a ton of “pork-fried rice” with it, using healthier ingredients, and froze it for later eating.)

d) Paperless Bills -  If, like me, you’ve switched a lot of your bills away from the paper statements (and, like me, you get a zillion emails a day and those reminders tend to get lost in the shuffle), this program can be really helpful.  For some, it’s because we forget to pay them without the reminder (like, say, my husband’s student loans); for others it’s because we want to make sure we have enough money in the account for an automatic payment (like, say, the mortgage).

e) Blogging -  For blogging purposes, I also use it to remind myself of great things I’ve seen while shopping/researching something on line and might want to post about it later. (I’ve found that for this blog, most of the posts are difficult to write far in advance because a lot of the products sell out or have drastically reduced quantities by the time I see something, and I do make best efforts to blog about things with lots of sizes in stock.) (It’s also a good “test” — I liked it then, do I like it now also?)

In terms of HOW I use it — I tend to type one sentence reminders in the text box, trying to remind myself of two dates: the date the item ACTUALLY expires, and the date I want to be reminded of it. So I’ll type something like this:  “use Scoop Street 50% off coupon at B. Smith’s near W.46 – expires 10/30/2011 – due 9.1.2011″  — it reminds me of the important things (which site I have to go to for the voucher, where the restaurant is, when the coupon expires, and when I want to be reminded of it.  RTM will automatically convert that “due 9/1/2011″ phrase to a deadline.  (You can also say things like “due tuesday” or “due four tuesdays from now,” and the program will figure it out.)

Here’s a screencap of my main page:

Readers, do you have a handy to-do program? How do you remember some of the dates/tasks I’ve outlined above?

Something on your mind? Chat about it here.
Pictured: Mikasa “True Blue” Espresso Cup/Saucer, available at Macys.com for $16 (was $23).

Wow — in what was one of our most unpopular polls ever, we asked last week whether people nap at the office and whether they have a system to it.  The poll is still open, but the initial results were split pretty much in thirds:

- 32% said that yes, you had napped at the office more than once

- 30% denied ever napping

- 38% said they’d only napped once and weren’t proud of it.

As various articles report, napping for just 20 minutes can increase your productivity by clearing your mind’s clutter, as well as improving memory, stamina, and motor skills.  One article even weighs the different benefits of naps lasting anywhere from 2 seconds to 90 minutes.  Some companies are even installing “sleep pods” to help their workers recharge:

Some articles to consider, if you’re not currently napping:

• How to Get the Perfect Nap [Stepcase Lifehack]
• How and Why to Power Nap [Lifehacker]
• How to Nap like a Pro [Boston Globe, via HuffPo]
• Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better [Lifehacker]

Photo credit:  Cat nap, originally uploaded to Flickr by Mr. Miyagi. Note that there’s actually a difference between a cat nap (which one does on a lazy Sunday) and a power nap (which one might do at your office).

In this feature, we’ll explore one tool that makes the busy woman’s life easier in some small way.

Every busy woman’s got a growing pile of things to do — immediate things to do at home and at the office. Things to do at some point in the future (update the resume, congratulate Theresa and Ben on their 5-year anniversary, get vacation photos printed). It helps to corral these things into a list. Really! We’ve unfortunately left our copy of Getting Things Done, by David Allen, at home, but there’s a lovely passage in it where he talks about how all these tiny things that must be done nag at your brain, tugging at your conscious (and subconscious) mind until you’re exhausted, worrying about all the things that need to be done. His solution (which we’ve found really does help) is to write EVERYTHING down. Build a system, and trust the system.

We’ve been fine with using Outlook for office tasks, but we truly love using Remember The Milk for personal tasks. Some great things about it:

1) The service is free and allows you to do the basic stuff you need to do: add priorities, due dates, categories, et cetera

2) There’s a Firefox add-in that you can download and integrate with your Gmail account — your to do list is never far from hand

3) You can e-mail additional items to your list (very handy if you’ve got a Blackberry) as well as text items to your list

4) You can create separate in-boxes — some for checking daily and some for weekly. (We’ve got ours set up for daily lists like “Personal” (pick up the drycleaning) and “Corporette” (things to investigate and blog about) as well as ones we check less frequently, such as “Someday” (for things that we don’t need to worry about — museum exhibits that are closing in 4 months, etc) and “Expirations” (see below). Other ideas for lists: “To buy” lists (for the grocery store, for the drug store, on iTunes, on your next trip to Target or Bed Bath and Beyond), Gift Ideas (divided by person), and more.

5) You can even share the task list with others, “assigning” things to be done. (A modern version of a honey-do list, we suppose.)

6) Nontraditional use: We also have a category for “Expirations” — we can’t tell you how often we’ve bought something at the grocery store or gotten a prescription of something and then let it go bad because we just didn’t realize the expiration was coming up.  So now, whenever we get stuff that will expire, we add it to our Expirations inbox in RTM.  (Just to give you an idea of how far in the future it goes, we’ve got stuff on the list as far as 2013.)  We don’t have to check the list more than once a week, but so far it’s been a big money saver because we’ve used stuff that would have gone bad otherwise.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Also, here’s a random screen shot of our RTM list:

- Ask a Working Woman Survey: Indeed! You’ll learn all sorts of stuff. Such as, nobody likes pantyhose. But seriously, go take the survey! [Feminist Law Professors]

- WaPo thinks Vogue’s shoots of lady politicians is a window into how these women would like to be perceived. [WaPo]

- Uh oh: Barack has now been caught calling women “sweetie” twice. [Chicago Trib, bastard.logic]

- Wired tells us how to hack our brains to get smarter, including which drugs to take. [Wired] Oh, and Real Age advises us to drink lots of tea. [Real Age]

- Information overload? Part of the game is knowing when to give up. [NYT: Shifting Careers]