We were recently excited to come across a “Secretary’s Guide and Office Worker’s Manual” which was published in 1944.  It is packed full of useful advice for secretaries and office workers of the time, with the slogan “Get Ahead; Improve Yourself; Earn More Money”.

What we found interesting was that the advice given in the manual regarding career advancement has not changed over the intervening 60 years.  The basic principles of being successful in your job still exist today.  So although technology may have radically changed the way we work, social attitudes have not.

Happy New Year professional colleagues! Thank God for bringing us thus far, with the promising Year 2010 already here.  I am confident that we can all succeed provided we acknowledge that success is not an accident. It begins with a well conceived plan. Therefore, to succeed in any of our endeavours, we need to plan consciously. By not consciously planning to succeed, we are unconsciously planning to fail.

Our relationships with colleagues in the workplace are important, and can to a large extent determine the level of our success. Good workplace relationships will not only help you do your job better, but also make your daily work more enjoyable. In turn, bad relationships with colleagues can be very distracting and can cause a great deal of anxiety.

If you say the words “capital punishment” to anyone you will get a varying degree of opinions on the subject. Capital punishment has always been (and will always likely be) a strong topic for debate. No matter whether you are for or against the death penalty in Great Britain, it has to be acknowledged that there have been several instances of miscarriage of justice throughout the years.

Have you ever noticed how much more you can get done on the occasional day that you work away from the office? So where does the time go in the office? A “quick” question from a colleague, a phone call, a never-ending flow of incoming emails, a quick trip to the coffee machine: they all add up. So here are the top ten tips to help you minimise interruptions:

1. Are you the cause of your interruptions? Work out whether you are using interruptions as an excuse to avoid your work. If you procrastinate, butterfly from job to job, or are distracted by the world outside your window, do something about it!

Even some simple changes in our everyday life and routine can make a profound difference to our performance and allow us to get more out of work and life generally. Taking care to do more things that boost serotonin and endorphins (our natural feel-good chemicals) will promote a better and more stable mood and help us to cope better in difficult times. In contrast, doing things that produce stress hormones will undermine mood and prevent us from performing well and getting the best from what we do.

Here are the main recommendations:

In the wake of the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal that has rocked Great Britain this year, many politicians that we gave our trust (and votes) to have been exposed as cheats. They used the existing parliamentary expenses system to claim for some ludicrous and outrageous items. No matter whether it was a 59p tin of dog food or £22,500 for dry rot repairs in a home that conveniently was changed to a second home days before the claim, the British public have taken a stand and shouted for reform; we will no longer stand for our politicians raiding the public purse for extravagances and items that are not relevant to their job.

I would like to share my recent experience of working with children in India with our Members. For many years, it has been one of my goals to dedicate some of my time to underprivileged children in a poor country and at last I have had the opportunity to fulfil it. Fortunately the wonders of the Internet enabled me to continue my work for the Institute at the same time.

Without goals we are not stretched. Being stretched mentally or physically is one of our basic needs, alongside the sense of achievement and satisfaction that comes from achieving not only the goal itself, but also from achieving each step along the way.

So, what are goals and how do we best go about setting them? We can think of goal-setting as creating a positive set of expectations. Those expectations then give our mind something to work towards, mobilising our resources both consciously and sub-consciously.

One really effective method of setting goals is by using what is called the SMART approach. SMART stands for:

Some lucky few seem to be born with loads of confidence. Most of us need to develop it through practice. Confidence is about gaining the inner strength to do something and then feeling comfortable about using that strength, without worrying disproportionately about what others will think of you. So pursuing a job promotion, a personal dream, or even just standing up to speak in a team meeting, all take confidence. It’s not uncommon to think that we don’t need to build up our confidence until we are in a situation where it’s needed. However, this often means we are unprepared. So here are the top ten tips to help you build your confidence so you are more prepared:

A review of the success and failings of Lord Woolf’s reforms

This year we mark the tenth anniversary of the Civil Procedural Rules (CPR). Before the new rules were introduced, civil litigation was seen as too slow, expensive, uncertain and adversarial. The implementation of the CPR was the result of Woolf’s famous “Access to Justice” report, commissioned in 1994. The name of the report speaks volumes and supports the view that the old rules of civil litigation were not delivering justice. So ten years on, have things changed for the better?

The rise and rise of litigation?