By Lynne Curry Question: One of my coworkers shares deeply personal details about her life in meetings. Divorce updates, medical procedures, and how she’s navigating all of it. She’s always so excited to tell us and expects the rest of us to be interested and happy (or sad) for her. At first, I tried to be supportive. So did everyone…

Every few weeks, the office ran out of something important. Sometimes it was copier paper. Sometimes it was coffee, shipping tape or the special envelopes required for client packages. Nobody was officially responsible for watching every item, so supplies were reordered when someone noticed the last box was already open. That usually meant an urgent order, an unplanned store run…

Somewhere, an office manager is listening to an explanation that began with “You’re not going to believe this” and thinking: You may be right. Late arrivals, unfinished assignments and missed meetings generate a remarkable range of explanations. Technology features prominently. So do pets, relatives and vehicles that apparently reserve their mechanical problems for Monday mornings. Consider these fictional examples, offered…

The holiday party starts with a cheerful suggestion: “We should do something for the team.” Then come the details. Someone needs to choose a date, order food, collect RSVPs and find out whether the decorations are still in the storage cupboard. Meanwhile, there are gifts to arrange, a collection to circulate and customer greetings to send. Somehow, “we should” becomes…

The calendar may show several weeks left in the year, but holidays, vacations and customer closures can reduce the time available to get things done. Use November to settle priorities, arrange coverage and clear the small obstacles that delay bigger jobs. Work through this checklist with the people responsible, then put the agreed deadlines on your calendar. People and coverage…