Schedule time before the seminar for "after the seminar"

I suggest participants carve out time now on their calendars for implementation following any workshop or seminar. Do this by blocking 1-2 hours on your calendar within a day of attending a seminar. I like to suggest this to our clients, creating the time they need to get going. 

We all know what it can be like to leave a meeting and have to dive right into the flood of incoming input again. (Ever had a meeting-to-meeting-to-meeting day?!)  Having a few hours blocked out the next morning, or even after the seminar (or early or late evening could work for some) may give enough time to set up the new processes and/or systems. This can include changing computer views, organizing tasks and task reminder lists, populating lists, handling e-mail backlog, purging and organizing files, etc.

Toward the end of most presentations, I encourage participants to make one the most important decisions of their life:

To decide what to DO as result of BEING in this presentation.

I don't mean that THIS presentation was the most important one of their life; I do mean that making that decision, over, and over, and over again, is extremely important. Whether you attend a training, go to a class, read a book, go to work, have dinner with your family, go to an off-site retreat, or go out on a run or a walk outside...think about making a decision like the one in bold above every time you do something!

In the case of a workplace performance and productivity seminar, each person (to a less or greater degree!) was "present" that day. Effective implementation of the ideas you pick up depends on what you do in the "next present." After attending a presentation, you have to have the TIME to implement. So, schedule it ahead of time. If it's a 5 hour course you're attending, put another meeting on your calendar. Take an hour or two a day for the next few days to concentrate on implementing what you learned!

This is a meeting with yourself; commit the time and energy and focus you will need to get the results you deserve.