Archive | October, 2009

QuickTip: Sequestering – It's Not Just For Juries!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Want to know the best way to eliminate the interruptions that bombard you each day?  Simple:  Remove yourself from that environment.  It’s what I call sequestering.

Sequestering is what happens to juries when they aren’t physically present in the courtroom listening to the evidence during a trial.  They are secreted away and not allowed to communicate with the outside world.  This is done to prevent any influences other than the evidence from affecting their judgment.

In the world of productivity, the same concept can be applied to increase productivity.  The idea is to sequester yourself – go somewhere where the outside world cannot “influence” (or negatively affect) your productivity.  Where to go is pretty easy – somewhere that people can’t easily find you.  For example, go to a conference room or an empty office.  Go to the local library if it’s close or a small caucus room if your office has one.  The main objective is to secret yourself away from the normal hubbub of the office so you can focus on the things that need your attention right now.

What’s the length of time you can sequester yourself?  It varies depending on your workload and position.  The more you control your schedule, the longer you can be sequestered.  Regardless, the best way to make the most of this behavior is to do it for relatively short periods of time, e.g., one- or two-hour blocks.  Also, take only one or two things that need to get done and work solely on those items.  When you’re done with them, go back to your regular workspace.

Finally, keep your sequestering efforts as discrete as possible.  The whole idea is that no one knows how to find you during these periods.  When asked where you were, simply tell people you were taking care of business!

Go forth and produce!

Batch Processing: The New Black?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A Stanford University study recently concluded what most of us have known for a long time – we mere mortals don’t multi-task well. Not to lambast Stanford for their efforts, but consider the last time you were trying to converse with while there were checking their e-mail. If that’s not convincing, consider sitting in the passenger seat of a car while the driver negotiates traffic and texts back and forth with a colleague. That’ll get your blood pressure elevated for sure!

All in all, it’s great to have an esteemed learning institution validate the notion that multi-tasking produces less than optimal results. In today’s 24/7 global working environments, so many people consider “on it” the only way to accomplish what needs to get done, preferring the idea that multiple “on its” result in multiplied productivity. This is simply not the case.

With multi-tasking functionally debunked as an effective means of increasing productivity, what otheroptions do we have for achieving that goal?

Re-Enter Batch Processing

Henry Ford figured out an effective way to get things produced over 100 years ago – batch processing. That is, group like tasks together because repeating the same task over and over in one “batch” increases productivity. Ford applied the concept to the manufacturing line, but the underlying premise holds true for any group of tasks that share similar actions for their completion.

Batch Processing Defined

Batch processing is a workflow behavior – a way (or “process”) for getting things done. To batch process means to gather together like items and act upon them at the same time – sequentially. In effect, it’s working through a stack of items in a repetitive way until you have completed the batch.

Take processing your physical mail as an example. Physical mail – a group of like items - is delivered in a batch by the post office each day. Most people grab the stack of mail, open each one, toss the junk out, and sort the meaningful items in some logical manner, then get back to the highest priority task. That’s batch processing.

An alternative method to processing the mail in a batch would be to grab one piece of mail from the stack, open it and then make three un-related phone calls and attend a meeting or two before grabbing the next piece of mail.

Doesn’t that just seem inefficient? Yet, when you’re multi-tasking, that’s exactly what you’re doing from a workflow processing point of view. It’s just more efficient and effective to batch process things whenever possible.

Things to Batch Process

Here’s a quick list of things you can batch process in your current work day. Give one or more of these a try to see if you find it a more efficient way to plow through your workload.

  • E-mail. If you have read my previous articles on e-mail management, you’ll know that I consider e-mail just another form of correspondence. Thus, it should be batch processed just like the physical mail example above. Instead of responding to each e-mail that comes into the Inbox as it arrives, I advise that you check it frequently – two or three times an hour – and process what’s in there. Powering through 5, 20, 50 e-mails all at once is far more efficient than doing each one separately. Moreover, many of the e-mails in any one batch will cancel out other e-mails in the same batch given people’s penchant for Reply All and Half-Thought Sends (you know who you are). The net result of batch processing your e-mail is you will move through it faster. (For more on my views about e-mail processing, read my related missives at www.quietspacing.com.)
  • Questions. One of the most difficult things to do for yourself and others is to group questions together – into a batch. We desperately want the answer to each question right now! Yet, constantly running down the hall to interrupt someone to ask a question devastates focus for both people. Regardless of whether you are the one asking or the one answering these questions, agree to set aside a period each day to ask and have answered all the questions that currently exist. The benefits of this are several-fold. First, questions will get answered in a timely fashion. Second, many questions will evaporate in the interim either because they get answered or they become irrelevant as new information streams into your day. Third, both parties will remain more focused on the task at hand with the interruptions eliminated, which means double the productivity gain.
  • Errands. Ask any stay-at-home parent if they run errands one at a time and they will ask if you’ve been getting enough sleep. Yet, at work, we often charge off on a “must-do” errand (personal or professional) just to charge off 30 minutes later to do another errand. Whether you need to move about inside or outside of the office, stack your errands in a pile near your workspace and do as many of them at once as possible.
  • Phone Calls. Another lost art is batch processing phone calls. Before the advent of voice mail, we received little message slips that included the pertinent information for calls we had missed. Many of us would sit down and return those calls in batch form. Now, because we get a blinking light or, worse/better, an e-mail with the message attached (and possibly transcribed), we react to them individually. No need. Carve out a set period or periods each day (10:30 AM and 3:00 PM?) to return calls.
  • Social Media. There’s an entire article here on the value proposition for social media in the business setting. However, for our purposes, the point is to review social media connections in batches. Whether it’s directly via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or via an aggregator such as HelloTxt, HootSuite or TweetDeck, peruse these communiques only once or twice a day for short periods of time. Look for things of interest, act upon them and disregard the rest.

Seek Out Batches

Many of the tasks we must accomplish each day can be grouped into batches for more efficient processing. I encourage you to identify additional activities that can be grouped and accomplished in batches. It’s more productive and efficient, which are key components to feeling in command of your work environment.

Productive Leadership: A Simple Test For Action

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Last week I was talking with a client who is the CEO of a burgeoning online content company.  His ranks have grown rapidly and his team is distributed across the United States.  The company is truly virtual, which greatly reduces overhead commitments but produces challenges of its own.

Coordinating people and projects in a virtual working environment can be difficult.  That’s why my clients implement the QuietSpacing(tm) method as a means for improving their effectiveness and efficiency with both employees and clients.  Many times, during our last few conversations, we begin connecting the relationship between leadership and productivity, a subject near and dear to my heart.

Leadership in the Modern World

More specifically, my position is that to remain effective today, a new element must be added to the leadership discussion:  Productivity – the kind that relates to getting things done at all levels.  In days gone by, in organizations other than the truly large, companies were relatively local with most executives, managers and employees working in one or, at most, a few locations.  Most team members were near at hand and a leader’s effectiveness was largely related to physical presence and the ability to communicate face-to-face.

The greatest modern-day change to this scenario is that any company can now be distributed across a nation, if not the globe, just as the multi-nationals have been for years.  The result is that leaders who used to command their ranks physically have to now think harder about some of the key components of productivity to be effective over a distributed working environment.

The Key Components to Productivity

To be productive in this new model, leaders must be mindful and vigilant to the four key components to getting things done: Vision, Strategy, Tactics, and Execution.  At the risk of being pedantic, here’s a brief overview of each component, followed by a discussion of their application in this new world order of virtual enterprises.

  • Vision.  This is the broadest statement an organization can make about itself.  It describes its over-arching purpose for existence.  Whether it be a brief statement or a manifesto, understanding and reinforcing a enterprise’s vision is one of most important things a leader does.  For example, my vision for QuietSpacing(tm) is to help smart people work better. Simple but clear, right?
  • Strategy.  With Vision in hand, a plan for affecting it must be created.  This is where strategy enters the picture.  Linking together all the various efforts for achieving the organization’s vision is the company’s strategy.  Engaging in the development and coordination of the business’s strategy also fits into a leader’s primary job description.
  • Tactics.  These are the specific plans laid out for each component of the strategy to achieve the vision.  Where strategy is about coordinating all the plans, tactics involve affecting each plan individually.  The responsibility for accomplishing specific action plans is often delegated to managers and others who report to the leader.
  • Execution.   This is where the rubber meets the road.  Execution is what most people consider productivity – where things actually got done.  However, as you can see from above, it’s just the last step in a process designed to achieve a very high-level objective. Everyone is charged with some amount of execution in every organization, but often leaders get too involved in the execution mechanics of others instead of focusing on the components of execution most relevant to their role.

Utilizing these basic definitions gives leaders (and others, for that matter) a working understanding of the architecture of getting the organization from A to Z.

Meshing The Components Together

Generally, my work with executives and professionals is focused on getting their individual efforts finely tuned to maximize productivity.  However, the underlying reason for this effort is to foster their leadership effectiveness for the organization.  As we draw near the end of our time together, conversations often turn to how their newly-developed skills can be applied to achieve these goals.  My advice is always quite simple and straight-forward.  I tell clients that whenever they’re reviewing the various tasks at hand, the best way to eliminate/prioritize/delegate them is to ask this question:

How does this task advance the organization’s objectives.

A way to further personalize the question is to ask, “How is what I’m doing advance the ______ of the organization?” To complete the blank, insert one or more of the primary objectives of your role.  Thus, for a leader, the analysis is to determine how their actions are advancing the company’s vision or strategy, which are two of the most important objectives leaders must achieve.  

Though all actions should past muster under this analysis, things not directly related to vision and strategy should, as a rule, be delegated to other people in the organization.  Consequently, all efforts ultimately advance the organization’s vision and strategy, but the actual “doing” of the many is best delegated down the chain of command for completion. The net result is that the leaders remains focused on accomplishing their primary objectives while managing those of others.

 Staying Focused in the Fray

Leaders today are pulled to and fro during our hectic work days in the modern world.  With many demands on their time, it’s important to develop a method for weeding out the unimportant and focusing directly on those efforts that best achieve the organization’s vision and strategy.  The model set out above is simple to understand and simple to apply.  It gives leaders a solid tool for achieving success.

Lessons Learned from the Laundry Room: How Organization Pays Dividends

Saturday, October 3, 2009

One of the odd things about our house is that it didn’t have a hall coat closet. This has to do with the layout and orientation of the home, which was designed to take advantage of the view. To remedy this shortcoming, we had purchased an antique coat rack and placed it in a spot where a coat closet would likely have resided.

We do, however, have a laundry room. It’s one of those closet-style areas with swinging doors and it runs along the hallway out to the back deck. Instead of bi-fold doors, it has nice whitewashed barn doors. It’s very attractive and not an eyesore for us or our guests when we head outside.

A Scheme is Born

During the winter months we spend a fair number of late evening hours watching television. Specifically, and I hate to admit this, we’re HGTV junkies.

Last winter we began discussing the desire to create a coat closet somewhere in the house to replace the coat rack. The solution we decided on was to remodel the laundry room, as the washer and dryer, though full-sized, can be stacked. Much discussion ensued about exactly what we’d like to do with the laundry room, which tells you just how long the nights can be in the Pacific Northwest!

The main problem was that, over the years, the laundry room had become a repository for all things homeless. If we didn’t have a preordained place to put something, it went into the laundry room. Not only did the washer and dryer reside there, but so did all the cleaning implements and supplies. Joining them was all the home repair and maintenance items and tools, along with spare towels and sundry other items. Fortunately (?), there was a cabinet mounted above the washer/dryer so we could store away some of these things, but many were stacked up on top of the washer/dryer or stood up on either side of them along the wall. Needless to say, the laundry room became a disaster area!

A Scheme is Affected

When summer was again upon us, we contracted with a remodeling expert to affect our dream and, with some excellent suggestions from our contractor, we converted the laundry room into a combination laundry facility and coat closet!

I know, “Wow, Paul! Breaking news!” However, there’s more to this story, as I’m sure you suspected.

The Epiphany Occurs

Just the other day I was tasked with a minor home repair. I toddled off to the new and improved laundry room, retrieved the tools I needed and went to complete my assigned duty. As I returned to the closet to store my tools, I was struck with two powerful observations:

  • Gone was the dread of opening the closet doors to retrieve/return things.
  • A well organized space was a pleasure to experience.

Again, this is not rocket science. In fact, that’s the point – small organizational changes can have large impacts on how we experience our lives. Let’s look a little closer at these two points in particular to see what I mean.

The Dreaded Closet

Prior to the remodel, the laundry room was a large closet with two big appliances ensconced in the middle of the space and a cabinet mounted above them. There was no “organization” to the space and, as a result, things were stored willy-nilly wherever they wouldn’t (probably) tumble to the floor. Over time, things heaped up higher and higher on top of other things making a trip to the closet a precarious proposition. If you could even find what you were looking for, you stood a strong chance of starting an avalanche when you extracted it from the pile. The laundry room was just not a place you went into unless absolutely necessary!

The new closet is well organized. The washer and dryer are stacked to the left side with just enough room to hang a iron/ironing board storage unit on the wall next to them. There is a custom-built, five-shelf shelving unit running vertically to the right of the washer/dryer that splits the space. The size of each shelf is adequate for the things we store and having five of them provides for good separation. The right side of the closet has a dowel stretched across it for hanging coats, etc. There is also adequate space to stand the vacuum, brooms, mops, etc. in that same area without interfering with the hanging items.

Because everything rests on a stable surface, instead of on something else, I feel entirely confident that I will not only be able to quickly find what I need, but that I will also safely extract it. I no longer dread going there.

Experiencing Good Organization

After conducting my household repair and returning everything to the closet, I stood looking at the newly remodeled space and felt a distinct sense of satisfaction that we had (1) fixed an irritating problem and (2) accomplished a terrific result through a little thoughtful analysis and action.

Many who know me will want to ascribe the sense the well-being I derived from this remodel to my latent OCD tendencies. However, I believe that we all experience satisfaction from accomplishment. And, more importantly, feeling satisfied (or good) is the measure of success by which we should gauge our lives. Therefore, whether I have OCD or not is irrelevant. The point is that I experienced well-being from a simple act of organization which also made my day both more effective and more efficient. To wit, I completed a task without undue delay in the preparatory or clean-up stages.

The Challenge

I hope you are able to translate this simple example into an opportunity in your own life to make a minor organizational improvement that positively affects your sense of accomplishment and well-being. Whether it’s in your personal life – like the example above – or your professional life, look for something that would be relatively easy to change, but could confer significant benefit to you upon its completion.

May all your laundry rooms be well organized!