It’s been a rock and roll day here at QuietSpacing(R) central.  Monday’s always are … for most of us.  Between all the things I shoved into this week from last week, the things everyone else shoved into this week, and the collective exigencies that popped up over the weekend, it’s a wonder Monday ever ends!

I felt myself ease into the groove right way, first reviewing the landscape of the day, then triaging all the e-mails that had arrived overnight.  The collective pulse rose as people started calling and the activity level all around me increased.  Soon, I was responding to client and employee requests for my attention, while I also re-scripted a presentation I wanted to record for the web. 

The middle of the day heaved over and as the afternoon drew out in front of me, I found myself contending with several technical issues.  By mid-afternoon it was time to get a number of things done out of the office, so into the world I went.  The relative quiet of the outside world was a welcome relief to the mounting pressure building in the office.  E-mails weren’t quite as urgent as keeping my eyes on the road and phone calls were taken more selectively.

With the errands complete, I returned to the office for a final triage before heading out into the drizzle for a run. 

While I slogged through the rain, I reviewed the day from the 10,000 foot level.  There had been much activity and even a fair amount of productivity, but what struck me the most was the rhythms I’d experienced during the day.  The more I thought about what I’d done all day, the more I realized that we (all of us) work in three distinct rhythms – Rapid Fire, Small Burst and Extended Focus.  Each rhythm has its own pace and its own benefits. 

Breaking Down the Day

From a productivity standpoint, the longer we can stay in each rhythm, the more we’ll get done.  It’s not just that multitasking is inefficient, it’s that batching like tasks together reduces the need to change the type of focus and energy you need to remain highly productive. 

To achieve this higher level of productivity, group like tasks together based on the three categories below, then organize your day around addressing them in batches.  Not only will you get more done, you’ll enjoy the benefits of accomplishing these associated tasks.

• Rapid Fire – You’re Needed.  The best example of the Rapid Fire rhythm is powering through e-mail.  It’s so reassuring to have all those e-mails waiting for us.  Way deep down, our egos are screaming, “You like me!  You really like me!”  (Apologies to Sally Field, but it was just too opportune!)  On a more serious note, the reality is that we get a lot of e-mail and we need to get through it all.  It’s also true that most e-mail is some form of junk mail – stuff you don’t really need to know or do anything about.  Thus, it’s a perfect place to get into a Rapid Fire rhythm and slice and dice your way to the end of them.  Proper setup of for Rapid Fire processing is vital, so check this article out on how to do that – Setup For Power Processing Your E-mail – then select a couple of times each hour to bust a move on that e-mail.  Don’t stop until you’ve covered all the unread ones, then move to the next thing that needs your attention.
• Short Burst – You’re Gettin’ ‘Er Done.  The Small Burst rhythm is reflected in the incremental efforts you make all day long to move the ball down the field.  These are the 10- to 15-minute projects/phone calls/meetings that consume most of your day.  Each time a small task is completed, the project is that much closer to getting done.  Whenever you get a bunch of these done in a day, you feel really productive.  This rhythm is evidenced by the lines through things on your To Do list and the associated feeling of accomplishment you get looking at that list at the end of the day.  The best time to seek out this rhythm is first thing in the morning – right after the initial e-mail triage – and right before going home.  These activities tend to generate mental energy as opposed to deplete it, so fill that tank up first thing when you get to the office and right before you go home!
• Extended Focus – You’re Contributing.  Undoubtedly the most rewarding experience – personally and professionally – is when we feel as though we’re contributing to the effort, whatever that effort might be.  Getting into the Extended Focus rhythm is the most likely place to capture that feeling.  This rhythm is quieter mentally and physically than the other two.  This is when your focus dives deep into a task or project and you begin to see all the connections you’re pulling together.  We’ve all felt proud and satisfied with ourselves when we see a project we’ve worked long and hard on come to fruition.  We’ve made a difference; we’ve contributed.  This rhythm is not something we can enjoy every day, but it’s a rhythm that is necessary to get the big tasks done.  Thus, you need to make time and space for it in your schedule.  Sequester yourself away physically if necessary to get into and be able to stay in this rhythm.  The reward is worth it.

Manage Your Day to Get the Most From It

The three rhythms of the day come and go.  Some days are all Rapid Fire. Some are mixes of Rapid Fire and Short Bursts.  A few include Extended Focus.  Each rhythm is natural and each delivers a reward.  Your assignment, should you decide to accept it (nod to Mission Impossible), is to organize the work that needs doing to best leverage these rhythms.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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Related posts:

1. Batch Processing: The New Black?
2. Responding Versus Responsiveness
3. Productivity’s Three-Legged Stool

We spend much of our day responding to others, but it’s when we’re truly responsive that we’re being productive. Seek ways to improve our communications to make them as responsive as possible. Moreover, eliminating the unnecessary responses – “Okay, I’ll get right on that” – will increase the amount of time you can produce responsive communications. 

Communicating with Effect

Try some of these simple suggestions to make you more responsive, instead of just responding more:

• Leverage All Communication Tools Appropriately. Technology has increased the number of ways we communicate with each other. Each has its place and each can be fine tuned to increase productivity. Here are some thoughts. Asynchronous communications – e-mail, texts, and tweets – are terrific tools for providing one-way communications, such as an analysis of a topic or delegating a simple assignment. They are NOT good for discussing intricate issues or developing complex ideas. Phones provide a great way to do these higher-order efforts when distance is an issue. Of course, meetings are the very best way to get things done collaboratively – if done appropriately (a noted caution here.) Applying each of these tools appropriately demonstrates responsiveness to all those with whom you work.
• One Subject Per E-mail. The rest of these suggestions drill down on e-mail since it’s the most used, and often misused, communication tool today. A major mistake many of us make is to group subjects together in a single e-mail. This greatly increases the risk of confusion by the recipient, which leads to more unproductive time clearing up that confusion later. Discuss only one subject – no matter how trivial or complex – in each e-mail. They’re free! Moreover, when it comes time to file that e-mail, it will be much easier because it will only belong to one subject.
• Leverage Subject Lines. The subject line is like the RE line in a letter. It’s one of the first things a recipient sees when the e-mail is received. Leverage that first glance by providing detailed information there. What’s the e-mail’s subject? To which project or matter does it relate? Is there a (clear) deadline involved? These are the things most recipients really want to know when that e-mail hits their Inbox, so make it easy for them. In addition, it’ll be easier to find later if the need to refer back to it arises.
• Minimize the Use of Reply All. Reply All is the most overused button on the toolbar. Consider whether everyone who originally received the e-mail needs to see your reply. If not, just hit Reply and include only those who need your information. This will reduce the overall e-mail going around by a little. And a little bit now aggregates into a lot later.

Doin’ Yer Part

Being more responsive is not just more efficient.  It also increases the amount valuable information being passed between people.  Consequently, more people are better informed about whatever the subject of the communication is.  That’s a good thing!

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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1. Six Tips To Higher E-mail Productivity
2. QuickTip: 4 Time Management Tips
3. Responding Versus Responsiveness

Quelling the Noise

Interruptions and distractions come at you from all angles.  Some are self-imposed.  Others are produced by others.  Still others are the product of the workspace itself.  Here are some ways to reduce the ones most often found in a modern work environment:

• Face Away from Office Traffic. Most people setup their workspace to face towards people passing by. Consider changing your position to face away from that traffic. There are two reasons for this. First, our eyes are attracted to movement. Consequently, our attention flickers up to those passing by. Even if it’s just for a moment, that’s an unnecessary interruption. Second, something far worse can happen – you make eye contact and into your workspace the passerby comes! This results in a complete interruption from what you were doing. A secondary benefit to facing away from traffic is that as people pass by, they see you working – giving further evidence to how productive you are.
• Establish “Office Hours.”To the extent that others report to you, establish times of the day that you are either available (like a college professor) or unavailable (a door-close work period.) If you choose available hours, this is when subordinates can come to you with questions. It forces them to gather together the various things they need your help on and allows you to process them as a batch together. If you choose unavailable hours, these should be used to accomplish those tasks/projects that require your utmost focus. Note, when you come out from behind that closed door, be sure to return e-mails and voice mails as soon as possible.
• Stand When Someone Enters Your Workspace. Some interruptions are inevitable – true urgency, your boss comes in, etc. In that event, we need to find ways to minimize the effect of the distraction. If you stand when someone comes into your workspace, the other person won’t sit down. They’ll feel a sense of urgency themselves – to leave! It’s a great trick to move things along without saying a single word.
• Move Your Physical Inbox Away from Your Workspace. People put things into your inbox all the time. If you’re like most, you keep that inbox close to your desk. This results in an unintended but significant interruption. Find a new place for it. If it can’t easily leave your workspace, place it in a manner that minimizes the distraction – near the door or behind you if you’re now facing away from traffic. Not all interruptions can be eliminated but their effects can be reduced which is still a positive result.

May the Quietest Space Win!

The key to good productivity is focus.  The more time you spend focusing on the task at hand, the more you will get done.  Not only will increased productivity make you feel more accomplished, a quieter workspace will lower your stress level.  It’s a win-win proposition.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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1. Five Ways to Reduce Interruptions and Get More Done
2. QuickTip: Playing in Traffic is Dangerous – Increase Focus via Workspace Arrangement
3. 5 Ways To Create A More Productive Workspace

By Any Other Name

Identifying the ASAP rash is not hard. Here is a list of symptoms:

• It almost always originates in the workplace. However, it has made inroads into some unfortunate home environments as well.
• The problem often appears in its native form – ASAP – but be on the lookout for its other forms, such as Now or Immediately. Other variations include Urgent and Top/Highest Priority.
• No definable time of day seems to be more or less susceptible to an outbreak, resulting in a higher level of anticipatory anxiety throughout the day among all workers.
• People suffering from this rash appear anxious and pinched. Their rate of speech tends to accelerate and many times they wave files or papers about when moving through the office trolling for available help.
• Subject lines are littered with this rash when it strikes in electronic form.
• Though episodic in nature, once afflicted, suffers tend to relapse quickly and for longer periods of time.

What’s All the Fuss About?

If the H1N1 virus was a pandemic, I don’t think a word has been coined yet to describe the depth, breadth, and severity of this rash. Imagine if everyone starts telling everyone else that everything is due ASAP.  Counter-productively, the workplace would grind to a halt!

For anyone working for anyone else, which basically means … well, everyone, this is not an inconsequential problem. So innocent on its face, when multiplied by the innumerable number of delegations that occur each day, it is easy to see how a frantic, dysfunctional, and unhealthy working environment can quickly develop. All from an innocuous little self-inflicted rash.

Questions We’d Like to Ask

Whenever these edicts issue forth from those handing out assignments, here’s a list of questions I can only hope we’re courageous enough to ask:

• Righty-O, just let me look at my calendar. Hmmm, when exactly is ASAP as I’m not seeing it here?
• ASAP, you said – as soon as possible? Terrific. I’m leaving on my long-overdue two-week vacation in an hour, so I’ll get that back to you in about 15 days. That’s as soon as possible in my world right now.  How’s that work for ya?
• Really? ASAP? If this that important, why is it just now being brought to my attention?  (Oh, silly me, the customer/client/boss just handed it to you too. Did you have the courage to ask them that question?)
• Fabulous! I love having lots to do – job security, you know. Now, since everything you’ve given me is ASAP, which one should I do first?

Take Back the Day

There is no known cure for this malady. However, there are several things you can do both as a work giver and as a work receiver to minimize outbreaks and reduce the impact when the rash flares up. Precautions include:

• Develop an early warning system by regularly surveying the work you have and the work you are expecting to receive. Prioritize each item and spread the priorities out as realistically as possible. Keep in mind that you only get so many hours each day to actually produce work. In this way, work that is susceptible to the ASAP rash can be identified early and steps can be taken to avoid or, at least, reduce the severity of the outbreak.
• Communicate often with co-workers, as the rash tends to be fierce when visibility between co-workers is low, allowing the infection to spread to low priority items left to fester too long.
• As a work giver, think in terms of clearly defined time lines – like a specific date or day of the week. Specific times help also. Converting an ASAP into a Wednesday by 2:00 pm results in complete avoidance of the problem.
• As a work receiver, diplomatically seek this information if it’s not forthcoming from the work giver. Press for specificity and enlist the other person’s help in prioritizing any other work that is equally unclear.

Long-Term Prognosis

Workplaces that have suffered outbreaks of the ASAP rash, in all its forms, have reported significant improvement in quality of work product and worker morale when the simple steps above were followed. Creating an effective working environment that is efficient and highly responsive is a very favorable prognosis given the wide-spread problem identified and addressed here.

To your health!

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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1. Batch Processing: The New Black?
2. Productivity’s Three-Legged Stool
3. QuickTip: Are You LIFO or FIFO?

Quick Definitions

Before explaining my position, let me first define LIFO and FIFO. They are terms (ancronyms actually) used to financially account for inventory as it enters and leaves a business. LIFO stands for Last In First Out; the notion being that the cost of  last item put on the shelf (the newest) is used when determining inventory value.  In contrast, FIFO stands for First In First Out and dictates that the cost of the item first put on the shelf (the oldest) be used.

There are a number of reasons for these distinctions which go beyond the point of this article, as well as my limited understanding of advanced accounting principles.  My use of these concepts here is focused more on when a particular item is addressed – is the oldest or newest of higher importance?  It seems to me that we’ve moved from the old-school behavior of managing our stuff in a FIFO manner to a LIFO manner. That is, for the most part, we used to take that which was oldest on our to-do list and get it done before moving “up” the list to things that were newer. Consequently, things never got too dusty on the to-do shelf and we stayed reasonably current with our workload and deadlines.

However, as the inputs started to come at us faster and faster because of technologies like laptops and the Internet, we began to shift to LIFO behaviors – addressing things as they pounded us on the fly, leaving those that were older to rot a little longer on the to-do shelf. That behavior became firmly entrenched when smartphones started delivering the tsunami of inputs to us wherever we went.

It’s gotten so bad that people routinely send a second email or text a few minutes after the first one if they haven’t received a response yet! Huh? What about focusing on the to-dos that were already on my plate? What about client/customer service? How is that advanced when I’m yanked from input to input never having time to actually think about the right solution? Think about it for a minute. Great service and performance comes from concerted, focused effort, not lightspeed reactions and herky jerky efforts. (Note, I just deleted an entire diatribe about “ASAP,” “Urgent,” and “Top Priority.” Consider yourself on notice that they may appear in a later post.)

Relearning the Lost Art of Taking Stock

So what’s the solution? How do we regain some semblance of control and sanity in a world where inputs continually stream at us 24×7? My answer, as you’ve already guessed, is to return to a FIFO model of managing your workload. Simply put – conduct regular surveys of what’s on our plate. At least three times each day – morning, noon and night preferably – stop and look at what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve got to do and when you think you’ll get to each item. With your stock taken, adjust any deadlines that were or have become unrealistic and communicate those changes to others.

Taking stock in this way will give you a much better understanding of the existing commitments on your time. This will, in turn, allow you to better estimate when things currently on the list will get done and when those that will soon be there will get done. As you regain control and command of what’s “in inventory” and what’s coming into inventory, your sense of accomplishment and success will also rise.

Small Changes Make Big Differences

Returning to the historical way of managing your to-do list is not reverting to old, outdated habits. It’s channeling the new data inputs into a proven process for maximizing your productivity. When you’re racing against things moving at nearly the speed of light you will lose every time. If you force the inputs to slow down to human speeds, you stand a chance of managing them more effectively. Adopting the LIFO model of to-do list management will help you make that transition.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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1. QuickTip: Regularly Survey All That You Command
2. QuickTip: Four Tips to Being More Responsive
3. QuickTip: 4 Ways to Minimize Interruptions and Distractions

What we need is a simple, clear way to process everything that’s already in and coming into our day. A simple way to identify what each thing is, where it needs to go, and, if it’s something that needs doing, who will do it and when that’s going to occur. Oops, it appears I’ve given it away, but read on if you want to find out how this four-corner approach can work for you.

These Amazing Times – The Miracle and Its Price

We live in amazing times, but so did the generations before us for some time back. So what’s so amazing about these times? Affordable instantaneous global communication. That’s my response. The wiring of the world over the last 20 years has created the ability for virtually every person on earth to reach out and engage with virtually every other person in an affordable and nearly instantanenous manner. This is our contribution to the myriad human accomplishments over the eons.

Of course, with the good comes the bad. Joining this new ability has been mobile technology in the form of laptops, smartphones and wireless networks. We can literally communicate to anywhere from anywhere. And we do, all the time! Consequently, the number of inputs we each process daily – phone calls, emails, texts, etc. – has grown in orders of magnitude (which is a lot!).

Unfortunately, the price is an expensive two-fold whammy. First, we have to process all of the new stuff. Second, the expected response times have shrunk to nanoseconds. The result is that we constantly feel behind the curve and can quickly become mired in the sheer volume of it all.

In short, we can do so much more but we feel so much worse about it!

The Rx – An Updated Way to Process All That Stuff

I’m an ops guy – operations that is.  Good or bad, it’s what I do best – make things work better, faster, cheaper. I’ve always wanted to be better at more interesting things, like marketing or sales, but I’m stuck with this particular talent, so I’ve made the most of it.

Fortunately, this skill – known as Productivity in the professional development world – has timely application given this overwhelming number of inputs we each deal with daily. My work with clients has focused primarily on how to quickly identify and process all this stuff, then get back to focused efforts on the things that need doing today. The foundation of this work centers on the productivity method I created – QuietSpacing – and customizing it to each group’s or individual’s needs.

To spread the love a bit further than just to my clients, I’m going to lay out the basis for the method in this article and demonstrate how it solves the problem of feeling overwhelmed and out of control with your workload.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Great answers are often found when we ask simple questions. When you’re trying to power through the various things you need to process at any time during the day, try these questions and their corresponding answers to see if they help you more efficient and effective:

1.  What Is It?

In the world of Stuff, this is a multiple choice question with ONLY four answers – Trash, Archive, Reference or Work. Trash is self-explanatory – something you don’t ever need again. Archive is something you may need again but not very often, if ever – like a contract or a letter that relates to a specific project. Reference is stuff you use (refer to) to do your work – like a phone book. Work is anything that needs to be done.

In fact, if you’re not sure what a particular item is, ask yourself this yes/no question: Does anything further need to be done with this? If the answer is Yes, then it is necessarily Work. If the answer is No, then it is necessarily one of the other three – Trash, Archive or Reference.

Phew, that’s the hard part. If you’re struggling with this first question, create a sticky note listing all four types of stuff and put it some place you’ll see it regularly. Practice getting used to quickly assessing what each thing you touch is. Once the list is ingrained in your psyche, you’ll become adept at slicing and dicing the onslaught of stuff coming at you.

(Note, also, that I’ve been doing this for six years and those are the only four categories of stuff I’ve ever been able to identify. Everything easily fits into one of those four. If you come up with a fifth, email me and we can discuss why it’s not one of the four.)

2.  Where Does It Go?

Now that we know what each particular thing is, we need to put it in the right place. Things get much easier now:

• Trash = Throw it away (or delete it if it’s electronic)
• Archive = File it away in your long term storage system (file cabinets, hard drives, etc.)
• Reference = Put it away near your work area such that it’s easily accessed
• Work = We can’t move on with Work until we determine what Type of Work it is:
  • Action Item: These are things you need to do or you need to have someone else do (delegate); the ball’s in your court.
  • Awaiting Response: These are things you are waiting for someone else to get back to you on; the ball’s in their court.
  • Pending: These are things that aren’t ripe yet, things that need another event to occur or a date to pass before they become “ready” for you to do or someone else to do; the ball’s in no one’s court … yet.
  • Reading: This is professional reading, things you read to stay abreast in your field; ball’s in your court.

3.  Who Will Do It?

We have neatly and quickly dispensed with three of the four Categories of stuff in our lives leaving only the Work items left open. This next question – Who Will Do It? – is really a sub-question of Work and provides the most clarity with respect to anything you’re going to delegate to others.

If you are dealing with an Action Item, it’s often effective to ask if it’s something You should do of if it’s something you can Delegate to another. Of course, once delegated, the Action Item becomes an Awaiting Response, right?  See how this works?   Thus, this mini-question serves a focused, but highly useful, purpose in getting things into the right funnel for completion.

4.  When Does It Next Need Attention?

Notice that I have totally side-stepped the deadline question. The reason is that I believe “When is it due?” is a trap for the unwary. There are two reasons for this. First, most Work gets handled out with due dates like “ASAP” or “Urgent” or “Immediately.” The first two are unclear – my ASAP may be different than your ASAP and “Urgent” is also relative. Immediately rarely means immediately, except possibly in an emergency room. These types of deadlines are further symptoms of the problems we experience with our always-on world.

Off the diatribe and back to the point, the actual deadline is less meaningful in our analysis than the question of when do we need to think about it again to make sure it gets done “in time.” A project that will take two days to complete is best thought of several days out from that beginning date to maximize our flexibility in triaging all the rest of the inputs that constantly come at us, while also bringing the project in on time. Using some form of flexible reminder or tickler system is the best way to manage these deadlines so that you can adjust each day’s puzzle pieces in such a way as to move through your stuff in the most efficient and effective way.  This gets you back to the producing efforts quickly and with a sense of command and control over the work.

That’s right Virginia, I Didn’t Give It All Away

The framework laid out above is the fundamental workflow model I developed to help my clients quickly move through the near-overwhelming inputs that come at them every day. It’s a short process to move through several times a day or hour and leaves you feeling in command over your workflow.

Of course, I haven’t given the whole baby away, but there’s more than enough there for you to face each day with the tools you need to stay in front of the curve and feel more successful in your career.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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1. QuickTip: 4 Tips to Better Command Your Workload
2. Stating The Should-Be-Obvious: E-mail Is Just Correspondence
3. QuickTip: Are You LIFO or FIFO?

Five Small Ways to Maintain Focus

There are a number of ways you can reduce the number of interruptions and distractions you suffer throughout the day.  Try some of these to see if you don’t end up with better results and a greater sense of success:

1.  Face Away From Traffic.  If you have an office, it’s my bet that you face the door.  It’s what I call the Command Central position – back to the wall, imposing edifice (the desk) between you and intruders, and eyes always on the lookout for those pesky interlopers.  The problem with this positioning is that your eyes are attracted to motion.  Therefore, whenever someone walks by your door, you involuntarily look up.  The results is a self-inflicted and totally unnecessary interruption.  Moreover, if you catch someone’s eye, they’re likely to come in and sit down!

Try facing away from the traffic.  This will eliminate the self-inflicted interruptions and cause those passing by to strongly consider whether to interrupt you as they can see you are working.  It’s a great way to easily increase focus and productivity.

2.  Turn New Message Alerts Off.  Turn off the new message alert feature of you e-mail inbox, your cell phone, your smartphone or, if you’re still in the 90s, your pager.  These are also self-imposed productivity saboteurs and they are completely unnecessary.  Simply check your e-mail, texts, and voice mails regularly to ensure that you’re managing everything that’s going on in a timely fashion.

I once timed a client who I was instructing in some Outlook setup steps when her head turned to view a new e-mail alert that popped during my instruction.  It took her four seconds to look down, read the subject line of the e-mail, look back up, and initiate the instruction I had given her.  Only four seconds you say?  Well, what if you get 100 e-mails each day that cause you the four-second distraction?  That’s 400 seconds or about 6.5 minutes.  6.5 minutes of activity with no corresponding productivity.  That’s over three work days lost each year!

3.  Sequestering.  Can’t get people to leave you alone?  Then leave them!  Find an empty office or conference room or even go to the library (you know, where those artifacts called books are stored) and create some uninterruptable time for yourself.  Take just one or two things with you to work on, focus on those then head back to the cacophony.  The trick here is to tell No One (except maybe your assistant) where you’re going.

To demonstrate how effective this is, I once had a client go literally to the empty office next door when she really needed to get some work done.  She was only about six feet from her own desk chair, but completely focused!

4.  Use Full Screens.  Having numerous windows open on your monitor is a terrific way to load up and reference things as needed.  However, keep each one at full screen size so you’re not distracted by something on one screen while trying to work on another. 

The biggest offender here is, again, the e-mail inbox screen.  Just minimize it or layer another screen over it until it’s time to batch process your e-mail again.  Similarly, run with tabs on in your browser instead of opening numerous browsers.  It’s quicker to click between the tabs than it is to find the browser you need.

5.  Create a Designated Workspace.  Desks have become storage areas instead of work surfaces.  This is similar to how garages have become storage units instead of places to park cars.  When you have things piled all around you on the desk, your eyes (those buggers!) take in and process everything on the periphery.  This is silently eroding your focus. 

Using the four corners of the desk to define your Designated Workspace, clear everything off it, including the phone and monitor, and put all that elsewhere.  (Note, you can leave some personal items so that your DWS is not devoid of all humanity.)   Into that space goes ONLY the one thing you are working on right now.  When that one thing is finished, move it to another location (see other posts on that issue) and place the next (one) thing into the Designated Workspace.  You’ll find this greatly increases your focus and productivity.

At the Risk of Repeating Myself

Ferreting out and eliminating the productivity saboteurs is at the core of my work.  I become evangelical when I get on message about how increasing your productivity drives a sense of accomplishment and success.  Moreover, I tend to repeat the same 10 to 15 suggestions to my audiences, but that’s for two reasons.  First, they work and until everyone in the room has at least tried them all, I won’t stop preaching.  Second, I am routinely reminded that people come to understand the significance of productivity and its results in their own time; thus, it’s my job to be repeating the gospel in the hopes that our paths cross at the right time.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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1. QuickTip: 4 Ways to Minimize Interruptions and Distractions
2. 5 Ways To Create A More Productive Workspace
3. Productivity’s Three-Legged Stool

Leave Time Between Appointments

Imagine a wake of papers drifting to the floor behind you as you charge off to your next appointment (physical meeting, video conference, phone call, etc.). That’s what’s happening to all the thoughts and ideas you had in the apppointment you just left as you race to the next one.  They’re drifting into oblivion as you try to gain purchase on the upcoming subject matter. Worse, yet, you’re still thinking about those items as you enter the next meeting, resulting in loss of attention to the topic at hand. Two birds killed with one stone – with negative results.

Try inserting just a snippet of time between appointments – five to fifteen minutes. This will allow you to capture all those trailing thoughts into a  physical or electronic form, give you an opportunity to catch up on other projects in the works, and provide space for you to take a deep breath before moving forward. The net result is lowered stress, increased productivity, and a greater sense of command over your day.

Reduce Appointment Lengths By 25%

Work fills the time allotted. Not truism is more accurate in the business day. Meetings, conference calls, videocasts and the like can seem endless, sucking down valuable time that is better spent getting things done.

Try reducing meeting lengths by 25% and see what happens.  Reduce a 60-minute appointment to 45 minutes or take a 30-minute meeting down to 25. (Okay, that last is not exactly 25%, but you get the idea). You’ll find that people tend to focus more specifically on the topic de jure and cut through the side trips. If you don’t get everything done, just schedule another, shortened meeting!  The worse case scenario is that you run a few minutes long, but, thanks to the first suggestion above, you’ve got some leeway there.

Manufacturing Time Is Easy!

The two suggestions above are quite simple to implement. Other people may need some time to adjust to the new formats – shortened meeting lengths and spaces between appointments – but you can see that they go hand-in-hand. The net result of doing both is that you’ve actually used the same amount of time more effectively and efficiently. Consequently, you’re more productive, in greater command of your day, and feel less stress.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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I’m confident that the e-mail pioneers never in their wildest dreams thought we’d one day have state and federal legislation that prevented us from checking our e-mail (among other things) while driving!  Do we need to be told that taking our eyes of the road while hurling two tons of metal down the road at 65 miles an hour is dangerous?  Really?

Be an E-mail Support Group of One

But enough of that diatribe.  Let’s turn back to some ideas on how we can each save our self from the strangle hold this new-age form of communication has on us.  In my work with clients, we often linger on this love-hate relationship with e-mail.  On the one hand, it’s a vital, and often effective, form of communication.  On the other hand, it has created an expectation that people are always available and always responsive, a mindset that is nonsensical on its face. Yet, it persists.

So how to manage the duality that e-mail has created?  My baseline response is that we need to release ourselves from its bondage and regain command of the tool.  That’s a decision every user must make.  Once made, slight changes in the way we manage e-mail are relatively easy to implement:

• Settle on the Calendar or Tasks View.  Most productivity suites, such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, and Google Apps, provide a group of interrelated tools with e-mail being one of them.  There is usually also a Calendar and Tasks function in the suite, each with a separate screen or view.  Because e-mail is a form of communication, I recommend that it be treated as such.  Since very few people wait by the mailbox all day for letters and such to arrive, I believe that clicking to the Calendar or Tasks view of your productivity suite is a far better place to spend your time – looking at your appointments or to-dos.  Surely, you must check your e-mail regularly – maybe even three or four times an hour – but there’s no reason to hang out in that screen waiting with baited breath for the next one to arrive!
• Minimize The Screen.  Like settling on a different view, you can also minimize the screen altogether.  This is no different than closing your office door when meeting with someone.  The message is not to interrupt you right now because you’re working on X.  Again, you can check your e-mail as often as necessary, but you don’t have to open each and every one the minute it arrives.
• Turn Away From Your Screen.  Positioning your computer screen such that you can turn away from it when you are working on other things – like paperwork – is a terrific way to reduce the distraction caused by new e-mails dropping into your Inbox.  Of course, I don’t need to tell you about turning off the new e-mail alert, right?  But, then again, we did need that legislation…
• Turn Off Your Monitor.  If all else fails, take matters literally into your own hands and turn the monitor off!  Besides, this is the greenest suggestion of the bunch as it uses less electricity.

Take Charge of Your E-mail; Set Yourself Free

When you decide that you control your e-mail instead of being controlled by it, you free yourself of its grip on your psyche.  After you’ve taken that first step, you can implement any of the suggestions above to realize an immediate benefit from your choice.

Think I’ll go check my e-mail …

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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The Way it Was and What’s Gone Wrong

You see, “back in the day” we started our days by looking at what had to get done … first. Then we started doing.  Today, it’s the opposite.  We jump to the doing – replying to e-mail and driving ahead - before considering what’s already on our plates. 

The purpose of these old-school review periods was to organize and prioritize our tasks, folding into the mix our appointments and other things that needed our attention.  Then we would move forward into the day and deal with what came our way.  This surveying behavior was usually repeated around the lunch hour and just before going home.  Functionally, we were keeping an eye on the big picture while dealing with the day-to-day details of our work.

This surveying process has largely been lost in today’s frenetic working world.  We’ve become addicted to “right now” – checking our e-mail on our smartphone and constantly seeking updates on various things via the Internet.  Most people have reviewed the latest e-mails that arrived overnight, often making commitments in response to them, before even reviewing what’s already on today’s to-do list!  This mindset – needing to stay Über-connected and ultra-”responsive” – is dramatically affecting our productivity, as well as our piece of mind.

Retake Command of Your World

This is a subject deserving of much more than a mere missive on corrective action.  Alas, I fear no one would read it due to the lack of perceived available time!  Consequently, I’ll keep my directive short:

Review What’s On Your Plate Three Times Each Day – Morning, Noon and Night

This is just common sense, but it’s not generally followed very much anymore.  All I’m suggesting is that people review the commitments they’ve already made before jumping in to the next batch of requests (e-mail, voice mails, meetings, etc.).  The more you know about your existing level of commitment, the better-able you’ll be to accurately judge and manage new commitments.  Moreover, when you start with “What’s on my plate?” you are taking command of your world.  When you’re waiting with baited breath of the next e-mail to land in your Inbox, you’re at the mercy of others.  It’s neither productive, nor enjoyable.

Just take a few minutes first thing in the morning, at mid-day, and just before going home to conduct a complete survey of everything on your desk or in your Inbox.  Consider what, if anything, needs to be re-prioritized and feel good about the things you’ve checked off the list.  In the end, you’ll see that this old-school behavior still drives terrific results in this modern-day world.

© 2010, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

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