QuietSpacing

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.

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Email has reduced us to the level of salivating dogs.  Whether we are in the office, at home, or in the line at the grocery store, we are obsessed with checking our e-mail.  Ask yourself, when was the last time you went 20 minutes without checking your e-mail or without thinking about checking your e-mail during a workday?  My guess is that you can’t recall.  I know I can’t.

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 …

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Several years ago, I was having lunch with a new client - the managing partner of a law firm - and we were talking about the struggle to just stay caught up with all the stuff coming at us each day.  As the conversation continued, he mentioned to me that one of the little tips he’d developed was something called the One More Thing Rule.

Specifically, at the end of each day, right before shutting everything down and walking out of the office, he’d do one more little thing - return a quick call, send one last e-mail, etc.  These little things literally took a minute or two, but in doing this one little thing, he was able get over 200 more things done each year.  Yes, 200!

The Upside

I’ve incorporated this rule into my own workday and regularly recommend it to others.  There are several direct benefits to this rule:

• You get the aforementioned 200 extra things done.
• You appear, and are, more responsive and effective.
• You have a definitive way to determine when the end of the day has arrived.
• You have one less niggly thing on your plate the next day.

The Downside

There are two risks inherent in adopting this rule:

• You pick something that takes more than a minute or two and end up at the office much longer than expected.
• You like the rule so much you fail to stop at just one.

The true purposes of the One More Thing Rule are to get you just a little more productive and to give you an identifiable point at which to end your day.  If you start diving into larger efforts or do numerous things, you’re defeating both the spirit and benefit of the rule. So, take care when applying this principle and you will reap the benefit of increased productivity and the reward of getting home to your family earlier accompanied by a sense of greater accomplishment.

Time for me to go home!

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Like most, I’m staring down the long corridor of the new year.  Numerous hopes and aspirations fill my mind as I consider what 2010 may hold. 

Currently, I’m in the throws of two huge development projects.  The first is the implementation of an SaaS ERP platform for our online kayaking gear business - www.outdoorplay.com.  The other is the finalization of the QuietSpacing(tm) On-Demand streaming video series.  Once the dust settles from those efforts, I’m sure there will be other matters needing my immediate attention.

In spite of the stress and frantic pace, I often remind myself that

Memories are the currency of life

Simply stated:  We have now and we had before.  (We hope to have later.)  Some of what we do now is what we’ll remember later.  Consequently, when viewed as a continuum, the things we do that create memories are how we will gauge the success and quality of our lives.  The more good memories we create, the more successful and happier we’ll feel.

So, when you’re racing headlong into the day, the week or the month, take a moment once in a while to ask yourself what you’re doing to create the kind of memories you’ll look back at and smile.

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I’m not that old.  I grew up with microwaves and color television.  When I started working full time, we had fax machines, overnight mail services and voicemail was gaining acceptance.  However, as the world began to move faster and faster via technological advances like e-mail, the Internet and smartphones, our workflow processing behaviors took a turn for the worse.

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.

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