It occurred to me while deplaning the other day and watching everyone check their messages – text and voice – that if done properly, texting can actually improve how well we communicate with each other.  The reasons lie in the technology’s (perceived) limits of 140-160 characters and in the nature of short-burst opportunities occasioned by its mobility.

Communicating in Brief

Texting took hold first among young people, the group who often adopts new technologies most readily.  It got a bad rap early on because kids don’t really have much to talk about.  Seriously:

What are you doing?

Nothing.

Me either.

isn’t earth-shatteringly important.  Moreover, the “kids” created their own lexicon of abbreviations – OMG, BTW, IMHO, etc. – which added to the perception that texting is for the young and idle … and maybe the addled.  (Note, many of these “phrases” will likely be added to the formal lexicon in the future.  Before you going raging at me, remember that words like “isn’t” and “doesn’t” were also considered objectionable when they first appeared.)

A related vector for this technology is its inherent mobility.  Again, when mobile, kids are rarely responsible for the mode of transportation.  Whether they are in a car, a bus, or a train, they are free to text at will.  So, again, their adoption was faster.  Now that we “adults” have largely taken to texting, all the necessary rules and legislation are being passed to keep idiots from doing idiotic things like texting and driving.  (If you think you can do it safely, try this test hosted by the venerable NYT – http://ow.ly/1qjKw.)

Making the Best of It

Stepping away from its origins and looking afresh at texting, there are several things about it that can improve our ability to communicate with each other, provided we make the effort.  Here are some thoughts:

1. Practice Clarity – Consider Your Statements First, Craft Your Message Second.  One of the greatest problems we all face with rapid communication methods like texting and e-mail is the less-than-thought-out message that generates oodles of follow-up correspondence in often futile attempts to clarify what was originally sent.  If we think a little first before we hit “send,” we might create more clear messages on the first go-around.  This is especially true of texting where the character limits put a premium on brevity.  There is a related effort going around called Five Senten.es that is promoting brief e-mails in a similar vein.
2. Leverage Appropriate Abbreviations – Say More With Less.  There are a lot of texting abbreviations that do communicate clearly.  “Btw” (by the way) is a perfect example.  Many object to the informality of this method, along with the use of emoticons and the like.  This smacks of backwards thinking given that everyone is just trying to get through the hundreds of e-mails and texts we receive each week.  Doesn’t it stand to reason that being more efficient with the use of language benefits both the writer and the reader?
3. Leverage Inherent Value – Use All Forms of Communication to Their Best Advantage.  Texting is fabulous for short-burst, timely updates and messages. It’s horrible for describing something even slightly complex.  So, too, is e-mail great for providing long(ish) descriptions, but it’s horrible for the generation and creation of ideas, especially among groups.  Telephone calls and face-to-face meetings are great for these more “creative” efforts, but a horrible waste of time for status updates which are largely descriptive.  If we use each tool in our tool belts to their best advantage, we ultimately improve communication.

There are many other ways to make the best of texting and its brethren, but in the interests of brevity, I will stop here.

© 2011 – 2012, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

•  Adopt. Give the suggestion a try; see if it works for you.
• Adapt.  If the suggestion isn’t working for you, but you like the idea, try to Adapt it to your way of working.
• Reject.  If you can’t Adopt or Adapt a suggestion, toss it out and go to the next one.  We’re just looking for one or two ideas to help you regain command of your day.

With that said, here are my Top 10 Time Management Tips:

 1.  Create a Designated Work Space.  Identify a defined physical space – like your entire desktop - that you clear of everything (I mean EVERYTHING) except the one thing you need to work on right now.  Your DWS should look like a newborn conference room table.  It will help you eliminate the effects of peripheral vision which can be very distracting when piles of other work and your computer monitor are within that scope of vision.

2.  Use Robust Subject Lines.  Be very descriptive in the Subject line of each e-mail.  This will assist the reader determine how important your e-mail is in relation to the others in his/her inbox, as well as assist their ability to find and file it quickly in the future.

3.  Face Away From Traffic.  Facing the door – what I call the Command Central office setup – has the disadvantage of allowing your 120 degrees of peripheral vision affect your focus.  You look up every time someone walks by and, worst case scenario, you catch their eye and in they come!  Though not Feng Shui compliant, facing away from the door eliminates this self-inflicted distraction from your day.

4.  Conduct Regular Core Dumps. One of the leading causes of “noise” in our lives is the self-talk going on inside our heads.  “Gotta remember that.”  “Oh yeah, can’t forget that.”  These mental reminders cause our focus to ping pong around all day long. When you hear these ruminations going on, take a moment to jot the information down on a physical or digital sticky note.  Quell the internal symphony by capturing all the to-dos in a recorded form so you can focus on the exigencies of the day.

5.  Turn off new message alerts.  I can’t say it enough – turn new message alerts OFF!  These self-inflicted interruptions are riddling your ability to focus and be productive.  Just check your e-mail, texts and voice mails periodically throughout the day (even every 15 minutes if necessary) to remain responsive to those who need your attention.

6.  Pick Today’s One Thing.  A great way to feel productive and in charge of your workload is to pick ONE thing each day that you WILL get done.  At the very least, this one thing will move off our plate.  (Note, for you over-achievers out there, I said ONE.)

7.  Reduce Meeting Length by 25%.  Work fills the time allotted.  Thus, if we schedule meetings for 60 minutes, they’ll take 60 minutes.  However, if we schedule them for 45 minutes, they’ll take 45 minutes.  Shazam!  We just found 15 minutes in the day to get other stuff done.

8.  Take Short Breaks Throughout the Day.  Contrary to popular believe, this “life thing” ain’t a marathon. The brain just don’t work that way.  It’s more like a series of sprints.  Cater to your brain’s preference for sprinting by taking short breaks throughout the day.  Even a five minute walk around the building or a quick read of the daily newspaper allows your brain to take a much-needed breather before jumping in to the next big effort.

9.  Schedule Only Four Hours of Work Each Day.  We are all optimists.  We tend to think everything takes less time than it actually does.  As a result, we over-commit our time and end up begging for extensions from those to whom we owe work.  Begging for extensions is a waste of time – what I call activity with no corresponding productivity.  One solution to this conundrum is to only schedule yourself for four hours of work each day.  This means that when you are giving others an idea of when you can get something done, base it on a four-hour workday instead of an eight-hour workday.  That leaves four hours each day to deal with the inevitable emergencies that come up.

10.  Do One Thing at a Time.  Multi-tasking is an inefficient way to work.  There is a growing body of science that supports this conclusion, but just trying having a conversation with someone who is checking their e-mail at the same time to confirm this proposition.  Doing one thing at a time means you can be laser focused on that one thing.  Laser focus delivers all your brain’s resources on this one task resulting in increased efficiency and effectiveness.

There they are.  Ten of my most recommended time management tips.  Take them.  Leave them.  Pass them along.  Most importantly, though, consider each of them to determine where there’s a nugget of value in there for you.  After all, it IS all about you!

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

The background on this is that I work from home when I’m not on the road.  In the last seven years of working from home, my “office” address has changed five times.  Thus, I’ve become quite an expert at setting up home offices.  Here are the three characteristics I found to be crucial to creating and working effectively in a home office. 

1.  There is a Door

There are three reasons for this requirement.  First, if there is a door, the office has a defined space.  It’s not in the living room or the kitchen or wherever.  It’s actually an office.  It can be a den or a spare bedroom, but once you move your work environment into it, it’s an “office” – into which you go to work.  Second, if there’s a door, you can close it.  Closed doors are a great way to segregate yourself from all the other things you could be doing, as well as distancing yourself from all those who might pull you into doing those other things throughout the day.  Finally, it affords much greater privacy – something people on the other end of the phone will appreciate, as will those in the house who don’t need to hear everything going on in your work world.

2.  You Face Away from the Door

Workspaces should be arranged so that you don’t face out the door (when it’s open) into the rest of the house.  The human eye has a peripheral vision range of 120 degrees.  Consequently, if you are facing towards the door and looking down at something on your desk, your eye will detect the movement of something outside your office.  This will result in your looking up.  Ping!  Self-imposed distraction and corresponding loss of focus.  Face the workspaces anyway you like, just not at the door.

3.  You Invest in Good Office Equipment/Furniture

One of the frequent miscues that I’ve made and I’ve seen others make is to not invest in good office equipment and/or furniture.  The tendency is to cheap-out when it comes to the furniture and the technology for home offices.  This is your business!  You don’t need to go over the top with Herman Miller this and Herman Miller that, but spend the money to create a good workspace and get the best equipment (computers, Internet connection speeds, printers, etc.) you can afford.  We all spend a lot time in our home offices, so it might as well be pleasant and productive time.

Well, having core dumped these thoughts on you for the last fifteen minutes it’s time for me to jump on a conference call with two people who are sitting in their respective cubicles in suburban Class A office buildings in different parts of the world.  I, on the other hand, am in my jammies nestled comfortably into my welcoming home office.

Life is good!

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Mike’s okay with my blogging since we’re going to focus our work more on the static content pages of my web site – with the view of increasing the number of people contacting me to learn more about my non-blogging services.  That is, the ones I get paid for!  But his words haunted me all weekend and it slowly dawned on me that his message to me and my message to my clients are very similar – small, incremental change aggregates into large benefit. 

With that in mind, here’s a short snippet of thought to consider.

Decrease Activity and Increase Productivity

Last week I wrote about how executive time management is like losing weight.  The theme was that to achieve results we had to make a decision to change, maintain integrity in the process (specifically as it related to the data we recorded about the change), and exercise patience to see the fruits of our labor.  This week, I’m going to zoom in on the difference between activity and productivity and how it’s similar to the confusion between thirst and hunger.  (Yes, I’m extending the dieting metaphor even further!)

First, let’s define our terms.  Activity is reflected in the act of motion – moving about – often with little to no result.  Conversely, productivity is the act of movement; it’s advancement of the objective; it’s getting things done.  One of my favorite lines is, “You have activity when there’s a lot going on, but nothing getting done.”  And my favorite example of this is the new message alert that draws your attention away from the e-mail you are currently working on (stopping production) to check the subject line of the new e-mail to determine whether it’s something you need to attend to (1% of the time) or whether it’s something you can disregard (99% of the time) before turning back to the e-mail you were just composing. 

This glancing down, reading, looking back up, finding your place, and resuming where you left off takes about four seconds.  Assuming you only get 100 e-mails per day, that’s 400 seconds of activity with no corresponding productivity.  There was a lot going on, but nothing getting done.  (Note, 400 seconds is about 6.5 minutes per day which is about 24 hours per year of wheel spinning!)

The solution?  Turn off the message alert and periodically (on your schedule – even regularly) check your e-mail to see what’s come in recently.  This one small change will drive a much higher level of focus for you which you’ll maintain for longer periods throughout the day.  Since productivity is about focus, the net result is more done in less time. 

But how does that relate to losing weight?  I’m sure you’re sitting on the edge of your chair…

Water: It’s What a Body Needs

Fundamentally, your body doesn’t really know the difference between when you’re hungry versus when you’re thirsty.  Thus, given the highly mobile, always-on-the-run lifestyles that we modern folk tend to lead, we tend to stuff food into our mouths whenever we feel that familiar “hunger” pang.  If you really want to lose weight and get rid of the pangs, try drinking water first before shoving another 300 calories of food down the gullet.  Doing so just might solve the immediate sense of hunger, help you lose weight, and provide you all the other medicinal benefits that water does for the body.

And if the water trick doesn’t work, munch on some sugar-free gum first before lobbing that stale donut into the ole pie hole.  Again, the burst of flavor and the act of chewing will trick your brain into things it’s getting its needs met…least for a short while. 

For the simpler-is-better crowd (like me), you’ll note that both water and gum are readily available everywhere and they’re both highly portable.  This partially solves the traveler’s dilemma of eating eat healthy while on the road.

Small, Simple Changes Produce Results

As I strive mightily to meet Mike’s recommendations, as least with respect to length if not frequency, I leave you to ponder whether you will turn off your new message alerts and whether you will substitute water or gum for donuts.  All I know is that the starting line is always at the beginning.

© 2011, Paul H. Burton. All rights reserved.

Schedule 5-15 minutes between every appointment to collect your thoughts, check in with team members, prepare for the next appointment, and even relax for a moment!  You will be more effective, more efficient, more responsive, and less stressed out.

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

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.

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.

Concepts into Action

The following suggestions take these concepts – workflow processing and organizational skills – and wrap them in some productive behaviors.  Give ‘em a try:

• Develop a Mechanism for Removing Closed Items. One of the biggest organizational mistakes people make is failing to identify when something is “closed” and handling it as such. Work is closed when nothing further needs to be done on it.  Ask yourself, does anything need to be done on this?  If the answer is no, it’s closed.  Closed work converts into one of three things: trash, archive or reference.  Trash can be tossed/deleted.  Archive items belong in long-term storage, which is someplace other than the far reaches of your workspace!  Reference materials – things you refer to often to do your work – belong nearby but shelved.  Processing your closed items efficiently eliminates a tremendous amount of bulk from your workspace and visually demonstrates a greater command of your work.
• Use an Electronic Task Management System. Your e-mail Inbox is a good place to keep you incoming and unprocessed e-mail.  It’s not a good place to keep your tasks.  Written tasks lists suffer from the inefficiently of being rewritten periodically.  An electronic task management system allows you to put all your to-dos in one place and mange them more efficiently.  The result is that your Inbox gets cleaned up and you don’t have to constantly re-write your task list.  Note, utilizing the reminder mechanism built into most electronic tasks management systems allows you to spread reminders out into the future ensuring that you’ll never forget anything.
• Drive for Defined Deadlines.  There is a sense of urgency attached to everything we do today.  Unfortunately, the most common deadline associated with this sense of urgency is vague.  Specifically, “A.S.A.P” and “Urgent” are not specific.  Neither deadline appears on calendars, which, ironically, marginalizes the sense of urgency attendant with them.  Whenever you are given such a deadline, diplomatically seek to further define when something truly needs to be done.  For example, respond that you’re looking forward to working on the matter and would Wednesday at noon be satisfactory?  Remember, no sarcasm or irony.  Just present an honest, sincere question that is being asked in an effort to maintain command of your workload.  The work giver may stop-up short when first presented with this much clarity, but they’ll soon adjust.  If this doesn’t solve the problem, enlist the work giver’s assistance in determining which A.S.A.P. is the most urgent and which is second most urgent.  Again, no sarcasm can be emoted or your efforts will be undermined.
• Do One More Thing. We work about 220 days each year. Try this suggestion:  at the end of each day, before going home, do one more little thing.  Don’t do two or five.  Do just one.  And make it a little thing.  Return one quick call or e-mail.  Put something away, process a stack of files growing musty in the corner or your workspace.  If you do just one more little thing each day, you’ll get 220 more things done thing year than last.  That’s a lot of stuff!

The Benefits of Being in Command

Honing your organizational and workflow management skills does more than just increase your productivity.  It also increases your sense of accomplishment and career satisfaction.  Thus, there’s more to these work-a-day behaviors than just getting the piles off your desk.

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

Small Changes Make Big Differences

See if these suggestions help you stay more focused during the day:

• Turn Off New Message Alerts. One of the worst interruptions we suffer is the self-imposed new message alerts on our computers and mobile devices. When they sound or flash, these alerts disrupt what we’re thinking about and distract us away from the effort at hand. Consider this math: a four-second distraction to look at the new e-mail preview multiplied over 100 e-mails per day totals 400 seconds. That’s six and one-half minutes of activity with no corresponding productivity. Aggregating these seconds over a 220-day work year results in over 24 hours of lost productivity!
• Do One Thing at a Time. A recent Stanford University study concluded what we already know intuitively: people don’t multitask well. Consider the last time you tried to have a conversation with someone who was also checking their e-mail. Not very effective, right? The reason is simple. There’s a small cost to each switch of your attention. It’s called, conveniently, a switch cost and it adds up quickly. Just like the new e-mail alerts above, anytime you try to do more than one thing a time, your brain needs a moment between activities to cycle up. The solution is to work on only one thing at time. Work on that one thing until a logical breaking point, put it down and work on the next thing. The results are pretty amazing because you’ve eliminated the switch cost, making you more efficient and more productive. Dare we say that you’re “in the zone?!”
• Schedule Time Between Appointments. Running from meeting to meeting or phone call to phone call is the norm today. The problem isn’t that we have a lot of appointments – though there’s fodder for that cannon too – the problem is how we’re scheduling them. As you dash from one meeting to the next, details about the last meeting are leaking out of your memory. In addition, as you roll into the next meeting, your brain is still processing the last meeting and you’re not focusing on the topic at hand. It’s a lose-lose proposition. Try placing five minutes between appointments so you can jot down any thoughts you have about the meeting/call you just finished before you start up on the next. You will capture the maximum amount of information about each appointment and sharpen your focus on the next event.
• Sequester Yourself. Today’s workplaces are replete with open doors and open spaces. People passing through and by these spaces create distraction. One of the worse distractions occurs in your own workspace. There you are working away on something, intently focused and making headway. Then, all of a sudden, someone is standing there! There is no larger interruption than that. To minimize those events, simply remove yourself from the situation. Take one (or, at most, two) things you need to get done and find a quiet space to work. An empty office works, as does a conference or caucus room. A local library or meeting room in your office building/complex will also suffice. When you go to that location, sit down, do the work you have with you (remember, one or two items), then head back to your normal workspace and return any messages you received while you were gone.

What You Do Makes a Difference

You only get so much time and what you do with it affects how much you get done and how successful you feel!

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

The suggestion was to save e-mails as files outside of your e-mail application.  Here is the how-to:

Let’s say you are a professional service provider, so you have clients and matters for each client.  Thus, your  filing system for all things related to your work are set up as a folder for the client and subfolders for each matter.  (Note, you may also use numerous subfolders under each matter to further divide up the things you need to save – e.g., correspondence, etc.). 

We’re going to use this same system for storing your e-mails.  However, these folders are best created on your hard drive or network drive, not in the e-mail application itself.  The reasons are (1) you can overload your e-mail application causing it to slow down or, worse, become corrupt, and (2) you are now storing all information relating to that client/matter in one place – on your hard drive – instead of two – in your e-mail application and on your hard drive for other electronic files that you collect during the pendency of this matter.

Whenever you get an e-mail that relates to the client/matter in question, simply click File > Save As in the menu bar for the e-mail.  I prefer to save everything as Save As Type: XXX-Unicode.  (Note, I use Microsoft Outlook, so the file type is Outlook Message Format – Unicode).  This creates a saved file in my client/matter file for that message, including all the attachments.  You can also re-title the new file before clicking Save to make it easier to find in the future.

If you just want to save the attachment in an e-mail, you can click File > Save Attachment and save just the attachment.  (Alternatively, you can right click on the attachment and do the same).

Once the e-mail is saved as a “document” in your on-board filing system, you can delete it from your e-mail client.  This lightens up both your Inbox and your e-mail application!

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