QuietSpacing

“Multi-tasking” is part of the modern-day lexicon.  In spite of scientific evidence to the contrary, people who multi-task “well” continue to be applauded as truly accomplished magicians by those of us who struggle whenever too many things compete for our attention.

The Proof’s in the Pudding

The reality is that no one multi-tasks well. Of course, some are better at it than others, but everyone is always less effective when trying to accomplish more than one thing at a time.  There are plenty of readers who will object to this position and begin citing examples of multi-tasking efficiency.  To prove my point, try this simple exercise that I learned from David Crenshaw’s terrific book “The Myth of Multi-Tasking.”

• Take out a piece of paper and a pencil or pen.
•  Think of a longer word, like “impossible” which has 10 letters.
•  On your paper create two lines of 10 dashes each, one over the other, like this:

____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

• Find someone to time you or time yourself.
• When your timer says “Go!,” begin spelling the word “impossible” out on the top row while alternately indicating the number that letter represents in the word in the bottom row.  It’ll look like this mid-stream:

  I      M      P    ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____ ____

  1      2   ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

• When you’re done with the exercise on this first pass, jot down how many seconds it took you to perform it.
• Now, setup the exercise exactly the same way as you did the first time, thus:

____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

• This time just write the word “impossible” out straight through sequentially on the top line, then write the corresponding numbers each letter represents straight through on the bottom line, so that mid-stream it looks like this:

  I      M      P      O      S     S    ____  ____  ____

____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____  ____

This is a fairly simple example of doing two things at once - spelling and numbering.  In the dozens of situations I’ve used this exercise it routinely takes people about twice as long to complete the first pass as it takes to complete the second pass through.  The reason is simple enough, you have to refocus your mind on a different activity each time you switch between spelling and numbering in the first pass, but you don’t incur that “switch cost” in the second pass.

Through Clarity Comes Focus

With the urban myth about multi-tasking debunked, we can now get down to business.  And that business is how to truly increase your productivity and, in so doing, increase your command over your workload and your sense of success when getting more done.  We all feel better when we get something done, so why not benefit from that result on the career side as well?

Attempts to multi-task negatively affect our ability to focus.  Focus is at the core of productivity and accomplishment.  The more we can focus, the more we get done. 

Achieving and maintaining a high level of focus in the modern workplace is difficult indeed.  Distractions and interruptions abound, many of them self-imposed.  My work with clients often starts with unlearning numerous bad work habits that actually reduce focus and productivity even though they were promoted as more efficient!  Let’s focus on those, if you’ll pardon the pun.

One is not the Loneliest Number

The exercise above points out that focusing on a singular task is more productive than trying to alternate focus between two tasks.  If you have fallen prey to the multi-tasking myth but are now ready to move to a higher level of productivity and success, these suggestions will help:

• Identify TODAY’S One Thing.  Most of us have dozens of things on our to-do list with more coming in each day.  Of course, everything is an “emergency” with an “ASAP” deadline.  (Note, I have yet to find ASAP on any calendar, so I’m not sure how it can be a deadline, but that’s for another time.)  A simple way to retake command of your workload is to identify the ONE thing that you WILL get done TODAY.  You are determining that this is the very most important thing in your world for today.  Hold yourself to that commitment and start knocking things off your list that you’ve been “meaning to get to” now for days, weeks, and months.
• One Thing At A Time.  This may be obvious, but if you want to increase your focus, then focus on only one thing at a time.  You can accomplish this by doing several things to your workspace.  First, clear a space on your desk (your whole desktop?) into which nothing but your one thing will reside while you work on it.   Move your computer monitor away from this space so that it’s not a distraction or, if your one thing is on your computer, minimize all other screens and turn OFF your new e-mail alert.  Finally, place your phone on Do Not Disturb and close your door.  Now, you can actually DO one thing at a time!  Of course, return voice mails and e-mails as soon as you come back online, but I’ll guarantee you that you’ll get that one thing done faster if you follow this simple procedure.
• One More Thing.  At the end of each day right before you close everything up to go home do One More Thing.  One little thing - return an e-mail (ONE), a voice mail, put something away, send out a quick instruction.  If you do that every work day of the year, you will do over 200 more things this year than last!

Recalibrate Your Behavior to Regain Command

Over the last 10 to 15 years, the pace at which we receive information has grown in orders of magnitude.  The notion of multi-tasking arose as a method for handling all these inputs.  Unfortunately, we’re just not wired that way and attempts to accomplish more than one thing at a time actually reduce our productivity and increase our stress levels. 

Finding ways to increase our focus will not only increase our productivity, but it will return us to sense of command over our work and careers.  Give the suggestions above a try and I wish you the best of luck!

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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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Before getting started on the substance of this post, I must give credit where credit is due. Much of the conceptual framework for this post is based on a fabulous article penned by Mary Goulet and published in Speaker magazine in April 2008. I found the content so compelling and clearly stated that I wanted to share it with my readers. Any praise you have for that part of this material must definitely be directed to Ms. Goulet.

The Difficulty of Making Decisions

We all struggle with decisions. Whenever there are options presented to us, we must always choose a path down which to go or fail to choose, which is still making a decision. The attendant risks of decision making engender stress and confusion in everyone - the more important the choice, the greater the stress endured. Yet, day in and day out, we continue to make decisions and weave our way through life.

What if there was a better, more straight-forward way to make decisions? What if we could greatly reduce the anxiety we experience when faced with options - both in our personal and professional lives? What if we could train ourselves to be more effective and efficient (and accurate) in our decision making?

The Body Parts Involved

Of course, all decisions are “made” in the mind. However, Ms. Goulet smartly identified three separate parts of the body that participate in all decision making - both euphemistically and literally. They are the Head, the Heart and the Gut. Though we could quibble endlessly about whether “gut” is really “intuition” and “heart” is really “emotion,” I like the sharp physicality of Ms. Goulet’s selectiosn and will stick with them here.

The Head

The Head brings analytical thinking to the mix. What are the facts and what do they mean in this situation? What else do I need to know about this decision? How will this play out and what are the risks of failure? What are the benefits?

The conscious mind loves to delve into these details and turn them around and around to see what shakes out. In fact, analysis paralysis - getting so caught up in the analysis that no decision is made - can result from too much “figuring.”

There has been and will always be a place for analytical thinking. The most valuable application of this type of thinking is in discovering new things. In fact, I would posit that much of what is called inspiration is often the result of dogged analysis - How can I make this better? or What else could be done to improve this process?

The big risk the Head brings to leadership decision making is over-thinking the situation and engaging in inefficient (and often ineffective) analysis. Facts are facts. No amount of analyzing them will change them. All decisions are fraught with the risk of choosing the wrong option. An extended analysis of those facts/options does not measurably change the inherent risk in the choice. Fear must be overcome, not accepted.

The Heart

The Heart contributes emotion to the process. Our hopes, dreams, and desires all deserve a nod in most every decision - personal and professional. The problem with “listening to your heart” is that the Heart is fickle. Our emotions change constantly, day by day, minute by minute. If we actually listened to the Heart all the time, we’d end up with a different version of indecision - ping ponging back and forth between options.

The lack of clarity this communicates to others is very harmful in any group dynamic, either family or professional. It is also hugely inefficient as people begin reacting to one decision only to have a second, countermanding decision issue later. This occurs even within an individual as your efforts in one direction become largely wasted if a different direction is later chosen.

Success comes from moving forward in a single direction with a concerted effort. Succumbing to fickle emotion produces a lack of clarity and diminished results.

The Gut

This is the part of Ms. Goulet’s framework that I especially liked. For me, it turned on the proverbial light bulb. I experienced one of those epiphanic “Aha” moments that we all enjoy so much. Here’s what she said:

The Gut delivers the decision. There no fuss, no muss, just a decision. Many times it’s that very decision that the Head and the Heart are working so hard to overrule. In fact, much of the energy expended in decision making is actually the efforts of the Head and the Heart to change the Gut’s decision.

It can also be said that many of us lose the decision in this cacophony of noise created by the Head and the Heart! That is, the decision is usually short and sweet, terse even. Moreover, there are rarely fireworks involved because the decision is simply a choice. It’s not a discovery. Thus, all of the analysis and all of the histrionics associated with decision making can be categorized as subterfuge, an attempt to blur and obfuscate the underlying correct decision being proffered by the Gut.

Worse, though, are the consequences of falling victim to this game played by the Head and Heart. We’ve all made decisions we’ve regretted. Many of them were clearly wrong in hindsight. Yet, the logic or emotion at the moment of decision seemed so very clear! Our minds are powerful tools and they are weapons that we use against ourselves if care is not taken.

Five-Word Decisions

As stated above, most decisions are concise statements:

Let’s purchase it.
This is not a good opportunity.
She’s the right person.
I trust him.

In fact, by their very nature as choices between divergent paths, most decisions can be stated in less than five words. Consequently, we need to seek out the five-word answers our Gut is communicating to us whenever a decision must be made.

No fanfare accompanies these decisions. Yet, they are some of the most important decisions we make as leaders and humans. Getting caught up in the hysteria of decision making reduces our ability to make good decisions. Learning to listen to the Gut - that quiet, firm, clear provider of the path to take - takes some practice.  The most effective way to do this is to clear your mind (and physical world) of all distractions for just a minute or two. Then, instead of “thinking” about the decision, listen for the Gut to give it to you.

More Efficient, More Effective and Less Stressful

The benefits of learning to hear, then trust, your Gut’s decisions means that you’ll make those decisions more quickly, which is more efficient. You’ll also make them more firmly, which is more effective. And, finally, you’ll make them with less stress because of the trust you have developed in your Gut.

Will all those decisions be correct? Probably not, but they’ll be as or more often correct than the current mechanisms you’re using to make decisions and it will provide the additional benefits listed above in the process.

Good luck!

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This is a short segment of a presentation I recently delivered on how to improve your e-mail productivity. The topics covered include:

• Turning off your new e-mail alerts.
• Batch processing your e-mail.
• Subject line naming conventions.
• One subject per e-mail.
• Reducing the use of Reply All.
• Drag & Drop functionality.

I hope you find something useful  - Watch on!

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Whether you work in an office, at home or on the road, it’s often difficult to get what needs doing done.  That’s because we are all bombarded by interruptions and distractions - self-imposed and from without - no matter where we try to work.  Interruptions and distractions chip away at our focus and it’s focus that best facilitates productivity - accomplishment - success.

Wonderful Rhetoric, But Get To The Tips

Most of the productivity saboteurs you endure each day can be reduced or eliminated.  It’s just a matter of taking charge of your working environment and making the changes required to increase your “quiet.”  Here’s a list of five that will get you started.

1.  Point Away from the Door.

Most people set up their offices (or even temporary workspaces on the road) facing “out” into the fray of activity passing by them.  Specifically, most office chairs are positioned such that they face the doorway.  The same is true for mobile workers - they point themselves outward into the crowd at the airport or hotel lobby. 

The human eye is disposed to catching motion.  Thus, whenever someone (or something) passes by, we look up.  That causes a slight hiccup in our focus and diverts our attention away from what we were thinking about.  It may only be a second or two of distraction, but added up over the course of the day, minutes of productivity are lost.  And minutes lost each day add up to hours of lost productivity each year.  (This analysis doesn’t even consider the lost productivity that results when you catch someone’s eye as they pass by and they come into your workspace and start talking to you!)

The solution is to arrange your office so that you don’t directly face the door.  Start by turning your desk 90 degrees - from the standard arrangement - and push it up against the wall.  Now, one of your shoulders will face the door.  (For best results, put the desk against the “far” wall such that the door is slightly off and behind the closest shoulder.)  The result is you will no longer be interrupted by passersby and you will remain focused on the work at hand.  Moreover, others will see you’re working and tend to respect that effort, reducing the number of drive-by interruptions you suffer.

2.  Create a Designated Workspace

With the desk properly oriented, let’s address the most important part of it - the part right in front of you - the desktop.  Most people crowd their desktops with papers, personal effects, computer monitors, etc.  The result is a cramped, interruption-littered workspace, all of which is self-imposed!

The most effective workspace is the quietest.  Getting there in the physical world means clearing the roaring clutter that infringes on your focus while working.  Creating a space in your office - preferably on your desktop - where only work is done is a terrific way to achieve the type of quiet you need to be highly productive. 

To experience what I’m talking about, move everything off your entire desktop - the whole desktop.  Put it behind you or on the floor in front of the desk.  Now, sit back and look at it.  Is it screaming at your psyche?  Do you feel pulled in different directions?  No, there’s nothing interfering with your attention - the attention you are currently training on your desktop.

Once you’re convinced this is a better way to maintain your desk, find a place to put all those things that used to reside there.  My guess is many of them will leave your office or find a home on the periphery, where they belonged all along!

3.  Turn Off the Beeps, Buzzes, Pings, and Rings.

Modern technology has literally made the world smaller and closer.  We can communicate with anyone, anywhere, in real-time right from the palm of our hands.  Of course, with this ability has come attendant expectations.  Many people now believe that because we can reach each other 24×7, that we should or should be able to do so.  The result is cell phones ringing in movie theaters, e-mails pinging during meetings, and BlackBerrys vibrating across dinner tables.  A cacophony of discordant sound populate our days.

The primary way to improve this situation is by taking command of your technological tools.  Stated succinctly - TURN OFF THE BEEPS, BUZZES, PINGS, AND RINGS - at least periodically.  We need to be alerted to people communicating with us, just not every minute of every day.  The interruptions and distractions they cause is annihilating our productivity. 

By taking command of when the alerts sound, you take command of how quiet your workspace is.  Turn them off when you need to focus on a particular project.  Turn them back on when you’re finished. It’s literally that easy.

4.  Do One Thing at a Time.

Now that we’re facing the right way, cleared a place to work on, and turned off our electronic alerts, we’re ready to get to work.  That’s where this next, and maybe most important, tip comes into play.

Whether you ascribe to results from scientific study or general common sense, the idea that we multi-task well has pretty well been debunked in the last 12 months.  The only thing ”multi-tasking” seems to accomplish is increased stress, because attempts to work that way clearly reduce productivity.  The solution is to single-task - do just one thing at a time.

Prepping your environment greatly enhances the ability to focus on one thing at a time.  The best way to leverage the ”quieted” workspace is to grab a single file or project and place it in your designated work area. (If you’re working on the computer, this is accomplished by using full-sized screens.)  Then work on it until you come to a natural stopping point.  You’ll find that working this way greatly reduces the amount of time it takes to accomplish tasks.  Not only will you get things done more quickly, you’ll feel doubly good about doing so!

5.  Police Your Area When Finished.

We’ve all seen the workspace that was recently visited by a hurricane.  Invariably, the resident claims to know where everything is and he/she probably does … within a few feet or so.  Think of the lost productivity just searching!

But that’s not the only place where clutter reduces productivity.  Anytime left over materials from tasks previously completed linger in your workplace, future productivity risks being adversely affected.  The big piles and stacks are merely extreme examples of this loss.  Remember, time is irrevocably lost every second it takes to dig around for something that’s “right here.”  Searching for papers or e-mails or whatever is never time well-spent.

One of the easiest ways to permanently eliminate this inefficiency is to organize and remove task/project materials for your workspace when the task/project is done.  Yes, it’s administrative (versus productive), but it results in multiples of increased productivity downstream.  Moreover, you’ve spent some time and energy getting your workspace as productive as possible through implementing these points. Why let avoiding a little administrative effort minimize the value of that effort?

Simple Steps, Big Gains

The best way to improve your productivity is by making small changes that require little effort.  To that end, give one of the above suggestions a try.  If it works for you, great!  If not, but you like the idea behind it, try adapting it to the way you like to work.  And if you can’t adopt or adapt that suggestion, throw it out and try one of the other ones.  Every step you take in reducing the interruptions and distractions that bombard you each day is a step towards increasing your productivity and sense of command and control over your workload.

Good luck!

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