I’m a productivity guy.  It’s what I do.  As a result there are two cardinal rules in my world.  First, never be late.  It’s not only poor form, it displays a complete lack of command for the concept of time management!  I’ve often had clients joke that they couldn’t believe THEY were late for a meeting with the “time management guy,” but it’s not a reputation someone in my field can survive.

The second rule of thumb is to be responsive - highly responsive. I take it very seriously.  To me, responsiveness is the essence of good relationship management.  When my clients are confident that I will get back to them in a timely manner with information that assists them in their efforts, we have a strong relationship.  Not only is that good for my business, it makes working with my clients a pleasure.

When I talk about responsiveness (in conjunction with its siblings - efficiency and effectiveness), I often find that people confuse “responding” with “responsiveness.” Understanding this distinction is important to your individual productivity and success.  This article outlines some of the distinctions between each, and lists their relative advantages and disadvantages.  Some suggestions for improving both are also included.

Responding

Responding to someone is an acknowledgement.  It’s like nodding your head when someone is speaking to you; you’re acknowledging that they’re talking to you.  For example, a reply to an e-mail with “Will do!” is responding to the request in the original e-mail.  A return phone call with “I got your message and will take a look at the question, then get back to you.” is also a response. 

The primary advantage of responding to others is to assure them that you received the communique they transmitted.  This is generally a good thing, though somewhat contrary to good time/workflow management principles for the reasons stated below.  Nonetheless, a modicum of benefit is achieved if others feel better knowing that you received what they sent.

The primary disadvantage to responses is that they are unproductive.  There is activity but no corresponding productivity.  You did something – responded to the e-mail – but nothing got done in the process.  Consequently, that time is literally lost.  This is especially true in the world of e-mail.  We’ve all received a second e-mail from someone asking us if we’d received the e-mail they’d sent us 10 minutes earlier, right?  Now two people are wasting time!  Responding to phone calls with a brief acknowledgement of having received an earlier call is a similar example of this kind of activity with no productivity.

So the question is, How can we respond to others in a more efficient, yet still effective, way?  Looking at e-mail, there are two options.  First, we can setup an auto-responder that acknowledges that we’ve received their e-mail and will attend to it as soon as possible. Similarly, we can use our outbound voice mail recording to communicate the same message.  (Note, for voice mail recordings, it’s a good idea to give callers an alternative to just leaving a message, which further demonstrates a desire to “respond” to their needs.)

Second, if you are working with people collaboratively, you can suggest that they set their e-mail program, or even each individual e-mail, to send a “read receipt” that gets returned to them when the e-mail has been opened.  This puts the onus on them to determine when they need a “response” to a message they’ve sent.

Responsiveness

Being responsive is delivering a substantive communication.  I liken this to moving the ball down the field.  We didn’t just acknowledge that someone communicated with us, we actually provided them with information that advanced the effort.  An example of responsiveness is to reply to an e-mail with “I received your e-mail, took at look at the file and will have a definitive answer for you on Friday.”  In this case, you’ve set a specific time when the sender can expect to hear back from you.  The ball has moved slightly down the field.  (An even more responsive answer is, “I looked at the file and this is what I think we should do.  What are your thought?”)

The advantage of responsiveness is that it’s productive.  Things are getting done, expectations are being managed, and everyone is communicating with each other in a manner that builds strong relationships.  The key point here is that you are managing expectations, which is probably the single most important relationship management skill you can develop for a successful career.  The better you manage expectations, the better the results of every effort will be.

The only real disadvantage to being more responsive is that it usually takes longer to deliver a substantive communication than a simple acknowledgement.  So, the real challenge is learning to execute this skill in a timely “enough” manner.  Here are three ways you can increase your responsiveness right away, along with links to longer articles written on each subject:

• Regularly Surveying All You Command.  At least three times each day, stop and review what’s going on in our world.  This short interlude in our day can be used to re-prioritize what needs doing and gives us a list of things we can update others on in terms of progress made and any changes to deadlines.  More on this here http://wp.me/pvS1W-Bf.
• Batch Process Your E-mail.  New e-mail alerts have created in us a Pavlovianesque twitch whenever a new e-mail arrives in our Inboxes.  This fosters an almost-maniacal need to respond to each one immediately.  The reality is that e-mail is an asynchronous communication technology which means that the communication is not intended to occur in real time.  Thus, we should batch process our e-mails instead of sitting in our Inbox and respond to each one as it arrives.  Check the Inbox as frequently as necessary - every 15 to 30 minutes – but deal with e-mail in batches.  That allows us to be more productive and, consequently, more responsive, throughout the day.  More on that here http://wp.me/pvS1W-lG.
• Rhythms. A further refinement on the batch processing notion is the batching together of work that requires the same type of attention and energy.  There are three basic types of work behaviors we use each day – Rapid Fire, Short Burst, Extended Focus.  By doing like things together, we will be more productive and, again, more responsive.  More on the rhythms of work here http://wp.me/pvS1W-AW.

The Same But Different

Though derivatives of the same concept, “responding” to a request and being “responsive” to one are very different things.  Each adds value to working relationships, but responsiveness adds more value. 

We must seek ways to quell the immediate-response needs of co-workers, clients and colleagues by using the technology at our disposal so we can focus on being more productive and, ultimately, more responsive to them.  The result will be stronger relationahips, which is always a good environment in which to work.

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

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Today’s working environments are riddled with interruptions and distractions. Just when we get focused on one task, a new e-mail arrives, the phone rings, or someone stops by and off we go on a new tangent. Later, when we return to the original task, we need to get back up to speed before we can make any progress. The net result is lost time and greater anxiety.

Unfortunately, interruptions or distractions are a part of the workplace. Consequently, we must understand the nature of each to better manage them.

Dissecting Time Bandits

Productivity saboteurs originate from one of three sources – You, Them, and It. Let’s examine the role of each source in diminishing our productivity.

You. The most insidious time bandit is yourself. We each allow, even create, distractions that reduce our productivity and cause our workloads to pile up even higher. A classic example of this is flitting from task to task or place to place during the day. The act of just “touching” your work is a distraction you create rather than actually doing anything substantive on any one task. For example, does this sound familiar?  You’ve got to get a task completed, but you find yourself incessantly checking your e-mail Inbox, your Twitter account or your Facebook updates. Nothing is getting done, but there’s a whole bunch of activity going on! The most productive way to manage this type of self-inflicted distraction is to sit quietly in front of the work you need to do. Yes, just sit there.  Quietly … maybe with a blank screen or pen and paper in front of you. Let your mind settle down and allow yourself to think just about what it is you need to get done. Resist the urge to dart off to some other perceived exigency. As your brain settles down and begins to focus on the task at hand, you’ll discover the path to completion for this project.

Them. Everyone in your workplace is a potential time bandit. Without warning, these folks can pounce on you, delivering up huge interruptions. Some of these interruptions are substantive – they actually require your assistance. However, many of them are unnecessary and do nothing but cause you to veer away from your well-intended and productive efforts. Moreover, keeping an “open door” and managing by “walking around” are highly lauded management practices that must be considered when seeking to manage unnecessary interruptions for fear of communicating an unwanted message – leave me alone! The best tact is to divide your time physically between periods when interruptions are “acceptable” and periods when they’re not. Thus, during “acceptable” periods, make yourself available via the open door, etc. When the interruption occurs, quickly determine its priority and manage accordingly – deal with it right now, schedule time with the interrupter (in the future) to deal with the issue, or stand up (to indicate closure) and accept any physical manifestation of the interruption and place it in the Inbox for future consideration. Conversely, during “unacceptable” periods, make yourself unavailable via a closed door (with or without a note on the door asking not be disturbed) or simply by leaving – go to a place where you’re unlikely to be found such as a conference room or empty office.

It. The “it” to which I refer is most often technology. We are bombarded by various interruptions and easy-to-access distractions via modern technology. For example, take new message alerts! “You’ve got mail” became the banner of the Internet age. Today, busy workers deal with tens, if not hundreds, of e-mails every day, with a corresponding “Ping” and screen flash every time a new one arrives. What’s the point of knowing every time “You’ve got mail”!? If it’s so darn important, why aren’t you calling me or coming to see me? You get my point. The same goes with the onslaught of social media – updates to Twitter and Facebook and their progeny are bombarding us with largely unexamined and generally unimportant information. The best way to handle this particular productivity saboteur is to take command of the technology and drive it, instead of being driven by it. Specifically, turn off all new message/update alerts and visit each technology source as often as necessary to remain in control of the information being delivered via that channel. Thus, you can turn off your new e-mail alert and check it every 20 to 30 minutes to make sure you’re remaining responsive. With social media, check it on your breaks – they’re “social” by definition, so treat them as such!

Doing What You Can With What You Have

In short, interruptions and distractions can never be eliminated from our days. In fact, some matters are truly urgent and require an interruption. However, if you realize that these emergencies are in the great minority of events and construct mechanisms to efficiently attend to the rest of the productivity saboteurs that come at you during the day, you’ll find that your focus goes up and, along with it, your productivity and sense of accomplishment!

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

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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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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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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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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.

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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.

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The natural tendency to look up whenever someone passes by is instinctive.  It’s probably a survival mechanism long-instilled in our psyche to observe the “threat” before it consumes us.  Instead of trying to change our genetic conditioning, let’s see what other options we have.

Position A – Command Central

Most work spaces are configured such that people can see who enters them.  Whether you’re in an office or a cubicle, you usually face those who approach you.  I fashion this Command Central – you command your space by knowing all who enter. 

Innocuous as that seems, the problem is that the human eye has a vision arc of approximately 120 degrees (see Vision Span at Wikipedia).  Thus, when you’ve got your head down focusing on the work at hand, you can see quite a ways “up” in front of you.  That’s why you tend to look up whenever someone passes by your work area.

Each of those slight interruptions add up over the day.  Assume it’s only a two-second interruption and that it only happens 30 times per day.  That’s one minute each day of “lost” time.  Over the course of the average work year – about 220 days – you’ve lost four hours of productivity.  That’s 1/2 of a day in head nods!

Of course, the bigger problem lies in what can happen when you look up.  What’s that, you ask?  That the person passing by makes eye contact, comes into your work area, sits down and starts talking to you!  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m a huge fan of strong working relationships with co-workers and colleagues.  But impromptu team building is not the way to accomplish that goal.

The oft-quoted figure on the time it takes to regain focus once interrupted is 20 minutes.  Assuming this drop-in interruption only happens once a week, you’re still losing about 17 hours of productivity each year just trying to get back on task after that impromptu conversation!  Do you really want to spend two extra days each year getting your work done all in the name of unintended team building?

Position B – The Non-Feng-Shui QuietSpacing® Workspace Positioning Recommendation

The solution is to position yourself such that you face away from passing traffic.  If you have an office, position your desk against the wall furthest from the door.  That way people are passing by off your left shoulder.  In addition to eliminating the twitch response to look up on your part, those passing by can see you are working and are more likely leave you alone!  This arrangement also opens up your workspace, giving you a number of furniture arrangement options - like placing a small round table between you and the door so people have a place to come and work with you right in the office.

If you don’t have an office, you can still position yourself to face completely away from passing traffic or mostly away from passing traffic.  Any reduction in the chance you’ll look up pays dividends in terms of increasing your focus and your productivity.

Less Twitching is Always Good

When you position your work space away from passing traffic, you reduce the number of instances that your attention is diverted from the task at hand.  The result is increased productivity and more time on your hands to do other things – like head down to the water cooler to catch up on the latest!

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

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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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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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Related posts:

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?