| |
| |
|
Management Information |
|
|
|
Operating on Perpetual Overload?
Check Out Your E-Habits Another week has ended. And, despite moving at the speed of light, you've once again barely made a dent in your more important goals or projects. Just about everyone wishes they had more time to focus on the really important things: Activities directly tied to job or key business objectives. Spending time with key people - at work and at home. Exercise. Fun.(Remember "fun"?) Intellectually anyway, we do understand the need to differentiate "forest from the trees" priority-wise. But with more "trees" to manage than ever, it can be tough even locating the forest, never mind spending any meaningful time there. By far, the biggest source of new trees contributing to the workload logjam is email. But to view the problem of email as a problem of volume only is to miss out on the real problem. If the practices of the thousands of executives and managers who've attended Time/Design's? Power of Focus Management seminar are any indication, email itself is not the problem. The number one impediment to focusing on the big picture is how we respond to these "electronic trees." In other words, if you want more time for your high priorityactivities, look no further than yourself. We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us Here are three e-habits that undermine our ability to get to our high impact activities and some effective Focus Management? techniques that can help: 1. Lost in the E-woods by 8:15 am What's the first thing you do when you arrive at your desk in the morning? Check your email, right? We say we want to spend more time on our forest activities but our behaviors indicate a love for the "e-trees." Yet, when you begin the day by jumping into the trees, it's easy to get lost in the woods. Sure you're busy, but before you know it, it's quitting time and you never got near the high-impact stuff. Solution: Don't worry; you can still check your email. Give your forest activities the attention they deserve by making a separate list of your current goals and projects. Then use the time while your email is downloading to review this list and build in time that day to work on one or more of these big picture activities. 2. E-Hugging If the findings of a pre-course survey on the work habits of managers and executives at a major cable television network are any indication, the American office landscape is populated by "e-huggers." These employees reported logging into email on average, 16 times a day, with one manager checking in a whopping 50 times. Based on an eight-hour day, this manager is interrupting her focus every 9.6 minutes. These constant self-interruptions make it virtually impossible to spend any meaningful chunk of time in the forest. Solution: If your email program constantly prompts you each time a new message arrives, minimize temptation by either turning off this feature or closing the program altogether. Then resolve to check your email no more than three times a day. A morning, midday and end-of-day retrieval is optimal. If you are an ardent e-hugger, begin by weaning yourself down to six. Use the time you would have spent reacting to email to proactively concentrate on the big picture. 3. E-voiding the Forest The pre-technology way to avoid buckling down was a stroll to the coffee machine. With the arrival of email, procrastinators never have to leave their desks. The 8:00 am leap into the e-trees and the continuous e-hugging throughout the day are but symptoms of a larger problem - eprocrastination. Not convinced? Take the Focus Management? Pop Quiz: You have 45 minutes. Are you more likely to? A) Start on that high impact project you've been putting off all week or B) check your email. If you said "B," join the club. Out of the thousands of people who have responded to that question, very few said they'd tackle the project. As for the rest of us, we tell ourselves that the reason we go for the email is because it's faster and easier. But that's not the only reason everyone heads for the virtual trees. Handling the small stuff addresses our uniquely human need to feel productive. With easily five major projects in varying stages of incompletion at any given time, employees rarely feel "done." Email satisfies our need to complete something. That is, until the next time. Solution: "Forest" activities invariably entail "big verbs" (e.g. plan, develop, coordinate, research, relocate, etc). The trees involve small verb tasks like call, email, order and so on. This distinction is important because the brain automatically skips big verbs in favor of small ones. Given the choice between developing the strategic marketing plan and checking email, the later will always win because the course of action is readily apparent. What you need to do is break your big picture activities down into the kind of small action verbs that will satisfy our need for completion. The way to do this is by determining the very next action needed to move the development of strategic marketing along - like "call Fred," "see if conference room is available for a 2:00 brainstorming meeting," or "make a list of possible marketing ideas." Then use that 45 minutes before the meeting to knock off one or all of these manageable next steps. Don't look for the rising tide of email to recede anytime soon. Instead, the key to focusing on the big picture is to learn to manage your focus. Gain control over your attention and you gain greater control over your life. You are welcome to reprint this or any of our productivity-enhancing articles in your organization's newsletter or on your website providing the following attribution and hyperlink appear with each article. 2004 Time/Design. Gain control your focus and gain control of your life. To learn more about Time/Design's Focus Management? tools, training and coaching, call 800-637-9942 or visit www.timedesign.com Time/Design is a leading provider of time management training and tools offering practical and realistic strategies for managing commitments, communications and information.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Coaching Can Get The Boss In Shape Who tells the boss that they can improve their management or leadership? How do they look at themselves objectively and identify what areas they can improve and the benefits of doing so?These days many people have become more aware of the need to look after their bodies and their health. Not only do many join gyms or start participating in sports regularly - a number are using personal trainers. Problem Solving When problem solving, you may recognize that you were working on a symptom instead of the problem. An analysis of the more clearly defined problem may require an alteration to the objectives or the ideal solution. Creativity Management - Quality from Quantity Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Strategic Outsourcing: Testing the Outsourcing Waters and Staying Afloat Before Gertrude Ederle began her historic swim off of Cape Griz-Nez, France, she underwent extensive training for endurance and technique-even though she was already an accomplished record-breaking swimmer with Olympic medals to her name. Outsourcing IT may not garner the same attention as being the first woman to swim the English Channel, but it is no less important to gather as much experience and knowledge as possible on a small scale before diving in for the big swim. Understanding Every Aspect of Your Organization GET TO KNOW YOUR ORGANIZATION: If you don't understand an aspect of the organization or a procedure within it, ask. If you still don't understand, ask again. Indiscretion Can Kill Your Business The quickest way to cancel out all the thought, work, energy, time and expense you've poured into promoting your business is with indiscretions. I'm not talking about giving your clients' confidential materials to their competitors, though that certainly will kill your business I'm talking about the indiscretions that leak out of your mouth, such as: Those inappropriate responses to anyone and everyone within earshot when you are dog-tired and have been up all night trying to meet a deadline. Looking through the Glass Ceiling - Women in Management Women have made tremendous contributions to society at every level; consider Joan of Arc, Golda Meier, Indira Gandi, Condalezza Rice.In writing this article my attention is to open the eyes of small business and no way patronise female mangement or give offence. Your Biggest Problem in Business? Work Ethic US Work Ethic Issues and Lack of serviceWell many of us are getting upset with the lack of service these days and no one cares and somehow we have all lowered our standards to the fact that getting good service is not to be expected, but rather a nice surprise if it ever does occur. Many great companies have derelicts, under achievers, cry babies, and people which could really careless and this is causing a rift between the best customers and businesses. Competencies for HR Professionals in Knowledge-based Industry with Reference to IT, ITES-BPOs Introduction"High performing HR function affects bottom line nearly 10%"- A surveyCompetencies have become integral part of HR field. In the last 25+ years, the competency approach has emerged from being a specialized and narrow application to being a leading method for diagnosing, framing and improving most aspects of Human Resource Management. Are Your Meetings Smart? Soon after I finished a brief seminar on how to accomplish more in less time every day, Roger shook my hand and said, "I can use what you said. But there is one thing you didn't talk about. Experiences of Management Coaching (Part 2) In our experience, we have found that there are several reasons managers fail to get employees to see and acknowledge that they have a problem.They assume. Demise of the Lone Ranger Manager: A Lesson in Management Communication Style When executives see themselves as solely responsible for the overall success of their enterprise, subordinates can hardly be blamed for acting according to predictions.Let's look at a familiar scene in classical American - if I may use the word - mythology. Creative and Innovative Culture, Change Management - Three Easy Tests Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation and innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation. From this simple definition, it is clear that certain cultural characteristics ought to be prevalent if creativity and innovation are to be maximised. Never Punish Yourself or Others for Failures If you want to find success in various ramifications, be it in business or personal relationship, don't punish yourself or others for mistakes, or blunders, or failures, instead encourage yourself.Kim Woo-Choong, founder and chairman of Daewoo, said, "One of my employee went to a casino and lost $10, 000 of the company's money which would certainly get him fired by a normal manager. Its a Training Issue! There's a common phrase used by Organizational Development and Human Resource professionals, when identifying kinks in the growth of an organization or company - "It's a training issue." The same phrase can be applied to almost any group of human beings that are working together to achieve a common goal. 7 Essential Elements To Every Organizational Change [This article is based on excerpts from the special report "Overcoming Resistance to Change" by Dr. Mike Beitler. What to do When You receive a Bad Check As a small business operator, personal checks may be one method to receive payment for your goods or services. As a way to receive payment, a personal check is actually better than credit cards because the fees are less and there can be no charge back. One Thing You Cant Hide One of the most important of all motivators at work is consideration. Employees report that the best managers they ever had were people who cared about them as people and as friends. The Idol-Makers The end of the television season in May included the usual array of cliffhangers on shows like "Alias," the departure of Noah Wylie from "ER" and the finale of the highly-rated "Everybody Loves Raymond" after 210 episodes. On the last day of "Sweeps," more than 29 million people tuned in to see the crowning of the fourth "American Idol. Increasing the Return on Your Training Investment Insightful leaders and organizations recognize that training is a valuable tool for personal and professional development and therefore set some sort of an annual training budget.Most everyone I've ever talked to has been to both excellent training (hopefully ours!) and training that was, well, not so good.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
