Today’s Get-it-Done Guy episode is about choosing how to be productive on airplanes. Most of us just assume that bringing as much work as we can is the way to go. Not necessarily. The airplane environment presents an increasingly rare opportunity to concentrate on certain kinds of task. You can find today’s Get-it-Done Guy episode by clicking the links in this message.
Productivity
Here are articles on Productivity
Are you overwhelmed?
There are two kinds of being overwhelmed. There’s the chaos that comes from having no systems, so everything is an emergency. That’s relatively easy to deal with. The more pernicious type of overwhelm happens when you actually commit to more than you can possibly do. Then, no matter what you try, you can never catch up.
My current Yahoo! HotJobs column discusses how to make sure you’re not fundamentally overcommitted. You can read my HotJobs column on how to stop overcommitting by clicking here.
Does email overload help us?
Tim Sanders wrote a blog entry that references a Business Week article on information overload I commented on last week. The writer suggests that information overload might be good. There might be some valuable information, and besides, young people can handle it just fine.
Sure. In what universe? My Get-it-Done Guy podcast email and people’s reaction to my what is email costing you assessment, suggest many people of us feel our life force being regularly sucked from our bodies by information overload. It makes us jump from topic to topic. It interrupts us when we need to concentrate. And then we feel guilty that we still can’t keep up. Gee, that sounds like a resourceful emotional state for reaching our goals.
Yes, we’re getting more info. Yes, some of it’s useful. But that’s not the point! We need to ask: is it useful enough? Are the benefits—financial, social, or emotional—worth the cost?
For Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy (mentioned in the article), the answer is Yes. In email, they say things they would never say otherwise. Like that comment about the chocolate mousse, telephone pole, and garter belt. Who would ever say that out loud?
Of course, an anonymous suggestion box would fill the same function. Even better, the tipster could actually include the original garter belt. But apparently, those emails are amazing enough that Anne devotes a lot of time to her email. Since she’s gotten great results at Xerox, for her, the benefits might be worth the cost. (Assuming, of course, that her success is because of email, rather than in spite of it. Maybe a weekly suggestion box would be just as good.)
If you’re top dog, no one pays attention to how you use your time as long as you produce business results. The rest of us aren’t so lucky. Our pointy-haired boss gives us specific goals, and email can suck up a lot of time without moving us towards our real goals. That “Top 10 Reasons Working Here Sucks” email will only help you reach your goal if that goal is a new job at your major competitor’s firm.
When you’re deciding how much time to spend with your inbox, think long and hard about the benefits you’re getting. After all, there’s lots you could be doing with that time. Ask yourself if there is any other way to get those same benefits? If you hired a $50/hour assistant to read and answer your email every day, what would you tell him/her to process versus ignore? Are you following those same guidelines?
Being perfect in every way, I follow my own advice and am ultra careful with my email habits. Even so, I often get sucked in for up to 30 extra minutes a day. Since I’m perfect, that must be the perfect amount of time to waste. But there’s still a nagging feeling: that comes out to three weeks per year. If I’m going to spend three weeks a year blathering mindlessly, I’d rather do it wearing a bathing suit on a sunny Caribbean beach than sitting hunched over my computer in my basement office, looking like one of the Mole People. At least on the beach, I might get a tan.
So don’t take my word for it. Don’t take Tim Sanders’s word for it. And don’t take Business Week’s word for it. Your email time is productive to the extent it helps you get what you want out of life. Hold it to a high standard and if it isn’t performing, drop it from your life faster than that stalker you accidentally dated in college. With email, only you can take control; there’s no way to get a restraining order.
Just Flip a Coin Instead
Sometimes decisions aren’t worth the cost of deciding
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This article is a reprint of an episode of my new podcast. You can visit the site of the original episode here.
Stever Robbins here. Welcome to the Get-It-Done Guy’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Work Less and Do More.
Today’s tip is about decisions. The bottom line? If it costs more to research and make a decision than the impact that decision will actually have, flip a coin instead.
In my first corporate job, we needed a laser printer for our programmers. The executives met to discuss it. After all, a $600 laser printer would only save twelve programmers hours worth of hassle. The marketing department had one, true, but then, they needed one. Otherwise, how could they print drafts of the billboard they erected, celebrating the company’s “Great Beginnings.”
In the end, they didn’t buy the printer. The programmers would just have to make do. And at night, I lay awake wondered: was this somehow my fault? In retrospect, perhaps I overestimated my own importance.
Decisions cost money
But I didn’t overestimate the decision’s importance. The decision not to buy the printer took four executives three one-hour meetings to make. The executives made about $100,000 a year, apiece, which is $50/hour. Multiply by four executives and three hours, and we’re talking $600 worth of management time to make that decision. They should have just spent the $600 on the darned printer.
This was the first time I saw that decisions cost money. And if it costs more to make a decision than the amount you’re deciding about, it’s more sensible to flip a coin or spend the money without further discussion. That’s why some businesses don’t even require receipts for small expenses when employees travel. It’s cheaper to reimburse $5 than handle the paperwork to document the expense.
Indirect costs can mount up
In my example, the cost was the executives’ salaries, but indirect costs can mount up, as well — costs of delays while the decision is being made, the cost of the distraction of having to make the decision, the cost of gathering information, and so on. And sometimes researching one decision leads you to expand the issue way, way too much.
For example (hypothetical, hah!), imagine the motor in your front- loading washing machine burns out for the sixth time, and you decide to buy a new washer. You call a saleswoman and she recommends an $800 model. But you want to be sure you’re making the right choice. So you demur and research begins.
You subscribe to ConsumerReports.org, you print descriptions of dozens of washers, and compare them feature by feature. You call the store and ask about delivery options and service plans. And you realize you can have your dryer venting cleaned as long as the workmen will be poking around. And, you know, since you’re moving the dryer to get at the duct, maybe you should just buy a new dryer to match the new washer.
Soon, your $800 purchase has become a major renovation. Your research gave you so many overspending opportunities that now you’re spending thousands on an extra appliance, delivery, and duct-cleaning. Oh, yeah–and during the project, you’ll be driving your laundry to the laundromat and spending two hours a week doing laundry in bad lighting.
You just spent hundreds of dollars, twelve hours of research time, six hours of laundromat duty, gas to drive there, and the self-esteem nightmare of laundromat lighting, all because you didn’t want to say “yes” to the saleswoman’s $800 suggestion. When you add it all up, you’d have been way better off just buying the dryer.
Non-monetary costs are important
Some decisions have a non-monetary cost. When you and your husband/ wife/transgendered partner or polyamorous family unit decide to go to dinner, you might want a sandwich whereas they want to try a new ethnic restaurant where the food still has eyeballs. Should you graciously say, “Yes,” firmly say “No,” or debate? If you debate, it could become an argument. If you smile brightly and say, “Yes, let’s be adventurous!”, you get major relationship brownie points. Maybe even extra snuggling. If you say, “No, let’s discuss it,” even if you settle on the food-with-a-face, you don’t get the points. With interpersonal decisions, sometimes saying “Yes, dear” and bypassing the decision can be worth way more than getting your way. And you can always order the rice as a safe backup dish.
If my first employers had just made decisions and spent money, instead of spending money to not-make decisions, they might have survived. You don’t need to make their mistake.
Today, put it to work. Review the major decisions you’re making about things to buy, places to go, people to see, and all that stuff. Notice how much work goes into each decision, and ask yourself how important each one really is. Then for the decisions that aren’t worth the cost of deciding, just flip a coin. You’ll free up your mind and you’ll move things forward, and all for less than it would take to make a decision.
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A Handy TO DO Sheet Template
This TO DO Sheet Template is a form I’ve found useful in categorizing the urgent, the important, and the let’s-not-do-that-shall-we?
The Power Focus Time: A terrifying way to make sure you'll actually get stuff done this week.
A terrifying way to make sure you’ll actually get stuff done this week.
Today, I’ll share one of the simplest, most effective ways I know to make mega-progress on a project. Be warned: it‘s simple, and to most of us, it’s terrifying. Expect to scream in horror. You‘ll laugh in denial. In your shock, you will retreat into rationalization: “That’s impossible. I just couldn’t do that. Stever just doesn’t understand…” But if you follow today’s advice, you will be in for a major transformation.
Let’s ease into it. The 50,000-foot strategy is simple: create focus time. We often get bogged down because we just don’t spend enough time in "flow" on a project…
This article is continued in “It Takes a Lot More than Attitude … to Lead a Stellar Organization!" Click here to purchase.
Organize Your Life With 2 "To Do" Lists
It’s been a pretty busy month, and I’ve been swamped with so many TO DO items that post-it notes, scraps of paper, napkins, and dozens of other scribbled “urgent” tasks have been covering my desk. My Palm Pilot TO DO list terrifies me. Every night I prayed, “Grant me freedom! Let my Palm’s recharger mysteriously run out of power.” My prayers were answered in the book The Organized Executive by Stephanie Winston.
Stephanie suggest a method that’s working great for me:…
This article is continued in “It Takes a Lot More than Attitude … to Lead a Stellar Organization!" Click here to purchase.