Productivity & Time Management Training, Speaking, Consulting

Ahh the holidays. The time we not only wrap up year-end projects and make grand resolutions for the future, but many of us spend every free minute shopping for the “perfect gift,“  planning big, expensive, sparkly parties, cooking things we normally don’t and squeezing in some moments of reflection on the “true meaning” of it all.

The holidays are the one time many of us recognize how unrealistic our expectations of ourselves can be. Some people can’t wait until it’s over so they can take down the decorations and get back to burning the midnight oil without feeling guilty.

But what if, instead of piling your plate with responsibilities and then trying, like a duty-bound holiday feaster, to shove it all in, you planned exactly how much to put on your plate?  What if you came out of denial and admit that you’ve actually bitten off far more than you can chew, and actually started saying no?

Enough with the revelry metaphor.

Most of us would say that having balance in our lives is a goal and even a priority. But we have habits that prevent us from ever coming close to balance. If, for example, we don’t want to work nights and weekends, eat dinner at the computer and feel stressed all the time, we need to figure out how much we can accomplish in the time we do want to allot to work.

We need to say no to things that might be great—at a different time. But right now they would just turn into a nightmare, like remodeling the house, chairing the committee or taking on the really needy client. We need to choose peace of mind over whatever rewards would come from the activity that also brings the extra stress.

On the other hand, balance is different for everyone. For some people—say artists or inventors—working could be the way they achieve not only a sense of purpose and income but also self expression, relaxation, centeredness.  For some people, stopping work actually leaves them discontented and dissatisfied.

So the key to balance isn’t necessarily some specific split between work and play. It’s about coming out of denial about whether the schedule you’ve chosen for yourself is working. Does it work because you never stop working? Do you feel balanced or do you feel stressed out?

Let the holidays remind you for the new year: If you want to be merry, be realistic about what balance means in your life and what choices you need to make to achieve it.

Thanks for reading!

Have you ever found yourself standing in the aisle of the grocery store, certain in the knowledge that there was one more thing on your list (which is sitting on the kitchen counter instead of in your hand) but completely unable to remember? I can see you nodding, so this will come as no surprise:

The human brain is not very good at recalling details.

It’s that very reason that caused you to jot a grocery list in the first place – you know better than to think you can remember it with any kind of accuracy.

Why then, do most of us completely forget this truth when we plan and manage our daily lives?

When I’m working with a client to improve their productivity, one of the first exercises I have them do is to sit down and “brain dump” everything they’ve committed to, every task they need or want to do, every goal they have, everything they owe someone else, everywhere they’re supposed to be in the coming days and weeks.

Guess what? Most people can’t do it quickly or comprehensively. Usually, they need to rack their brain, scroll through their email, check saved voicemail messages, gather all the notes scattered around, and shuffle through the piles of mail on the desk.  And they’re always quite certain that they’re forgetting something.

This tells me that they’re trying to rely on their brain to remember what’s important, and using a mishmash of reminders to support this gargantuan task. Not only is this a pretty futile way to stay on top of the details of a busy life, it doesn’t feel very good, either. The stress of frantic searching and the fear of remembering an obligation an hour too late are uncomfortable reminders that this method isn’t foolproof.

Assuming that we have a limited amount of “space” in our brain, perhaps cluttering it with details that can’t easily be remembered is not a good idea. Not only are we particularly bad at it, but it also takes up brain power that would be better used for things like creativity, brainstorming, problem solving, and imagining.

Albert Einstein was noted as saying, “Never memorize what you can look up” and most of us honor this principle when it comes to world capitals, grandma’s recipes or friends’ phone numbers. The challenge is to view all your life details as data that you can (and should) file away and then “look up” as needed.

To solve this problem, I recommend taking all the tasks and appointments uncovered in the “brain dump” exercise above and putting them in a single place, with the goals of:

• Capturing all the required details,
• Storing them in a way that is easy to track,
• Organizing them in a way that gives you clarity, and
• Prioritizing and setting reminders to push you toward your goals.

So give yourself permission to forget! The secret is getting the details out of your head and into a system that is logical and useful; one that sophisticated enough to handle the complexity of your busy life, but is not overly burdensome; one that becomes a simple addition to your workflow that you can rely on, so you can use your brain space for more useful and productive things.

For help getting started, check out this post and this post.  Thanks for reading!

Do you work at a company where everyone is copied on everything?  My work has shown me that so much email a company generates is unnecessary, ineffective, and primarily unread.  Many of these are sent as a cc or a bcc.  The fact that these acronyms stand for “carbon copy” and “blind carbon copy” should give you an idea that their time has passed.  Who even remembers what a “carbon copy” is?

I want to point out some of the reasons I’ve seen these used, and give you some ideas for improving your effectiveness with email.

Cc for FYI

Bad Idea: Sometimes a cc is used to “keep people in the loop.”  Perhaps you copy someone on an email because you want them to know what’s going on.  This is not the best way to keep your co-workers informed.  First, your recipient has to read through the message to figure out why they got it.  And then they may not glean from it what you intended them to know.  What’s more likely, if the message is not addressed to them, they probably didn’t read it at all. Maybe they just deleted it, or perhaps they moved it to a reference folder, or they marked it as unread but kept it in their inbox.  All of these are ineffective for the recipient, because they cause clutter, but also you have not met your objective by sending it to them in the first place.  This is one of the most frequent causes of communication breakdown in an organization.

Better: If you want someone to know something you’ve put in an email, cut and paste the information and send it in a separate email directly to them.  Then there is no chance for misinterpretation and a lower chance that it will be overlooked.  Alternately, address them directly in the original message, near the top. For example, “Hi Jane – I’m writing to summarize our meeting.  Mary, I’m copying you because I wanted you to know what we agreed upon yesterday.”

Cc for CYA

Bad Idea: Maybe you’re not really sure if you’re on the right track, so you copy your boss, figuring that this will give her an opportunity to correct you if she doesn’t agree with your course of action.  See above.  She’s probably not reading it, and copying her does not absolve you of responsibility anyway.  This is another source of communication breakdown within an organization, sometimes with damaging results.

Better: Run your intentions by your boss prior to the communication.  Or, as above, address your boss directly in the message and invite her input.  For example: “Jane, I think we should go with the 5×7 flier.  Mary, please let me know if you disagree.”

Bcc for Private Communication

Bad Idea: You’ve probably heard at least one horror story about a Bcc gone embarrassingly awry.  A common use for bcc is to share a message with someone that you don’t want the recipient to know you shared.  Ethics aside, there is simply too much potential for unintended consequences with a bcc.

Better: If you want to privately copy someone on a message, send it to the primary recipient, then go into your “sent” folder and forward the message, alerting the “private” recipient  why you are sending it to them.  For example, “Mary, below is the message I sent to Jane to call attention to her frequent tardiness.”

Employing these ideas can allow you to set an example for communication within your organization, minimize communication breakdowns, cut down on email clutter, and save everyone some time.

If you have other ideas or thoughts, of course I’d love to read them in the comments.  Thanks for reading!

I’m very excited and proud to announce that earlier this summer, Wiley Publishing reached out to me and invited me to write the book on personal productivity that they wanted for their “Secrets” series.  The “i’s” are dotted and the “t’s” are crossed, the writing has begun, and the timeline is set!  We are aiming for a publication date of spring, 2012.

Some people may remember that I won a book contest last year, and that was the first event that prompted me to move forward in the book-writing process.  The prize for winning that contest was advice and assistance to get a book published, either self-published or help landing an agent and/or a publisher.  I began researching the publishing process, learning about both traditional and newer processes for bringing a book to market. I decided to start writing and figure out the publishing later, and perhaps it was the “law of attraction” at work, but shortly after, I was contacted by an acquisitions editor at Wiley.

I’m so excited to work with them, as Wiley is the oldest independent publishing company in the world, and even though I’m not an employee, their corporate practices are important to me.  Happily, they have made several of Forbes’ “Best” lists, including “400 Best Big Companies to Work For,” “100 Best Companies to Work For,” and in Australia, the government’s “Employer of Choice for Women” citation.

Given that the book is about my work, and a topic I’ve been studying for almost 20 years, I foolishly thought that writing a book about it wouldn’t be that difficult.  So far it is proving to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  Luckily, I need to employ virtually every tip, technique, and process that I teach in order to stay on track, meet my deadlines, and produce a result I can be proud of.  And chronicling the process gives me more content for the book!

Watch for a new page on my website, coming soon, which will have continual updates about the content, the publication date, and, of course, the launch party!

I have so much appreciation for my friends, my family, my clients, and the amazingly supportive business community in Austin, Texas that have helped me get to this point.  Click here for more details and to purchase.

I read something recently where someone was bashing the word ‘productivity,’ calling it just another buzz word.  Even if he’s right, to dismiss it as “just another buzz word” would be a mistake.  It’s true that productivity often deals with what you do in a day.  But together, all those days equal your life.  To me, that’s what productivity is about: “Achieving or producing a significant result.”  With your life.

To me, control is the secret to productivity.  But not only to productivity.  Control is the secret to living a life of choice.  To living the life that you want to live.  Specifically, control over your own attention.

Consider this common problem.  Have you ever had the experience of going to work knowing that there were just two or three really important things you had to get done that day?  They are weighing on you as you start your day, but before you know it, it’s four o’clock, and you’re dismayed (and a little astonished) to discover that you haven’t had a chance to tackle those things yet!  This means you’ve allowed other people dictate your day.  At the micro level, it is detrimental to your productivity.

Now consider a larger scenario:  have you ever reflected at the end of a year, or around New Year’s Day, or on a birthday, and found yourself thinking, “Wow, another year has gone by, and I still haven’t made any real progress on XXX.”  You haven’t gotten the promotion, you didn’t go back to school, you didn’t start the side business, you’ve made no progress on your “bucket list.”  If you’ve ever found yourself a little disappointed that you haven’t made any progress on those life goals that you’ve set for yourself, then you have experienced this lack of control at the macro level.

If too much time goes by without your exerting control over your attention, not only does it affect your productivity on a daily basis, but you may eventually realize that your life is not on the track you originally intended.  Your days are the building blocks of your life.  If you manage your attention and what it produces each day, then you can orient your productivity toward the larger, and more rewarding, goals of your life.

Thanks for reading!

What is it about email? I’ve seen studies that said office workers check their email anywhere from 5 times per day, all the way up to 40 times per hour! Everyone gets so much email, it’s difficult to stay on top of it. It’s the reason most people have hundreds or thousands of messages in their inbox, even many that are important and/or require some type of action.

Research suggests that the concept of the “new” and the “novel” creates a “dopamine squirt” that reinforces the behavior. But it’s not only about how often we check it. I think there is a certain comfort in the stability of it, the understanding, the sense of accomplishment, no matter how brief or false. But there is something that feels “easy” about knowing that a big part of your day must be devoted to emails. It’s like having a big long list that we can check something off of every few minutes. It’s not hard, it often doesn’t require a lot of brain power…in fact it could even be called “busy work.” There is an attraction to that, which reinforces the already-present lure of the dopamine squirt.

My recommendation for managing email is to review as often as you feel is necessary, process to zero at least a couple of times per week, and do what needs doing at the appropriate time. So let me explain each of these in a bit more detail…

Personally, I can let days go by where I just skim my messages on my phone, address some that need no response or just a quick reply, and potentially address others by making a phone call instead of emailing back. This is what I call reviewing. I only allow myself to do it on my phone, because using my computer introduces too much temptation to get drawn into email and then nothing else gets done. During this time, I don’t take the time to really process any or most of them. I only address email on my computer when I’m prepared and ready to process.

But after a few days I know that I’ve let it go long enough…there are items that need more attention, that perhaps didn’t start out as urgent, but I know I’d be shirking my responsibilities and commitments if I didn’t address them soon.

Which means that at least one day per week, I know I have to set aside a stretch of hours where all I have to do is process my inbox. Merlin Mann, of 43 Folders.com and Inbox Zero, describes process as “more than checking, less than responding.” David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, describes process as “deciding what actions to take on stuff.” Process to me means dealing with every single message, and either deleting it or otherwise moving it out of my inbox. When I’m done, my inbox will be empty, but this can only be accomplished if I halt the messages from downloading. I have my client set so that the messages only come in when I press the Send/Receive button. So on these days, I know that all I have to do is get myself a cup of coffee, press that Send/Receive button (because I might as well deal witheverything, right?) and just move on down the list, one after the other, reviewing, answering, deleting, filing as necessary,if it won’t take more than a few minutes, and I have all the information I need to dispatch it. When I’m done, my inbox is empty, and I know I’m current on my communications (at least for the moment, because I know if I press that send receive button, more messages will come). But I don’t press that button, and so for the moment, the processing is complete, and my inbox is at zero (great feeling!)

However, this doesn’t mean I’ve taken action on all of them. Some things I will have to save to do at a later date, maybe because I need more information, or because it will take many minutes or hours to complete, or because I need someone else’s help. In this case, whatever action is required gets moved to my to-do list, so that I can do it when I have the answers, time, and resources available to me.

Review, Process, Do: this is the methodology I recommend for dealing with the constant barrage of email most people are subjected to on a daily basis, and it’s an important piece of my Empowered Productivity System. There is no question that it takes time and if email is part of your world, you should plan for that time. I disagree with David Allen on many things, but on this we agree: managing your email inbox is part of your work.

Usually people can’t predict the relief they get from an empty inbox until they have one. I suggest you try it. Thanks for reading!

There is an important distinction in these two words that has a significant impact on your productivity. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, react means “to act in return.”  Respond means “to reply.”  Adults typically have a responsibility to reply to the many communications we receive on a daily basis, whether they come in via snail mail, email, voicemail, and, increasingly, social media.  What we don’t have is an obligation to constantly act on the relentless stream of communication we receive on a daily basis.

It’s courteous and responsible to respond to the communication you receive in a timely manner (and the definition of timely depends entirely on the specific request, and it’s something you need to determine for yourself.  But it’s probably longer than you think.)  Given that communication comes in virtually all day long in some form or another, if you constantly react to all of them, you’ll never get anything important done.

As I tell my clients all the time: you can only be productive when you’re being proactive.  And you can only be proactive when you’re not being reactive.

So my suggestion is this: rather than stopping what you’re doing to immediately react to (take action on) every communication that reaches you…instead, tackle those items on your to-do list, and in between, set aside times in the day when you will respond to communication.  The action required by the communication may fit into your plans for your day.  If you expect that it will take longer than you have time to allocate that day, based on the priorities you’ve set for yourself, then make the conscious decision to either rearrange your priorities, or simply respond and say that you will take action at a later time.  This is thoughtful action as opposed to reaction.

Dwight D. Eisenhower is quoted as saying, “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”  This led to what began as the “Eisenhower Matrix.” Decades later, Steven Covey adapted it in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  The basic idea is to be sure to understand that “urgent” does not necessarily mean “important,” and that “important” is often not “urgent.” So spend as much time as possible on the things that are important but not necessarily “urgent,” (what I call proactive time) and spend as little time as possible on the things that seem “urgent,” but are not necessarily important (reactive time).

Implementing this distinction puts you in control of your attention and your time, attending to the things you deem important, rather than constantly working on everyone else’s schedule.  As I like to say, this behavior “empowers” your productivity.

Thanks for reading!