Archive for the ‘Productivity Articles for Managing Communication’ Category
Is “Effective Meetings” an OxyMoron?
It doesn’t have to be, although that seems to be status quo in larger companies these days, and sometimes even in smaller ones. Here are some things to consider to make meetings at your organization more effective.
As yourself if it’s appropriate to have a meeting, or if there are other means available to solve the problem. A good question is “what’s the GOAL of the meeting?” Fill in this blank: At the end of the meeting we will have ___________.” It’s true that although people try every day, email is NOT the place for a group discussion. This just leads to bunches of emails for everyone involved to wade through, much of which is a waste of time. There are many web applications that are useful for gathering input from a team. If you’re trying to find a convenient time to do something, consider a site like TimeWizard or WhenIsGood. If you are trying to collect input, take a look at Google Forms, which will drop the results into a spreadsheet in Google Docs for you, or Survey Monkey, which has a free option and a paid subscription.
As the meeting planner, after answering the question about the goal of the meeting, the next rule of an effective meeting is to have an agenda. Consider putting time limits, or at least guidelines, on each topic, and assigning a timekeeper and minute-taker at the meeting. Also, the minutes should be published, preferably in the body of an email, not as an attachment (it increases the likelihood that they will get read, or at least skimmed). This gives an opportunity to take a discussion off-line if necessary, keeps everyone on-track, and collects all the ideas and comments that come out of the meeting.
If you are a leader in your organization, consider whether the company culture allows people to “opt-out” of a meeting, or if it’s just expected that everyone will attend who is invited. Allowing for an option gives employees control over their workday, which is an essential factor in job satisfaction. As an attendee, make sure you understand what part you will be expected to play in the meeting, and whether or not it is useful to your current objectives. Invitations to meetings that have no agenda and haven’t addressed the goal should be considered carefully. These have the potential to be a huge time sink.
The effectiveness of every meeting depends, lastly, on three critical questions posed at the end, and recorded in the minutes:
1. WHAT’S the next action?
2. WHO is responsible?
3. WHEN is the due date?
Having these questions and answers recorded in the minutes creates accountability through publicity. It’s much easier to miss a deadline when no one knows you have it. When it’s a public deadline, people are much more likely to meet it.
If you have anything to add about effective meetings, I hope you’ll post them in the comments. Thanks for reading!
Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mnthomas.
Mastering Control Over Email & Twitter, Conclusion
One last thing I want to address is something I get asked about a lot, which is how to file your email messages that you don’t want to delete. It’s actually an easy answer.
The way that I suggest you file is categorically, breaking things down into the major areas of your life. For me it’s business-related emails and personal emails. Realize that the search features in email clients are very good. You should rely on these rather than spending lots of time creating folders and sub-folders. The more folders you have, the harder it can be to find things! If you have just a few folders, and a search feature, you should be able to find what you need in a matter of seconds. One final note, if you responded to the message, delete the one that’s in your inbox, and file the one from your “sent” folder.
Here’s one final tip on how to get started implementing everything I’ve outlined over the last several days. If you want to start with a with zero inbox today, right now, first you need to shut off that automatic download in your email client if you haven’t already. Then, create a subfolder called “old emails to process,” move everything before yesterday into that folder. Process all of your emails from today and yesterday using the process I’ve outlined here, until you have zero messages in your inbox. Go back and process the others when you have some time, or wait until something comes up (someone says, “did you get the email I sent you last week?”) It’s not as drastic as deleting everything and starting over, but achieves the same result. When you’ve gotten to zero, RESIST the urge to click that send/receive button again! Go do something else! Work off your to-do list for a while, go out and experience “Twitter 3D,” aka the real world! =)
Mastering Control Over Email & Twitter, Step 4
A couple of days ago I promised you 4 steps to conquering your email. In the last few days, I’ve written about 3: learning to controlling the information using a process, learning to control the technology, and learning to control your behavior. They are easy in the sense that they are not complicated or difficult to execute. But probably the hard part is going to be in changing your behavior. That’s never easy. But I promise you that it will introduce some peace and serenity into your life if you’re not constantly multi-tasking.
The 4th step is about easily sorting the important from the unimportant. So of course you need a good spam filter. If you are getting more than a few spam messages a day, you should look for another solution. The technology has advanced and it’s worth spending some time on. But in messages that aren’t spam, one of the easiest ways to sort the important from the unimportant is that probably the information that comes from a real human (friend, family, co-worker) is probably more important than “robo-messages” (coupons, newsletters, notifications, marketing messages). Is that a fair statement?
Well some people use “rules” in their email client so that some messages automatically go into a certain folder. This is one way to handle it, but personally I don’t like it. It’s bad enough to see how many unread messages are in my inbox, if I had those high numbers in other mailboxes too it would stress me out. Plus it wouldn’t be as efficient if I had to click around through a bunch of folders to see what needed my attention. Also the concern there is that I never get around to looking at some of those folders, so my number of emails grows and grows, both stressing me out and perhaps causing problems with my email client.
There is now a much better solution to “robo-mails” and I think it’s the biggest time saver I have seen in a long time. It’s called Otherinbox and if you haven’t gotten yourself an account yet, I suggest you visit now and get one “tout de suite.”
Tomorrow will be one more post on this topic, where I will expand a little bit about a topic I get a lot of questions about: filing your email messages…
Mastering Control Over Email & Twitter, Step 3
Ok, so I outlined steps one and two to managing email and Twitter, and I left you with a question about multi-tasking. If you leave your email client open, Twitter feed, Facebook & LinkedIn pages constantly open on your desktop, you are forcing yourself to multi-task all the time. The question posed yesterday was, “is multi-tasking good or bad?” To answer that, we have to take a look at what multi-tasking really is: It’s a myth. In reality, human beings can only hold a very small number (maybe one!) of thoughts in our head at the same time. So we’re not actually doing things simultaneously, we’re actually switching back and forth rapidly between those things. It’s called cognitive switching, and the ability to do it peaks around age 20. When switching between two tasks, you are probably giving at most 40% of your attention to each of those tasks, and the other 20% at least, is required for the switching. Study after study has shown that switching both lengthens the time it takes to complete a task, and decreases the quality or accuracy of the output. I read a study recently that determined that driver inattention is the cause of 80 percent of all car crashes, and the most common distraction is use of cell phones. And guess what? The numbers are the same whether the person was dialing, talking, or listening!
So we covered controlling the information and controlling the technology. Let’s talk about controlling your habits and your behavior, because that’s the hardest part. What’s the difference between Lance Armstrong & other cyclists or Michael Phelps & other swimmers? They probably have more natural ability than others, but not all others. The difference is the ability to focus. Athletes winning competitions, surgeons performing successful surgeries, scientists making breakthroughs….None of these happen without being “in the zone.” What’s “the zone?” It’s focus. So the question becomes, “how can you learn to focus better, so that you are better at the things you do?”
When you are working on important tasks, you will perform better if they are receiving 100% of your attention. Which means having the willpower to close your email, Twitter feeds, Facebook, etc. And the only way you will be convinced to do this, is if you value the benefits of focus.
Remember that cognitive switching means that you are only giving at most 40% of your attention to the task at hand. Some tasks only need 40% of your attention, or less. I often catch up with friends over the phone while I do household chores like empty the dishwasher. Chores require much less than 40% of my attention, so my friends are getting the bulk of my attention (which might be more than they are giving me! =)
But does the work you perform for your clients deserve more than 40% of your attention? Does driving deserve more than 40% of your attention, when it could mean the difference in life or death, for you or someone else? Does your family deserve more than 40% of your attention?
Let me be clear: I’m not telling you never to multi-task. I’m just suggesting that you be more selective, and more thoughtful, about when you do it, rather than having that be your default method of operating. If your email (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) is always open and always downloading, then nothing ever gets 100% of your attention. Make sure there are times that you can devote to doing nothing but tackling the things on your to-do list, and when those important things come up, give them all of your attention. This is not news to you. I’m sure you do it when you have something really, really important to do, right? Well, does that happen often? And if not, does that mean that the bulk of the things you spend your life doing, aren’t really that important? Or is just that you never get to the important stuff because you’re too busy splitting your time between unimportant things, because it feels more productive?
We’ve talked about 3 steps so far, control over information, control over technology, and control over your behavior. Come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss the 4th step.
Mastering Control Over Email & Twitter, Step 2
Yesterday was step 1: mastering control over the information. Next, you need to learn to master control over the technology it comes in on. Having your email client always open, with messages automatically downloading and giving you an indicator, means that your email is controlling YOU. Same is true for your Twitter client, and your browser windows with Facebook & LinkedIn pages up. Here are a few steps that integrate a process for controlling information and for controlling technology:
- For email, turn OFF the automatic download, so that messages only come in when YOU click send/receive (puts the control back in your hands, rather than keeping you at the mercy of constantly flowing email messages).
- Set aside time to click that send/receive button only 2-3 times per day, allowing yourself at least one full minute (or until you’re done, whichever comes first) for each message.
- Be sure that in that minute, you have moved the message out of your inbox (delete it, file it, or move it to your to-do list). Your email tool should allow you to easily convert emails to tasks. If you don’t have a good system for your to-do list, consider reading my earlier post Are Your Productivity Tools Complicating Your Life.
- Take the same approach with your Twitter feeds and your other social media tools. Yes, Twitter is like a constant “great” party, but sometimes you have to be ok with missing the party to stay home, if you catch my drift. Put another way (from @cjromb): think of Twitter like a river, jump into the flow every now and then, but accept that you can’t touch every drop of water.
I know that you are thinking, “I can’t possibly do that!” It’s a common response, so let’s talk about what’s going on when you aren’t doing this…
If you are constantly checking your emails, (not to mention your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter Feeds), what you are forcing yourself to do, is to constantly multi-task. Tomorrow I’ll continue the post where we’ll address whether multi-tasking good or bad, and later I’ll discuss the other two steps for mastering control over email and Twitter.
Mastering Control Over Email & Twitter, Step 1
The secret to personal productivity is mastering control. You need control over the information you receive on a daily basis, control over the tools that bring you that information, and control over your own behavior. If you can master control over these three things, you will be the most productive, and the most relaxed, all the time.
The biggest thing I hear people struggling with lately is communication. There are so many ways to receive information now that it’s having a real impact on how people think about their personal productivity. So to learn how to control communication, you need a good process. And by process I mean a real, step-by-step, I-could-explain-it-to-you-if-you-asked, methodology. Taking email, for example: most people’s “process” for managing email is “skim, then skip to the next one.” Does that sound familiar? You need to figure out why it is you are skipping over messages: it’s probably either that:
- you don’t know the answer
- you don’t feel like dealing with it now
- you think it will take too long
- you are looking for “just the important ones.”
So I suggest that the first component in your process be that you set aside time, every single day, to actually “process” your email messages. All of your messages, not just the important ones. During processing, start by allowing yourself at least one whole minute for each message. If you can read it in 10 seconds, and then would normally skip to the next one, allow yourself those extra 50 seconds and I’ll bet you’ll figure out what to do with it (and don’t leave it in your inbox!) The “stopping to think” is the biggest barrier to get over. You won’t actually need a whole minute for each of them, and you may need more than a minute for others. This can help to protect you from the urge to check your email when you don’t really have time. The same is true for your Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Set aside time each day (how often and for how long is up to you, but I suggest that it should be LESS than you originally think, and you should decide how long you’re going to spend before you log in. Set a timer if necessary.)
So those are just a few things to think about to get you on the road to an actual process for dealing with information, so that you can master control over it. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about step 2: mastering control over the technology. If you have comments or ideas you’d like to share, I welcome them.