eZine

Number 151

No matter how organized we are, it makes sense from time to time to look at the ways we manage our time and tasks. The approaches that work in one career phase don’t always serve us well as we move up the ladder or on to different situations. And sometimes we just get sloppy or overwhelmed, and would do well to try something new.

If you’re looking for ways to manage your work more smoothly, consider these techniques:

• Schedule shorter meetings. In many organizations, meetings are routinely scheduled for 60 minutes, when a shorter period would do. Start thinking of meetings in blocks of 15 minutes, instead of an hour. And of course with short meetings it becomes even more important to start on time and have an agenda.
• Manage email at designated times. You may lose control of your calendar if you allow yourself to be constantly interrupted by email. Items popping into your Inbox can feel urgent, even if they are not important to you and your goals. Schedule times of day for checking email and, most important, schedule times to work at key projects without allowing yourself to be distracted by the presence of mail.
• Follow the Rule of 3. As you start every day (or perhaps prepare for it the night before), ask yourself: what three things do I want to get done? Write those things down on a card or note (research suggests that the act of handwriting may engage your brain more than typing on a keyboard). Put that list in a prominent place, take it with you if you leave your office, and look at it periodically until your list has been accomplished.
• Schedule priority time. Actually designate time on your calendar for working on high priority items. Treat those appointments with the same seriousness that you bring to appointments with other people.
• Know your prime time. Are there times during the day when you are most likely to be creative and energetic, and other times when you tend to fade? Spend a week or two noticing your personal clock. If you find a sweet spot, a time slot when you are most likely to be at your best, try to devote that time on your calendar to your highest priorities. If you tend to slow down at certain times of day, use those periods for moving quickly through routine, low priority tasks.
• Take small bites. When you build or look over your “todo” list, note actions (including small steps toward big projects) that can be completed in five minutes or less. Find spaces on your calendar when you can dash through several of those quick items. When you have a spare 10 or 15 minutes, see how many small tasks you can check off.
• Just decide. Sometimes analytical professionals can reduce a dilemma to two or three strategic options, but then they struggle to decide among the choices. Know that there is probably no perfect choice, and dithering is a big time waster. Often the best decision is an early decision. Decide now, and allow yourself to revisit the decision later, if necessary.
• Follow up quickly. It is easy to waste time trying to reconstruct meeting notes or retrieve forgotten project details. After meeting with colleagues or accepting an assignment, it is probably more important to follow up immediately than to respond perfectly. A quick confirming email immediately after a conversation or request can save much time in the long run. At the end of each day, ask yourself whether there are any follow-up messages that should be sent before you leave your desk.
• Use checklists. You probably have some recurring tasks, like planning events, producing reports or scheduling the development of projects. There is no need to re-invent the wheel every time. You can save yourself anxiety, as well as time, if you create a checklist for each type of task. Have a default todo list for everything from packing for a trip, to offering employee feedback or arranging a party.
• Say no. If you’ve made commitments that you probably won’t be able to honor, say so as quickly as possible. Instead of agonizing about your backlog, renegotiate deadlines where you can, and look for low priority items that you can remove from your list.

Number 150

Do you sometimes feel that your job would more fun if you could work with a different crowd? Are you surrounded by whiners, nay-sayers, bullies, backstabbers and other difficult people? Is there somebody in your office that you just can’t stand?

In any work environment there may be folks with whom you find it difficult to get along. In some cases you can reduce the pain by staying out of their way, but avoidance may not be an option. In many situations, however, you can improve things considerably by learning to communicate in new ways. Here are suggestions:

• Understand personality types. Just as some of us are left-handed and others are right-handed, people tend to fall into various broad personality categories. For example, some of us are extroverts, and we like to brainstorm out loud, sharing our thoughts long before we’ve reached our conclusions. This can be annoying to introverts who prefer an environment where people don’t open their mouths until they know what they want to say. When you understand basic personality types, you may realize that others’ behavior is not about you – it is just how they are made. Tests like the readily available Myers-Briggs assessment can help you to understand what makes you tick, and offer strategies for dealing with people with very different approaches to life.
• Understand difficult behaviors. We don’t all agree on which behaviors are preferable, but there is some consensus on types of behaviors that are most egregious. In “Dealing With People You Can’t Stand,” Dr. Rick Brinkman and Dr. Rick Kirschner describe 10 of the most common types of difficult people, and suggest ways to communicate with them. For example, they offer advice on coping with “the Sniper,” who makes you look foolish “through rude comments, biting sarcasm, or a well-timed roll of the eyes.” This readable book has been around for years, and has helped many to get along better with the difficult people in their lives.
• Listen. Once we start thinking of people as difficult, we tend to stop listening to them. As they speak, we feel defensive and start working on our rebuttals, instead of actually paying attention to what they are staying. At some level they know we’re ignoring them, which can cause their obnoxious behavior to intensify even further. You can often defuse a tense situation by putting aside your defensive reactions and concentrating on what is being said. By listening with some compassion, you may launch a new era of healthy communications.
  
  
• Manage your inner voice. If somebody is driving you crazy, part of the problem is what they are doing. But sometimes your own reaction may prolong the pain. If a colleague makes a rude comment it may hurt for a minute or two, but the pain will end quickly if you just move on. But your whole day is ruined if you allow yourself to keep reliving the moment, thinking repeatedly about what they said and how you should have reacted. Sometimes you can’t control how they treat you, but you can choose how much to let it hurt. By becoming more aware of your inner dialogue, you can manage the internal voice that is causing you much of the pain.
• Address your stress. When we are stressed out, we tend to react more strongly to what others do and say. When the people around you get on your nerves, maybe the problem is not really them. Maybe it’s you. Perhaps you’re exhausted or frustrated, and every little annoying thing feels to you like a crisis. Yoga, meditation and other regular practices can help you manage your stress. And when you feel more relaxed it will be easier to deal with your colleagues’ tedious habits.

Number 149

As the recession eases, some companies are starting to spend money on refurbishing or expanding their offices. And, at the same time, many are redesigning their space in interesting new ways. Of course there is more concern about energy efficiency and sustainability than in past years. But, beyond that, there is a trend toward designing workspace in ways that express organizational culture and inspire people to work more collaboratively.

Many companies where professionals once felt entitled to offices of their own are tearing out walls and creating common work areas. The high-walled cubicle is quickly becoming old-fashioned, and executives are moving out of their offices to work with their team members, sometimes even at shared tables.

A hot office design philosophy is that shared space results in shared ideas. Oracle, for example, is experimenting with bullpen-style spaces, where 24 technical staffers work in one room, sitting in blocks of four.

Another trend is to promote collaboration and innovation by having people frequently move around among common areas. There are varied conference areas, sometimes including workspaces that look much like lounges or cafes. That makes sense because mobile technologies allow employees to work from home, or any place they feel like. So when they do come into the office, it is primarily to interact with colleagues, not sit alone at a desk.

So what does this mean for you, particularly if you are in a traditional organization where the people at the top are never going to give up their corner offices? It’s still worth being alert to these trends, particularly if you interact with clients.

Consider Joe, a partner in a New York consulting firm. Joe’s time is billed out at $800 an hour, but he doesn’t even have his own office. That’s because he often works from a client’s location or his own home in the Hamptons. No matter where he may be, he is connected electronically, so he seldom needs paper documents. And when he is in New York Joe spends almost all his time meeting with people.

When Joe works with clients he constantly observes their executives, making judgments about who seems capable of thriving in a changing environment. He likes Mary, a VP at his current client, but he will not recommend her to be part of an exciting new project. Joe has noticed that Mary’s office is a mess, cluttered with stacks of paper files, and he has concluded that Mary isn’t able to keep up with technology or manage her workflow.

Last week, Joe met with lawyers at the firm where he has sent a lot of work. He noticed the large partner offices, however, and thought to himself, “I don’t want to be subsidizing that wasted space.”

If your colleagues or clients visit your workspace, they, like Joe, may be drawing conclusions, at least unconsciously. Do you wonder what they might conclude? To get an idea of that, ask yourself questions like these:

• How clean? Now that professionals are used to working more closely together, they have become more appreciative of cleanliness. Many people are turned off by untidiness and disgusted by messes like food crumbs or coffee spills.
• How cluttered with paper? The goal of a paperless office has proved elusive, but many organizations are pretty far along the path. You may actually need masses of paper files, but know that if they are spread around your office some people may think that you are inefficient or not adept with technology.
• How are the chairs arranged? If your office is spacious, what have you done with the chairs? If you always sit behind your desk, with guests directly in front of you, you may come across as not collaborative.
• Do you have a whiteboard? Whiteboards are a great tool for brainstorming and mapping out shared projects. With a new electronic version, a laptop can be projected onto the board for everybody at a meeting to see.
• Do you share? In some organizations where executives still have large comfortable offices, it is expected that the space will be shared. Each office is kept neat, and when the executive is away it may be used by others as a conference room.

Number 148

Sport Psychiatrist Michael Lardon has worked with Olympic gold medalists, PGA tour golfers and other athletes seeking to understand and better achieve peak performance. In his book Finding Your Zone, Lardon offers suggestions that have helped athletes transform themselves from good performers to great ones. Much of his advice would be useful to anyone, whether they want to reach a higher level of performance or they want to manage a transition in some aspect of their life.

Of Lardon’s “10 Core Principles,” my favorite is Lesson Five: “Stay in the now and be in the process.” He says that excelling at an activity mandates that you resist giving into distractions, including anxiety or self-doubt.

To do that, he says, the trick is to stop obsessing about the score – your ultimate goal – and to concentrate instead on the process that is likely to help you play a great game today. Using PGA Tour golf as an example, he says that great players learn to shift their perspective from result goals, like beating a competitor, to process goals, like taking the steps that will allow them to do their best on each shot.

When working with golfers, Lardon asks them to stay in the process by keeping a scorecard that records three “yes” or “no” answers for every shot: (1) Did you visualize the shot before executing it? (2) Did you hit the shot without any doubt or ambivalence? And (3) if you incurred any negative or distracting thoughts, did you back away from the shot and clear your mind?

When a golfer can answer “yes” to these questions for most of his shots in a day, he has transformed himself into a winner, regardless of the score. By staying in the process, he has controlled those factors that are actually within his control and has not been distracted by bad breaks. And, says Lardon, when you stay more process-oriented and focus on mastering the controllable variables, you inevitably accomplish greater results over the long term.

Part of what happens with a process focus is that you pay more attention to what you are doing and stop wasting energy on mistakes or bad luck in the past, or possible future threats. The same process orientation that works for high performing athletes can help you navigate transitions or transformations in any sphere of your life.

To use a simple example, let’s say you want to lose weight. Programs like Weight Watchers Online can help you to shift your focus from the scale and remain engaged in the process of selecting healthy, low calorie food at each and every meal. By keeping within the Weight Watchers point system, and recording every bite of food you put in your mouth, you put your trust in the process, and your transformation – your weight loss – may come fairly easily.

A process orientation also can help to facilitate a more complicated life transition, like changing careers or creating a new life after a divorce or other trauma. Perhaps with a coach or friend, you can lay the groundwork of your successful transition by identifying processes that might help you explore and build toward your next phase.

The idea is to come up with daily or weekly tasks and practices that will support the change you want. For example, you might want to start routinely scheduling time to read about a new field, while at the same time you commit to a regular program of networking, and to fitness, financial or other routines to support your next move.

When in doubt, think about the factors that are within your control, identify processes that will allow you to address those factors, and commit your energy to sustaining those processes. Chances are you will reach your goals much faster once you stop obsessing about the longer term and remain more focused on the process steps that you can take today.

Number 147

A dialogue in the May issue of the Harvard Business Review asks two leading consultants whether the secret to effectiveness is the right system or the right state of mind?

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, is well known for his view that you can produce more with less input if you put the right system and practices into place. His many fans say they have become more efficient by adopting his process, widely known by its acronym, GTD. The idea is to create “clear space” for creative work by routinely capturing all your projects and commitments into lists, and breaking big challenges into smaller steps, including specific “next actions.”

Tony Schwartz, on the other hand, says that getting more done in less time requires learning how to better manage your energy. He and his colleagues borrow from the science of high performance in sports and elsewhere, as they teach knowledge workers how to perform at sustainably high levels. Schwartz, whose most recent book is Be Excellent at Anything, says that performing at your best requires you to manage four types of energy:

• Physical energy, which depends on factors like fitness, nutrition and sleep.
• Emotional energy, which requires cultivating positive emotions and, as a leader, communicating them to others.
• Mental energy, which means better managing your focus and turning on your right brain for creative work. And
• Spiritual energy, which is about defining purpose, because when something really matters you bring far more energy to it.

So where do you get started if you want to get more done, with Schwartz or with Allen? That’s a trick question, because the answer is that you must begin with yourself.

Before turning to wonderful experts like these, spend a few days noticing and making notes about the details of your workday. With one corner of your mind, sit back and, in a nonjudgmental way, start the search for barriers to your best level of performance. Notice your routines, and observe how you regularly approach your projects. Ask yourself questions like these:

• Are you getting the most out of prime time? Notice the time of day when you seem to have the most energy, when you are at your best. For many people that is first thing in the morning. Are you devoting your most productive hour to your most important project? Or are you frittering it away on routine email or other low value tasks?
• How are you wasting time? What are you doing when you are least productive? Do you spend minutes looking for information because your files are a mess? Or do you engage in meetings or conversations that last too long because you aren’t clear about your agenda? Do you have to redo tasks because you didn’t keep good notes the first time?
• Are you talking yourself out of enthusiasm? Notice not only what you routinely do, but also what you are thinking when you are at your best or your worst. Do you drag yourself into a deeper slump with negative repetitive thoughts, like “this is so stupid” or “I never get any credit”?
• How do you feel when you are at your best? In as much detail as possible, observe what it feels like when you are doing your best work. Describe how you function when your energy is flowing and you’re getting things done at a rapid clip.

Number 146

In The Blame Game, psychologist Ben Dattner suggests that our careers will be greatly influenced by whether or not we fall into the trap of mishandling the distribution of blame when things go wrong. He says that it is human nature to want to grab credit and escape blame. But we can be more successful, and also influence the culture around us, by understanding this human tendency and behaving in ways that are more thoughtful and strategic.

Dattner looks to personality psychology to explain why it is that some people have such difficulty in coping with failure and assigning blame. He says that we may be inclined to play the blame game in some way because of characteristics built into our personalities. Relying on earlier research, he suggests that many of us may fall into one of these three personality categories:

• Extrapunitive. These people look anywhere but themselves to explain away problem situations. They consistently blame their mistakes on other people or external factors. They may overreact to minor mistakes or even anticipate failure before it happens. But they look for excuses if the error seems to be theirs, perhaps blaming whoever assigned the task.
• Impunitive. Members of this group may become angry or hurt when held responsible for errors. But they tend to avoid getting in that situation by spinning the facts, denying problems and remaining vague about outcomes.
• Intropunitive. These folks direct blame inward, perhaps to an extreme extent. They may be so worried about failure that they cannot make decisions. They may overreact so much to criticism that others are reluctant to offer feedback.