Time Management isn’t just about productivity

Productivity and time management are intertwined, but the motivation to work on each can be a bit different.

Productivity has to do with organizational motivation. Its about behaviors that yield efficiency and effectiveness. Doing the right thing at the right time. Minimizing down time. Reducing wasted time and thus expenses. Moving faster, smarter, better. And of course, improving top and bottom line dollars.

Time management has to do with individual motivation on how to navigate the time you have to get what you want. This could look like you wanting less stress. A promotion. Recognition. More money. To go home early. To not work every weekend. More time for you. More time for your family. Or a life outside of work.

Choose wisely because whatever you’ve identified as your want, plays directly into your time management and productivity. It’s all connected. You know…the knee bone’s connected to the…

Move your mindset to what you want and manage your behaviors around that. Then watch this upcoming year be the best ever.

Priorities Pothole

So last week I was reading about the history of time management. Yes…I realize that topic may bore others, but I love stuff like that. And I learned something I didn’t know.

Most of us are familiar with Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix. The matrix shows us the 4 quadrants where we spend our time:

QI: Urgent and Important
QII: Not Urgent but Important (frequently called the ‘Results Quadrant’)
QIII: Urgent but Not Important
QIV: Not Urgent Not Important

(In the early years, it took me a while before I got all those straight.)

In reading the history, I learned that this matrix was around long before Covey. It was developed by former President Dwight Eisenhower and then popularized by Covey 30 years later.

When I first started in this business clients were saying they had difficulty identifying their priorities which was cause for worry because priorities are what drive goal accomplishment. I’ve always said that the power of the matrix was the ability to quickly see where you are spending your time. And if that time is not spent aligned with your priorities you know it pretty quickly. Covey did that by consistently pointing to the importance of Quadrant II activitites. The matrix gives us a shorthand method of identifying what’s important. That’s what Eisenhower intended it to be…and remember, technology wasn’t in the equation.

I rarely hear reference to the matrix any more. There is an entire generation who isn’t familiar with it. Now I hear ‘I know what my priorities are, I can’t get to them’. Something shifted between the 1950′s and today. Perhaps technology. Perhaps workloads. Perhaps mindsets. But working on priorities is still the most important thing you should do on a daily basis. Doing so is what gets you to your goal. But if you fail to have an emotional anchor connected to your goal, anything and everything will get in the way of achieving that goal.

So matrix or not, the question remains…are you working on what’s important every single day no matter what? Or are you letting other less important things get in the way?

Manageable problem

The other day I was reading a book and the setting was filled with intrigue, drama and complexity.

All of a sudden something happened that had a simple ‘fix’. One character turned to the other and said “It must be nice to have such a manageable problem.”

So that got me to thinking. About the types of problems I hear about when someone learns I’m a producvtivity strategist and coach.

Generally I listen and asks lots of questions as someone shares their story of stress and more stress. In my head I’m quietly deciphering what I think their top two issues are and offer a suggestion or two that might help.

Sometimes the solution is easy…sometimes it might be a little more challenging…but it’s usually manageable.

Part of the issue comes in when the person I’m talking to wants to believe the resolution is difficult, complex or…my favorite…time consuming.

If you really want to work on what’s important, have more fun/money/fill-in-the-blank and less stress, remember that improving your productivity is a manageable problem. It’s not complex. It’s not difficult. It’s just one step at a time. Because that’s how we all get where we’re going.

Email, email, email and more email

Years ago a wise person told me there was nothing wrong with having lots of money as long as you learn to manage it…and it doesn’t manage you.

I say the same thing when it comes to email.

Yes, it’s the preferred method of business communications.
No, not all those communications are worth your time.
Yes, it is easier and faster to send and receive more documents and attachments.
No, it’s not always productive to send more documents and attachments.
Yes, the amount of information that arrives seems unending.
No, not all of it requires you to do something with it.
Yes, it’s easy to complain and feel overwhelmed.
No, you’re not managing it…it’s managing you.

Email is still one of the top topics I get asked about and there is no easy, short, answer or solution on how to manage it. We have a love/hate relationship with it.

Hmm. It’s really about how we react to it. And how we react will require taking some different steps towards managing it. Consider…

• Picking up email only 3-4 times a day…yikes!
• Asking to be taken off distribution lists…even if you feel it’s politically ‘safe’ to remain on them
• Asking senders to put your name on the “TO” line IF it requires an action from you
• Otherwise, ask that your name go on the CC line…it helps you prioritize
• Asking senders to tell the “To” recipients what action they need from them by putting the request in the FIRST sentence of the email…this also helps prioritize
• Starting a department-wide campaign to speed up your team’s productivity and slow down the preoccupation with email by creating something like an ‘email etiquette’ list, practicing things on that list and sharing it with new hires
• Having an ‘email free’ day (except for customers)…where people actually talk to one another face-to-face

The way you manage it now has become a habit. Move your mindset and make a change. It’s not easy but nothing will change unless you’re brave enough to give it a shot.

What’s it all about

On July 1st I celebrated 19 years in business and as I reflected on that I started to think about how things have changed for my clients…and how they haven’t.

We certainly have more technology and that’s a good thing… some of the time.

Clients seem to be more stressed because of this 24/7 wireless connectivity and that’s not a good thing…most of the time.

But the thing that hasn’t changed is time management. 24 hours in a day and that’s not changing any time soon–technology or not.

Of course, time management is a misnomer. We all know that it’s really self-management and if that’s causing the stress, it’s the one thing that needs to change.

The thing that has shifted for me over the 20 years of productivity coaching and training is my focus on why you want to get organized or improve your time management.  If I spend more time on your why, the strategies, tactics and techniques usually fall into place with ease.  The tools may change, but we can begin to break through barriers to get to a goal that may not have been attainable before.

That why isn’t necessarily easy to identify. It might take a little bit of struggle but in the end you’re more likely than not to see behaviors…and outcomes…change.  And yes, for most of us change is hard…but something worthwhile usually is.

Keeping an eye on yourself

There are 4 important areas to cover when delegating to others:

1.  Strategy – the big picture and the ‘why’.
2. Methods – the tactics, tools, techniques that might get it to happen
3. Measurement - how are we doing during the project and at the end
4. Evaluation – how did we do?  What do we need to change next time? What did we learn?

This is also a great approach when delegating to ourselves. Giving ourselves something important to do.

Be honest and clear with yourself on each one, modify as needed and watch it unfold.

Work-life balance?

I recently responded to a LinkedIn discussion about how home life and work life have begun blending into one sort of continuum. Of course, this is with the help of technology and business requirements.

After I responded that I thought it was better to separate home and work demands, I realized I was in the minority. Big time. I’m part of the generation that grew up without all the technology or demands, so to me separating the two was natural.

Then I read a book – The 2020 Workplace. And sure enough on page 226 there is a section on how ‘work-life flexibility will replace work-life balance‘. Oh. I see. I’ll try not to be a naysayer because this isn’t going to happen in 2020…it’s happening now.

Then I realized…wait-a-minute…it’s happening to ME now.

I have the flexibility of working from a home office. I work until I want a change and then I do something non-work-related. Then I go back to work and have more energy and a clear mind. I do this more than I thought I did. I don’t see it as having a series of spinning plates (multitasking) because I complete each segment of what I’m working on before moving to another.

In fact, Best Buy stores have had a program in place since 2002 called ROWE which stands for Results-Only Work Environment. Productivity has increased 35% for those on the ROWE system. So has employee engagement. Hmm.

For entrepreneurs who complain about never ‘getting away from it’ to corporate employees scared to leave it, I’m sure that someplace in there is a happy medium…it just depends on how we look at it and how we implement it.

Move your mindset.

High-five yourself

Many of  us ‘high-five’ others for a job well done or an accomplishment worth acknowledging. So it got me thinking….why don’t we do that for ourselves?

I’m thinking maybe we can give ourselves a high-five each time we do something we had put off doing…overcoming procrastination.

Or made a change we thought would be couldn’t…inner voice management.

Or took that extra step to become more productive…like get organized or making those 5 sales calls a day.

Just one step. One high-five. See if it moves your mindset. Way to go…gimme five!

Sustaining productivity is not a one person event

It occurred to me the other day that no matter how hard any one of us tries to remain productive, it sometimes takes a village.

Are your co-workers managing their time so you can manage yours?
What about your supervisor?
Do you delegate or do you tend to micro manage?
What about your friends?
Your family?

See…it takes a village to either get us off track or help us stay on track.

Determine who is in your village and see if it’s thumbs up, thumbs down or neutral when it comes to helping you help yourself. Then move your mindset about opening a dialogue where you need some help. After all, that’s what communities are about!

6 easy ways to never get organized

Here goes…

1. Tell yourself you don’t know how – c’mon…there’s plenty of books, courses, podcasts, videos and coaches around if you just make the decision to find one…or two.

2.  Tell yourself you don’t have the time – OK, if this is what you’re saying then take a step back and look at what you’re saying.

3. Convince yourself it probably won’t really help - you might consider that this could be seen as denial at a significant level.

4. Tell yourself you’d probably start, but couldn’t get through it and would have to stop-  becoming overwhelmed is a sure way to stop. So…chunk the project down to smaller pieces and bite off one at a time. Most everything gets done one step at a time.

5. Continue to procrastinate – because of course, without doing this, you might succeed.

6. Keep your mindset where its been - that’s how you got here in the first place, right?

Get moving…your mindset, that is!