Elwood: It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.
Many professionals and leaders at services firms appear quite efficient. They’re always busy, running from thing to thing. But what kind of progress are they really making towards reaching their proactively set goals? Do you, as the steward of your own effectiveness, reach your goals in the time frames you set for yourself?
I often observe time slipping away from professionals and managers because:
- Busy as they might look, they often focus on urgent issues (that need immediate attention but may not have significant consequence in the grand scheme of things) vs. important issues (that may not need to be done now, but are of great consequence).
- Firm leaders too often do work that can be delegated to others, work that, for one reason or another, they “buckle down” and do themselves.
- Firm leads allow themselves to be distracted by unproductive meetings, random telephone calls, putting out fires, interrupting visitors to their office, and a host of other lampreys of time.
Books have been written about the subject of time management. I could expound upon each one of the points below for paragraphs on end to drive them home. But I don’t have to (and thus it wouldn’t be a good use of time). Follow the summary and you should be in good shape.
1. Set goals and accomplishment milestones. If you find yourself working on anything that will distract you from achieving those goals, step back, look at what you’re doing, and figure out how to get back on track. (Willie Hall: So, Jake, you’re out, you’re free, you’re rehabilitated. What’s next? What’s happenin’? What you gonna do?)
2. Practice saying, No. Why practice? When you really need to say no, it will come out. Often people don’t want to be disagreeable, so they don’t say no. Learning to say no at the right time will help you actually deliver on the important commitments you’ve made to yourself and others. (Mrs. Murphy: You want butter or jam on that, honey? Elwood: No ma’am, dry.)
3. Heed Occam’s Razor – Plurality should not be posited without necessity. In other words, don’t do more than you need to do. Once you’ve achieved success on any particular task, move on. Sometimes you need to polish the polish to make sure something is just perfect, but more often you should begin to invest your time in the next important endeavor. (Elwood: Ah, what kind of music do you usually have here? Claire: Oh, we got both kinds, Country and Western.)
4. Ask the question, “Is this what I should be doing right now?” You might save yourself days of time just by catching yourself in the act of less productive work than you could be doing. (Little Kid: Will you please put this in the window, lady, ‘cuz it’s real important.)
5. Be proactive. Habit #1 of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is habit #1 for a reason. Proactive people are productive and reach goals. Waiting around and reacting isn’t a good way to get where you want to go. (Jake: We’re putting the band back together.)
6. Control the clutter. Messy desks and disorganized to-do lists derail many a manager. Some folks can work through the piles-o-junk, but not many. Some may disagree with this point, but I’ve found disorganized managers to be less productive even if they don’t know they’re being less productive. If you want to step on the gas, sometimes you have to clear path first. (Elwood: Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don’t fail us now.)
7. Check in with yourself frequently. Ask yourself first thing in the morning, “What do I want to get done today?” Check in later in the day with yourself to see how you’re doing. If you find yourself getting derailed from the important work that will help you reach your goals, you can often re-rail yourself with a simple check in. (Elwood: Then we gotta figure out some way to collect the gate money and get it to the Cook County Assessor’s Office as soon as they open in the morning.)
8. Kill unproductive activities. I know some folks in sales who are constantly analyzing their sales activities and results to the nth degree. After their exhaustive analysis, they learn month after month that they’re still underperforming. Perhaps ten hours less of analysis would give them ten hours more of productivity. Perhaps there are 4 sets of ten hour activities that they can replace with more productive activities. Most people don’t question what they do and how their activity patterns affect their success. They should. (Elwood: You want outta this parking lot? Okay.)
9. Don’t suffer time wasters. Squash unproductive meetings. Turn off the phone and the email (that’s right…I dare you.)* Nip the office chit chat in the bud. If your colleague is not getting to the point, get them there. Sure, sometimes having a relaxed and meandering conversation is important for relationship building such as with clients, with prospects, or with colleagues during lunch or after work. Most of the time you can cut the conversation in half and get right to being productive. Time wasters…don’t heed them. Don’t notice them.
If you find that anyone you work with unduly derails you from reaching your goals, confront the issue. How you confront the issue may be a subject of quite a bit of thought, but that you confront the issue is a must. If you don’t, you’re no longer pursuing your own agenda. You’re pursuing someone else’s, whether that person be your superior, subordinate, or colleague. (Jake: How often does the train go by? Elwood: So often you won’t even notice it.)
*I’m not advocating you should be unresponsive to clients, prospects, and team members. Perhaps you can get more done for them with four hours of undisturbed time. Unless it’s one of those days that you have to be accessible 100% of the time, or must return a call immediately, non-emergencies can usually wait a reasonable short while.
Now, what do I want to get done today? Right! So without further adieu, back to it. “She caught the Katy…”
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