Could your meetings be shorter and more powerful? I guarantee it. I have no doubt that 25 – 50% of the time you spend in meetings could be avoided or used to accomplish far more. Unfortunately, few organizations recognize the incredible potential to save time and money while improving productivity and morale by improving meetings. Try totaling the dollars devoted to this month’s meetings. Figure out what percentage of your people are effectively employed just to attend meetings. Imagine your productivity on a day uninterrupted by meetings. The value of better meetings in half the time is enormous! Ironically, those that do recognize the potential for improvement often react by scheduling a series of meetings! They get a bunch of interested people together to develop new rules that they think will solve the problem. Once they’ve all agreed, everyone else is invited to more meetings to learn the new rules. Too bad those rules are just bandaids and do nothing to eliminate the cause of the problem. You can’t solve a problem without eliminating the cause. If you can’t identify the cause of ineffective meetings, give me a call. I’d be happy to save you oodles of time, money, and frustration in the short term, and much more time, money, and frustration once your meetings are short, powerful, and known for getting better results in half the time! Call 800-527-0087 or email info@uncommonclarity.com today!
Do you wish all meetings could be short and powerful? If so, this short and powerful video is for you!
Skill, knowledge, insight, brains, experience – these are all important, however: “He or she wins who gets more done, and he or she gets more done who passionately wants to get to the next level of accomplishment.” David H. Maister from Strategy and the Fat Smoker Decide what is important, set priorities, and learn how to master yourself to accomplish those priorities.
If you are interrupted too often, figure out why. Are you: Too slow to close your door, forward your phone, and turn off email? Withholding information from others? Failing to develop and empower others? Inserting yourself into too many processes? Insisting on perfection? Discouraging the decisions and initiative of others? Unclear in establishing objectives and priorities? Sloppy in delegation? Letting others interrupt repeatedly without thinking first? Unsure of your own priorities? Biting off more than you can chew? Afraid you may be extraneous? You are not indispensable. So why are others acting as if you are? What are you doing to cause your own interruptions?
“Once upon a midnight dreary” – actually, let’s make that a December afternoon. Might have been dreary; I can’t remember. Almost a year ago. That is when I swore to utter two phrases nevermore! Too much to do Not enough time These are victim words. “Poor me!” Of course there is too much to do! How could there not be? And we all have 24 hours in a day. Period. Bemoaning the fact accomplishes nothing. Furthermore, these are cop out words. To utter them is to abdicate responsibility for making the tough decisions about priorities. Since consciously dropping them from my vocabulary, I have been happier, less frustrated, and more productive. I have also felt less guilt about the things I can’t get to. In the meantime, my business has soared.
You call it your inbox. A more accurate name might be your “Indecision box.” How many times do you look at the same email message? Should I respond or not? How do I handle this? Should I sign up? If I ignore it, will it go away? Do I need to save this somewhere? You know the questions. If you return to the same message multiple times, pondering those same questions, you are wasting time and energy. There are only four efficient responses to any email: Act immediately (read or respond) Save it for later (flagged by date or filed with relevant project) Archive it (an overused option, but not ineffective) Delete it To increase your success rate in making these choices, don’t check email unless you have time to complete this process. If awaiting a particular message, check quickly and leave. Come back later when you have time to handle each appropriately in sequence. If your inbox isn’t emptied a couple of times each day, you definitely have an Indecision box instead! Worse than that, you have an E-mess! Do a spot check on employee inboxes and you’ll know immediately whether they need help too.
This is one tip in a series of techniques to help you take control of your time, feel great about each week, and watch those weeks add up to impressive results. The key to each successful week is two-fold: Identify what would constitute a successful week Make it happen This tip tackles the second and helps you maintain focus. Productivity Booster #6: Clear the Decks Focus and finish is one of the top secrets to peak productivity. Today’s tip addresses one of its enemies – the siren song of other projects. Are there stacks of papers on your floor, desk, or other surface? Books and magazines piled near by? Little lists of things requiring attention? If so, each one is singing its siren song while you are trying to focus. Out of the corner of your eye you see the stack of papers that must be submitted this afternoon. An important thought occurs to you so you stop to add a note to that stack.
If you saved an hour a day, that’s 365 hours per year. 365 hours /12 productive hours in a day = 30 days. If you save an hour a day, you gain 30 days each year. That’s an entire month. Imagine what you could do with another month in the year. Another month to play, spend with family, or complete significant projects. What are you waiting for? Where is that hour that you could dispense with each day?
If you aren’t careful, your inbox, and thus your To Do list, can grow out of control. However, if you pay attention, you will notice that many items landing in your inbox create work for you that need not be yours. Take a look at who is filling your inbox and why. For example, think about those times when a colleague sends you a proposal, report, or something else for you to review. Why you? What value can you add? Are they ducking responsibility or afraid to pull the trigger? Does the item really need to be better? Or perhaps you get emails addressed to 10 people. Why and why you? Do you need to mark your calendar, check something off your list, make note of a decision, or take a specific action? If not, you were likely copied for the wrong reasons. However, if you aren’t paying attention, you may find yourself sucked into or instigating several exchanges of little value to anyone. Watch what is landing in your inbox and take measures to deflect it before it lands.
If you work with or for someone who is indecisive, it can be frustrating. Even worse, it can be extremely wasteful if you routinely start down a path only to have a decision flipped and your progress erased. What can you do to clear the fog and keep things moving forward? Practice asking these six helpful questions and you will reduce the back-tracking while simultaneously improving the decisions and developing clear thinking skills for all involved: What specifically are we trying to accomplish? What criteria and priorities are most important in making this decision? Are there other alternatives that we should be considering? Why is this alternative the best given the criteria and priorities we discussed? What might go wrong if we choose this alternative? How serious and likely are these potential problems?