Being Prepared - Small Things Can Make a Difference

It's good to be prepared. You know the old saying "Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail!" I was due to go on a 210 km bike ride along the Great Ocean Road this morning, getting an early start. Having organized all my bike gear as well as my shower stuff and change of clothes for the evening dinner with my cycling buddies, I met up with a mate and we drove 1.5 hours to where we were to start the ride. After unloading the bike and collecting the helmet, gloves and other paraphanalia, I realised that I had left my bike shoes at home. For those of you who are not cyclists, you need to know that clip in pedals without the matching shoes simply doesn't work. In other words, I was not equipped to ride 210 km, with several significant climbs and in a pelleton that would travel at between 30-35 kmh. To say I was disappointed is an understatement! I had trained hard for this event over many months. I had rested well in the preceeding week. I had carefully watched my food intake during the week to have my body in peak condition today. Everything was perfect! Or so I thought. Just that little thing of not putting the shoes in the car.

Ok, so I'm still disappointed - my cycling buddies are out there now, in the sunshine, no wind, on one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world and no doubt having a ball. So what's the lesson? Don't overlook the "small" things. Had I prepared a check list, I may have remembered to take the shoes this morning. I love check lists! So why did I not use one this time - well, they say "familiarity breeds contempt" - I've done so much cycling recently that I believed I didn't need a list.

Bottom line - use check lists! Always! They can help you get PROPERLY prepared and remind you about the "small things" that can derail a significant project or event.

Looking for "Stuff"

You don't have time to do everything you only have time to do everything that matters!
If we can get clear about those activities that make the biggest difference to our productivity we can get more done in less time and free ourselves up to get on with whatever else we choose.

According to the New York Times, today's executives spend 1-2 hours a day looking for "stuff" - computer files, paper files, documents, articles, passwords, web URLs and so on. Imagine!!! If that is true both in the office and at home, that means about 14 hours a week or about a full day of waking time!

Now, if you were to implement systems and processes that reduced every "search" to a matter of seconds, that would surely save a lot of time - could easily be the equivalent of a full work-day every week, that could be spent much more productively (either on work projects, on your hobbies or with your loved ones).

So, consider if a lifetime of 8 or more EXTRA productive hours EVERY week is worth an up-front investment in an effective system, and think about what systems and processes you could implement to make "looking for stuff" fast, easy and effective.

Appointments with Yourself

If we make an appointment with another person, and enter that appointment into our calendar, then we commit to it. If something comes up to disrupt that, we arrange with the other person to move the appointment to another time.

Why not make some appointments with yourself, to schedule time to do "stuff". You could make an appointment to work on that special project, write that report, clear out your email inbox, go out for your morning excercise and so on.

There are two big benefits of doing this:

1. By scheduling much of what you need and want to do, you get a sense of what might be possible in a given time period and are less likley to overcommit. If you have scheduled appointements for the entire week, then you are unlikely to make another appointment that would conflict with one - you would simply say "This week I have no free time, could we schedule for next week?"
2. By scheduling an appointment for a given task, you are much more likely to commit to it - but you MUST honour appointments with yourself as highly as appointments with others. YOU TOO are important!

So, get out those calendars and start making appointments with yourself!

Don't Worry, Be Organized!

Do you have piles of paper all over your desk? What about the office floor? How good are you at keeping piles? And now ..... the killer question: How quickly can you find a document when you need it?

I read recently that the average person spends about an hour a day looking for stuff.  If your time is worth $200 an hour and you spend just 20 hours a month looking for stuff, that works out to $48000 a year! What could you do with that 20 extra hours a month, or the extra money. I know I could put it to more productive use!!

So think about how you might be able to systemize your piles of paper - perhaps a filing cabinet or two with a clear and easy system for filing and retrieving documents and referencing them from a central database. Worth spending some time on - after all, the return is 20 hours every month or $48000 every year!

Take Control of Your Email !!

I know many people who have literally thousands of emails in their email Inbox. They open emails that they receive, and if not sure what to do immediately with them, close the email back to the inbox. They virtually "live" in their email Inbox and keep revisiting these collected emails, as well as reacting every time a new email arrives. Not very productive.....:-(

Here are some suggestions to help take control of your email. Email should be a tool that helps you do what you do and be more productive (not enslave you to something that always demands attention).

1. Don’t check email first thing in the morning, or have it constantly on. Instead, do your most important thing for the day, or the thing you’ve been procrastinating on the most. Then check email. Better yet, do 2 or 3 things first.
2. Also, turn off ALL email notification mechanisms - they are a distraction! Decide how often you will check email (e.g. 2 times a day) and stick to that.
3. When you check your email, dispose of each one, one at a time, right away. Make a decision on what needs to be done on each email - QUICKLY! I think of a "4D" model - make one of four decisions: Delete (or File), Delegate, Do, Defer
   Is it junk or some forwarded email? Delete it immediately.
   Is it a long email that you just need to read for information? File it in a Read folder (or tag it Read and archive).
   If the email requires action, make a note of the action on your action lists to do later. Also note to check the email for info if necessary. Then archive the email. You can easily find it later when you need to do that task particularly if you flag it with a follow up flag.
   If you can respond to it in a minute or two, do so immediately. Don’t put it off.
   If you need to follow up on the email later, or are waiting for a response, note it on your action list and defer the action. Don’t just leave it in your inbox as a reminder.
4. Have only one folder: Archive with subfolders arranged suitably underneath that. When you respond to an email, or finish reading it if it doesn’t need response, or note it on your next action list, archive it. You could add a Read folder if you want, or flag items to read and categorize them with Reading context. There are some excellent search utilities (apart from the Windows desktop search) that allow you to fine emails or other files on your PC, so you don't need to think too hard about where to file (examples are Google Desktop and X1 Professional Client)

So, for those of you who have a cluttered Inbox - try some of these tips and see if you can get it to Empty!