The Productivity Pro® Blog by Laura Stack - Time Management, Getting Things Done, How to Be More Productive

Are you working 60-80 hours a week? Would you like to learn how to be more productive at work, so you can achieve the same results in less time and Leave the Office Earlier®? This 20 part seminar is Laura’s productivity class that combines key concepts from multiple seminar listings into a comprehensive program. The You Can Be a Productivity Pro® video series covers:

* Planning
* Prioritization
* Scheduling
* Multi-tasking
* Concentration
* Discipline
* Organization
* Time management systems

Topics cover all aspects of your personal productivity—from the start of your day until the end—to help you get Maximum Results in Minimum Time®. Professionals, managers, and administrative staff will gain scores of new ideas from The Productivity Pro® on increasing output without increasing effort and performing at your matchless best!

This great series is now available as a rental on YouTube! Visit www.YouTube.com/TheProductivityPro for more information.

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Availability is driven by Activity.

Just as setting valid priorities and goals is important, so is accepting your responsibility in carrying them out. You have to structure your schedule very carefully to ensure that things get done—because if you don’t, other people will be perfectly happy to structure your schedule for you.

Think about it: how many times have you attended a meeting and asked yourself, “Why am I here?” Often, it’s because someone decided you should be—without bothering to consider if that was best for you and your productivity goals.

You have to be willing to protect your time from everyone who wants a piece of it. Among other things, you must learn to say no when appropriate, to delegate, to cancel unnecessary meetings, to let some tasks go, and to eliminate bottlenecks—whatever’s necessary to take back your time and use it the way you need to.

More importantly, you must learn how to leverage technological productivity tools that can lighten your scheduling load. Webinars, teleconferencing, and services like Jott or GoToMeeting can accelerate productivity and streamline your schedule. So can the effective use of organizers and other paper-based methods. The trick is finding which one works best for you, and that takes some experimentation.

Try these tips to hone your Availability toward SuperCompetence:

1. Refuse requests when appropriate. Learn how to say no graciously. Because you’re good at what you do, you’ll always be fielding requests for help and input. It’s human nature to want to please others, but you can’t do it all. There’s no need to be rude, but there are polite ways to avoid being overworked.

2. Set appropriate boundaries. Learn how to protect your time from others. You’re always going to face what I call the six D’s of Interruptions: Deadlines, Disruptions, Dependencies, Discrepancies, Distractions, and Drop-Ins. You can’t let others use any of these to slow down your productivity.

3. Push a task down to the lowest level of responsibility. Trust others to do their jobs; “delegation” is a popular business buzzword for a reason. Don’t waste your time and productivity on tasks other people can do more cheaply. Hand them off to someone else, and let them do their jobs without micromanagement.

4. Schedule your day realistically according to your key activities. While it’s normal to make an effort to accommodate other people’s needs, your own should come first. Learn to manage your time properly, and take control of your own schedule. Don’t let other people do it for you.

5. Weigh the results of attending any meeting against the results you could produce instead. Meetings can take up your entire day if you let them. Instead of dropping everything to attend a meeting, see if you can send a proxy, attend by phone, or just cancel it altogether.

Availability is a loaded word, at least in business terms. It means so much more than just being there—any decent worker can and should be there for their employers, subordinates, and co-workers when they’re needed. SuperCompetent people need to be keenly aware of time management. After all, time isn’t like money, office supplies, or Brussels sprouts: we’ve each got a very limited amount of it, and we’re not going to get any more.

If you say yes to everything someone asks you to do, you’re going to be so overburdened that you won’t be available to people when they need you, except on those rare occasions when you manage to clear a task off your schedule. You require some flexibility, which means that you not only have to learn how to say no to some requests (or creatively negotiate them somewhat), but you also need to learn how to effectively deal with distractions and diversions—from people demanding your time to “helpful” technology that seems to command all your time.

And stop trying to be such a perfectionist! You don’t have to do everything; the idea is to be SuperCompetent, not SuperHuman. Superman’s a fantasy—and even if he wasn’t, you have to remember that he’s supposed to be an alien from another planet, not a human being. Knowing how to delegate and/or outsource tasks whenever you can, and having the wisdom to do so, is a must.

You’ll also need to learn effective scheduling techniques to make life easier for both you and everyone else, and hone them to maximum effectiveness so things don’t get out of hand. The same is true when it comes to meetings. As I’ve said elsewhere, a task will expand to fill the amount of time available; that’s something called Parkinson’s Law (after naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson, if you were wondering). Meetings are a prime example of the tendency for that to happen.

You don’t have to let time-stealers eat into your productivity! Stand up, step up, and take back your time!

Make it a productive day! ™

© Copyright 2010 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

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SUPERCOMPETENT KEY #1: ACTIVITY. Activity demonstrates value and reflects importance.

In this competitive economy, just being able to do your job is no longer enough.

Competence is simply expected in today’s workplaces. But you can’t be simplycompetent; you have to be SuperCompetent(TM) to get an edge. Laura Stack’s new book, SuperCompetent: the Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best (Wiley 2010), gives high potentials proven methods to reach peak performance and achieve breakthrough results.

You’ll discover the six keys to unlocking your full potential: Activity, Availability, Attention, Accessibility, Accountability, and Attitude. The Productivity Pro®, Laura Stack, gives you a clear and practical system for achieving Maximum Results in Minimum Time®. By contrasting SuperCompetent(TM) hero thinking with simply Competent zero thinking, you’ll see that transforming your performance is not about mantras but mindsets.

SuperCompetent will be available in August 2010, just in time for your fall conference or leadership development program.

When the rubber hits the road, the difference between merely having ability and being exceptional may be the difference between losing your job and keeping it. The best workers possess a constant, expansive ability to be good at everything they do, no matter how general or specific. In this next series of six monthly newsletter articles, I’ll show you how to master the six universal Keys to workplace success. In this first article, we’ll cover the first key: Activity.

SuperCompetent people have an acute sense of direction, in which the nature of their activities reflects their relative priorities. They’re particularly aware of one thing that escapes most of their colleagues: that being busy and being productive are two very different things.

You can be busy all day long, running from one brushfire to another, and not accomplish anything productive at all. True Activity involves knowing your goals intimately, keeping them constantly in mind, and working toward them in an efficient way that wastes a minimum of energy and time. SuperCompetent people aren’t hidebound by the old ways of doing things, either; if there’s a possibility of doing something more efficiently, they suggest or implement it. Here are a few ways to help you fine-tune your workday in the Key of Activity, keeping things humming along like a well-oiled productivity machine.

1. Know exactly why you work hard and what you’re trying to achieve. You can’t be very productive if you don’t know what you’re working for. Plan out your goals and dreams, and work toward achieving them. Learn what makes you tick, own your destiny, and keep focused on your mission.

2. Know what to do, when to do it, and why. Take initiative and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Don’t just work on projects in the order they come across your desk; learn to structure your time and processes effectively, or others will out-compete you.

3. Create systems to perform tasks more efficiently, so you can leave the office on time. Too often, we’re gulled into working harder than we should by stuff that was supposed to make our lives easier. Step forward and create or suggest more efficient ways of doing things, so that you can take back your time.

4. Regularly rest and recharge your batteries, so that you can be productive and creative when you return to work. For heaven’s sake, you’re not a robot. Take a break when you need to! As long as you don’t become a slacker, taking time off can be one of the healthiest, most productive things you can do.

5. Do the day’s most profitable and valuable tasks first. Instead of taking care of piddling brushfire issues, learn to delegate. Put the most important tasks at the top of your list, and work through them first–then do all the rest, if you have time. It’s not a sin to let unimportant tasks go.

At the end of the day, all that matters is results–and results are measured by productivity. That means you need to be very sure that your time is not only accounted for, but has real value.

Productivity, in its most meaningful sense, is all about reaching high-value goals in every area of your life, often in the shortest amount of time (but not always, such as spending time with loved ones). Nobody cares how many things you crossed off your list. Nobody cares how busy you were last week if key projects are falling through the cracks.

Only results matter, so strive to get the most value out of every day. Grab your dreams and get going!

Make it a productive day! (TM)

(C) Copyright 2010 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.
www.TheProductivityPro.com

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Are New Years Resolutions really productive? Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), talks about how resolutions and how to really make positive changes for the New Year. (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. http://www.theproductivitypro.com

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We all want to do our part to help the environment. But if you can give the Earth a break and increase your productivity at the same time, that’s a real no-brainer! Luckily, a lot of the things you can do to help sustain the planet can help sustain your productivity as well.

(C) Copyright 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

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I asked readers to fill in the blank on our last monthly survey and received some great responses.  There were tons of interesting answers, but it didn’t take long to start seeing some patterns.  Read on for the seven most common responses (and what you can do about them).

1. E-mail.  Let’s face it.  E-mail can be a phenomenal productivity tool, but it will eat your day alive if you let it.  Lots of people complain that their overflowing inbox is beyond their control, but here are three steps you CAN take to start getting a handle on it right away:

Do you keep one eye on your inbox all day long?  What does that do to your productivity?  If you drop everything and attend to every e-mail that comes in throughout the day, you are derailing your productivity, over and over again.  Not only do you waste whatever time it takes for you to read, ignore, or act on a given e-mail message, but it also takes time to refocus your attention on whatever you were doing prior to the interruption.  Try to close Outlook completely while you work on other tasks, if you simply can’t resist looking.  Also turn off your alerts, so the envelope in the system tray doesn’t constantly remind you there’s email waiting. 

For a previous blog posting I wrote on how to process email using my 6D method, go to http://www.theproductivitypro.com/blog/2006/08/how-to-process-email-and-deal-with-information-overload/

2. Watching television.  Why is it that we can spend all day scrounging for extra minutes and then head home only to flush countless hours down the drain watching television?  Television (even bad television) can be extremely habit forming and one show can very easily lead to another, turning your half-hour escape into an entire evening wasted.

Take a quick inventory of the last few TV shows you watched.  Think about how many you thought about in advance and then sat down to enjoy.  Now think about how many you ended up watching just because they were on.  Pick a few shows that you really enjoy and watch them each week.  If you have TiVo or a DVR, that’s even better.  Watch on your own time and skip the commercials.  Then shut the TV off and go about your business!

3.  Searching the Internet.  The Internet is a bottomless pit of information…some useful and some not-so-useful.  It’s much too easy to sit down to do one thing (pay a bill, look up an address) and end up wasting time on something else entirely (reading news stories, checking your social networking profiles).

If meandering around the web is relaxing for you—that’s fine—just make sure you do it at an appropriate time and place that doesn’t interfere with work or family time.  Otherwise, treat the Internet like any other tool: use it when you need it and put it away when you’re done.  Once you’ve got what you came for, close the window and move on.

4. Procrastinating on starting a difficult task or project.  Occasionally, things don’t get done because we just can’t seem to get the ball rolling.  Sometimes the task or project giving us a hard time is completely within our control, but we just don’t make it happen.  Whether the task is intimidating, time-consuming, or simply unpleasant, the solution is often the same: break it down into manageable chunks.

Forget waiting for a “block of time.” That no longer exists. Instead of viewing the task as one huge project, break it down into manageable chunks you can schedule over a period of a week or two. A twenty-hour project can be seen as ten two-hour tasks. Getting it down on paper can help you see how to best approach the project. The key is to do something to move toward completion. If you need to focus without interruption, it’s best to not work in your office.  If you can take one large task and break it into many smaller ones, it’ll be much easier to get things going.  Rather than feeling like you have to tackle some monumental project all at once, you can just look at your bite-sized first step and get started right away.

5. Handling family concerns during my work day.  Life happens.  And it isn’t always convenient.  Some things can only be arranged during the week from 9:00 to 5:00.  Fortunately, companies are starting to realize that it’s in their best interest to assist employees attempting to manage their lives during the day rather than standing in the way.  That can mean anything from allowing workers to access the Internet for incidental personal use to offering flexible schedules to accommodate personal appointments.

Talk to your boss, your peers, and your staff about finding opportunities for flexibility within the workday.  If employees don’t feel like they have to accomplish a million things during five lunch hours a week, they’ll be more productive during the rest of the day.  Do whatever you can to promote a strong, reasonable work-life balance at your organization.     

6. Scheduling meetings.  Do you find that it’s close to impossible to get five or more attendees that are available at the same time and the same date?  When key players are overbooked, it can take hours just to schedule a single a meeting.  Here are three questions you should ask yourself whenever you schedule a meeting:

a. Do we really need all these people?  Make sure you aren’t inviting anyone that doesn’t need to have a seat at the table.  Not only does it make scheduling  more difficult, but you’ll either (A) waste their time or (B) bend over backwards to accommodate someone who isn’t going to show up anyway.
b. Can we keep people in the loop without inviting them to every meeting?  Some meetings are full of wallflowers that need to know what’s going on but don’t necessarily need to contribute.  Publishing meeting minutes or distributing essential information electronically can save time and shorten the attendee list.  Also take a look to see if some work areas are sending multiple representatives.  By choosing a single designee from each area, you can make sure everyone is represented without having everyone in the room.  �
c. Do we need to meet at all?  This is a question we should ask about EVERY meeting, not just the hard-to-schedule ones.  Any meeting that doesn’t have a clear objective (if not a formal agenda) should be on the chopping block.

7. Working on fun things instead of boring tasks.  I love that this one made the list because it shows how honest my readers are!  We already talked about failing to get started on tasks because they are large or overwhelming, but what about the small, mundane tasks that you just can’t seem to get motivated to complete?  The best thing you can do is realize that you’ll focus much better on the work that is important to you if you don’t have a bunch of small, less interesting tasks hanging over your head.  One thing to keep in mind?  About 99 percent of the time, those nitpicky tasks are DRAMATICALLY easier and less painful than you think they’re going to be.  Getting started is the hardest part.  If you’re really having trouble, schedule a five-minute appointment with yourself to begin the chore. When the designated time arrives, start working on the task. If you feel like stopping at the end of five minutes, you can stop. The only rule is you must schedule an additional five minutes for tomorrow. When you begin to see some progress, five minutes soon becomes 10, 15, 20…

Make it a productive day! ™

(C) Copyright 2009 Laura Stack.  All rights reserved.  http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

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I recently surveyed my readers on the eternal question of productivity: Why is it that some things on your to-do list never get done?  Some great responses rolled in, ranging from the classic (too many interruptions) to the matter-of-fact (I don’t feel like doing it). 

But as diverse as the responses were, it didn’t take long to see certain themes emerge.  Below are the top ten issues at the heart of the problem and some guidance on how to deal with them.

1. You haven’t made the necessary decisions.  Your to-do list should be full of clear, actionable ideas—in other words, things you can actually do.  If you have a vague goal, like “Have a sale,” you’ve still got a lot of thinking to do before you can hit the ground running and make real progress.  Take a minute to figure out exactly what you need to accomplish: What kind of sale?  When will it take place?  What will it promote?  Once the task is more fleshed out, you’ll be more likely to make progress on it.

2. You haven’t talked to the people involved.  Are you worried that you don’t have the necessary support to make your idea happen?  If you need buy-in, go get buy-in.  Chances are that your first step should be to pick up the phone or schedule a meeting.  Even if you don’t get the answers you want, at least you’ll know where you stand.  From there, you can move forward, adjust your strategy, or simply move on.  Wherever the idea ends up, at least it isn’t festering on your list.

3. You haven’t done your homework.  Perhaps you know you need to schedule a teleseminar series, but haven’t gotten around to researching which platforms are available.  Figuring out the mundane logistics is now keeping you from making an important decision.  Carve out some time to do the legwork, or better yet, delegate that part of the task to someone else.  Once you have a better idea of your options, you can focus on the real issue at hand.

4. You’re ignoring your internal clock.  We spend so much time focused on schedules and deadlines that we often forget to pay attention to our body’s natural rhythms.  Yes, your Outlook calendar might say that a block of work will fit perfectly on Wednesday afternoon, but if that places your big task in the middle of a low-energy period of your day, you don’t stand a chance.  Keep your daily energy levels in mind as you plan your day.  Start high-energy projects early if that’s when your concentration is at its best.

5. The task is unpleasant.  The first step is admitting it!  If you’re being honest with yourself, you probably have an item on your list that hasn’t been done simply because the task is unpleasant and you’d rather not do it.  If that’s the case, it’s time to get tough.  Make a decision right now to either do the task, delegate the task, or forget about it altogether.  If you need to do it, stop thinking about it and just get it done.  If it can be delegated effectively, go ahead and make arrangements with someone else.  And if you’re going to eliminate it completely, cross it off your list and for goodness’ sakes move on already!

6. The task is overwhelming.  You don’t know where to start.  Is there an item on your to-do list along the lines of Complete Huge Multifaceted Project XYZ?  No wonder you aren’t making progress!  The task it too big.  Large or complicated projects need to be broken down into manageable chunks or else they’ll always take a back seat to the smaller, more manageable things on your list.  After all, would you rather spend the afternoon completing five smaller items on your list or barely making a dent in one?  By identifying a few key steps, such as “Gather Project documents” and “Outline project scope,” you’ll know exactly what needs to be done next and be less likely to hesitate as you take action.

7. You are plagued with distractions and interruptions.  Seemingly innocent interruptions like checking e-mail, answering the phone, or chatting with coworkers will eat your productivity alive.  And although many of these interruptions aren’t necessarily your fault, managing them is your responsibility.  Identify your time wasters and take immediate steps to correct the problem.  You might need to set regular times each day to check e-mail or close your door to let coworkers know you’re temporarily unavailable.  Not sure where your time is going?  Keep a detailed log for a few days and find out once and for all.

8. You are constantly putting out fires.  Does it seem impossible to achieve any real long-term focus as you jump from one urgent, immediate priority to the next?  Good leaders understand how important it is to make time for true high-value activities, even if they don’t present themselves as urgent, deadline-driven issues.  If you spend every day jumping from one issue to the next, you might help avert disasters, but you won’t ever accomplish anything substantive.  Instead, focus on the cause of all those urgent interruptions.  Do they come from lack of planning, procrastination, or a team that isn’t empowered to handle simple issues on their own?  Once you address the underlying problems, you’ll be able to focus your time and energy where it belongs.

9. The task requires a lot of work for little reward or recognition.  Recognition is nice, but don’t live and die by it.  If the task is worth doing, it is worth doing regardless of whether you will be recognized for the contribution.  If it’s not worth doing (but you have to do it anyway), just get the darn thing done and move on to something more fulfilling.  In the meantime, your paycheck is your reward.

10. You day is overscheduled before you even sit down in the morning.  You schedule time and bend over backwards for everyone else…why don’t you do the same for yourself?  Make appointments with yourself and treat them with the same level of importance as you would a meeting with a client or coworker.  If you know you need three hours to get something done, schedule three hours to get it done.  And I mean really schedule it.  Put it on your calendar, eliminate distractions, and treat the task with the same respect you would a one-on-one meeting with a live person.

So there you have it: ten huge productivity bandits—decide which ones best apply to you.  Be relentless as you kick them to the curb and get those tasks checked off your list!

Make it a productive day! ™

(C) Copyright 2009 Laura Stack.  All rights reserved.

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Performance Improvement. The Productivity Minute #13: Daily routines and morning rituals

What are you rituals and routines? Maybe coffee, socializing, facebook, twitter, email…and then it’s lunchtime…and you’ve accomplished nothing of any significance. Watch this video and learn how to shake up your routine and boost your productivity.

(C) 2009 Laura Stack. http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

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