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

Laura Stack talks about meetings and how you can make them more productive. (c) 2010 Laura Stack www.theproductivitypro.com

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You’ve decided to conduct a webinar for your association member, corporate employees, or your team members spread around the country. How do you ensure the Webinar goes off without a hitch?

Here are the top ten tips on how to have a successful webinar:

1. Select the best format for your objectives. Each of these popular formats has pros and cons:
• Single speaker who presents and administers the webinar—easy to coordinate but can be less interactive if participants are hesitant to ask questions.
• Interview style with a moderator—more interesting than just one voice but harder to coordinate the discussion.
• Facilitated conversation with multiple panelists—more people to train and the potential for panelists to talk over each other; adds a variety of perspectives and can increase audience interest.

2. Determine the level of interaction. We’ve all experienced webinars with road noise, dogs, babies, and ringing phones in the background. So I prefer to mute all attendees and take questions via the chat box only, rather than opening up the lines. I also encourage participants to submit their questions on the topic before the program begins. Many platforms support audience questions at registration. I also recommend other methods for keeping the audience engaged during the webinar, such as taking a poll or asking a question and asking for answers via chat.

3. Plan your visuals. Script your core content if you’re nervous about losing your train of thought. Text-heavy slides with multiple bullets on one page are boring, since the participant won’t have anything to look at for long periods of time. Webinars rely on visuals to keep the audience engaged, so use lots of graphics and one point per slide. Rather than screen shots of applications, use a platform that supports desktop sharing and demonstrate concepts “live.” For example, I support my PowerPoint presentations with tours of websites, demos of my actual Outlook software, and program tools in action for a more dynamic experience.

4. Determine who does what. There are several roles that may be played by one to multiple people. First, you’ll have an Organizer who creates the webinar, markets the event, sets up the registration, and communicates with participants. Second, there may also be a separate Facilitator who welcomes everyone, outlines logistics, hits the record button, introduces the speaker, and handles audience questions. Third is the Speaker, who is the content expert who will run the actual presentation or ask for slides to be advanced. Fourth are any additional Panelists if you have more than one speaker. Fifth, you might have additional Assistants on the line to answer technical questions and address problems during the actual webinar itself, especially if it’s a large webinar that can’t be handled by the Organizer alone. I’m an experienced webinar presenter, so I’m comfortable presenting and facilitating the webinar at the same time. However, other presenters are more comfortable having an assistant to remember to share the screen, hit the record button, and handle other webinar functions.

5. Promote your webinar well in advance. Get the word out three to four weeks prior to the webinar. Include advertisements on your website, blog, listservs, newsletters, social media networks (such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter), and online event calendars such as www.upcoming.com. Create engaging copy with title, description, objectives, who should attend, logistics, cost (if any) and registration URL. Once an attendee has registered, most platforms support automatic reminders at registration, one week, one day, and one hour prior to the webinar.

6. Conduct a dry run. If you have multiple participants who are unfamiliar with the webinar process, it’s critical to schedule a run-through several days prior to the webinar to work out any kinks. During this time, you can download necessary software, address technical issues, introduce panelists, establish a time line, discuss features such as drawing tools and the chat window, test headsets and equipment, practice transferring the controls and sharing desktops, and answer any remaining questions. If time allows, move through the presentation to verify slide order.

7. Start preparations an hour before show time. Post a “Do not disturb: webinar in progress” sign on the door. Turn off noisy technology and background noises. Put away pets if presenting from a home office. Get a glass of water. Hook up your microphone or USB headset. Print your slideshow outline and verify your computer is running smoothly. Launch any applications or websites you’ll use during the presentation.

8. Log in early and conduct a tech check. Send out call-in numbers, access codes, and URLs well in advance if you have multiple panelists. Ask all participants to log in at least 15 minutes prior to the start to test connectivity. Conduct roll call and verify that everything is working. Review the timeline. Give out a method to reach you offline should a panelist encounter problems.

9. Conduct a fabulous webinar! You’ve prepared and planned—now enjoy the fruits of your labors and let it roll.
• Announce any logistical details at the beginning of the program to let attendees know the game plan. Clarify if there will be time at the end of the session for questions and the best way to submit questions during the program. Also explain if the session will be recorded and where it will be posted.
• Don’t forget to hit the record button!
• Stand when you are speaking if possible. Attendees can’t see you, of course, but your projection will be more animated and interesting when you stand.
• Don’t worry if less than 25% of the registrants show up for the “live” session; many plan to simply watch the recording afterward.

10. Follow up with participants. Just because the webinar is over doesn’t mean your work has ended! Many platforms have built-in functionality to automatically present an evaluation to attendees at the conclusion of the webinar. If not, you can use surveymonkey.com to create your own online survey. You can create questions to gather feedback on the content, speakers, process, or to gauge interest in future topics. Schedule an automatic message to thank participants and follow up with no-shows. You can also publish a recap, summary, transcript, or recording of the webinar online. Many organizations sell this recording in their digital stores for profit.

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Technology has given us so many options when it comes to keeping track of our to-do lists—Smartphones, web-based applications, desktop applications, PDAs—but figuring out the best system for you can be a real challenge (and a frustrating one at that). 

Interestingly enough, even with all the technology out there, informal research (mine and others’) still shows that when push comes to shove, most people still fall back on good old-fashioned paper. In fact, a lifehack.org survey shows that not only do most people use a paper to-do list, but that paper is more than twice as popular as any other method listed! 

Why is that?

Because we’re human.

Life doesn’t always happen when you’re sitting in front of your computer. We sit in meetings. We leave the office and go home. We travel. And no matter how attached we are to our Treos and Blackberries or how sophisticated the technology becomes, most people simply don’t like making lists or taking notes while squinting at a tiny screen or getting thumb cramps trying to punch in line after line of text.

The bottom line is that handhelds are great for portability and storing reference information, but they’re just not configured for extensive note-taking. That’s why so many handheld users end up being the most disorganized and messy of us all. Without a paper planner, the inevitable to-do lists and reminders end up scattered all over the place on sticky notes and little scraps of paper. Without a “home” for it all, these notes become disorganized, lost, and useless. 

So what’s the solution? Let’s look at some of the most popular approaches to organizing your to-do lists (and your life) and see if we can come up with a solution that uniquely suits you.

Paper Planners. Interestingly enough, people who use paper planners exclusively are often the most well organized of us all. Paper planners allow you to have your system available at all time, combine your personal and professional lives, see an instant view of your schedule, and keep manageable to-do lists. In the over 100 training seminars and speeches I give ever year, I’ve met countless numbers of people who tell me how they abandoned their trusty paper systems in search of hip “paperless” PDA methods—just to become so disorganized that they reverted back to paper.

However, for all the advantages, there are challenges with using a paper planner only. With hundreds of contacts, it’s often impractical to keep track of everyone on paper. Other workers in your organization can’t check your calendar for availability if you’re not on the system. Your assistant can’t schedule appointments for you easily without worry of double booking. And you can’t access your email from the road on paper.

Desktop software. Desktop computer software—such as like Outlook, Lotus, and GroupWise—is great. It allows you to manage your contacts, calendar, and to-do lists in one place without having to work with a pocket-sized interface. 

In fact, desktop software is absolutely perfect—assuming that you never leave your desk—ever. But you do have to go home. And then when you think of something you need to do at work, you have to make a note. And the scrapping begins. You probably have meetings. If someone says, “Let’s meet again next Thursday. What’s your schedule?” Your very unprofessional response is “Uh, I don’t know. It’s on my calendar back at my desk.” If you appear so out of control, why would anyone trust you with something more important?

Business (and life) has a tendency to happen on its own terms, so it is important to have a system in place for gathering things like notes, appointments, and contact information, at least until you get back to your desk. I always recommend that everyone have some sort of paper system to supplement whatever they are doing electronically. A spiral notebook is disorganized due to the rigid binding: notes, to-do’s, phone numbers, and random information is all mixed together, forcing you to go back and re-read, re-write, and re-organize. You must constantly review old pages to determine what isn’t done. Spiral notebooks become a blur of cross-outs and scribbles due to non-flexibility. That’s why I designed The Productivity Pro® DayTimer® with rings, so the pages could be moved around. You could also print your Outlook calendars and carry them around with you. Or you could sync to a PDA. I personally hate tapping on the screen all the time. Don’t get me wrong—I love my PDA (I use a Mogul by Sprint)—but really only for email, texting, phone calls, and contact management. I prefer to see a big-picture view of my schedule and things to do on my trusty paper system. I just don’t feel creative when I’m not putting pen to paper, and a centralized system beats scraps paper every time!

Web-based applications. As it becomes easier and easier to find an internet connection when you need one, Web-based applications can be a great organizational tool. Whether you use the Web simply to access your calendar or are set up to remotely access your entire PC, it is nice to be able to get what you need from any computer with an internet connection.

Especially if you travel often, using Web-based software comes in handy where traditional desktop software might break down. You don’t need to get to your computer; you just need to get to a computer. 

However, Web-based software has the same problem as desktop software—it isn’t always going to be at your fingertips. That’s why, just like with a desktop application, you’ll still need a paper supplement. 

Handheld devices. By this I basically mean anything that fits in your pocket—a PDA, Treo, Blackberry, Smartphone, whatever. When handhelds started catching on, many were probably thinking that our organization problems were solved. After all, we could finally have the best of both worlds—technology and portability.

Unfortunately, most of us quickly found that however sophisticated an electronic device could become, they still didn’t quite cut it. The task list isn’t user-friendly. Even if you understand categories well enough and can sort your list, the devices max out at usually 15 categories. And nobody wants to scribble with a stylus or furiously thumb-type their way through a meeting or conversation, and you look like a dork. (I gave myself a painful condition called “Blackberry Thumb” from attempting it.) And even if you do get all of the information entered properly, tiny navigation screens and tinier font sizes just don’t quite cut it.

Handheld devices are great when you need to enter a new contact’s information on the fly or check to see if your schedule is open two Thursday’s from now, but they still can’t do the job of simple pen and paper when it comes to writing notes and creating lists.

The Solution—a Hybrid method! It’s getting harder and harder to find people that don’t use some form of electronic organizing tool, but even the most tech-savvy tend to fall back on paper for some tasks. If you’re listening to a voice mail on your phone, what are you doing? Writing down the message. Bingo. You need a paper planner. When you’re talking to the Hertz customer service agent on the phone, and he asks for your Gold number, what are you doing? Trying not to hang up on the person while you mumble, “Uh, hang on, it’s in my…phone.” Bingo. You need a paper planner. You’re sitting in a meeting talking with your biggest client. What are you doing? Typing notes with your thumbs while attempting to listen? I doubt it. Again…you need a paper planner…one place that will consolidate your lists, reference information, and notes.

I became so frustrated watching people struggle with finding an effective way to use their hand-held organizers in the real world that I teamed up with Day-Timers, Inc. to create a paper system that is specifically designed for users of hand-held organizers (although it works just as well for those without handhelds).

The Productivity Pro® DayTimer® planner has monthly calendar tabs but no time slots on the daily pages (you probably keep that sort of information on your computer or handheld). This gives you a large, easy-to-manage writing space for your notes, lists, and those pesky to-dos that always seem to be slipping through the cracks otherwise. (Visit www.daytimer.com/productivity to check out the planner.) It also has tools to help with things like long-range planning and ongoing lists—things that don’t always have an intuitive home within electronic organizers. If you’re more curious exactly how it works, get a sneak peak of the planner directions and features and benefits. It allows instantly-accessible paper that allows you to follow my mantra: if you think it, ink it! ™

Beginning May 10, there will be a 20% coupon off the purchase of a bundle: my smooth black Nappa leather binder, storage case, and one-year of neutral, dated pages and inserts (start date July 2008) at www.daytimer.com/laurastack (click “Laura’s products”). Guys, don’t worry—no frills—I designed this with you in mind. Hopefully this will help you create a time management system that exactly meets your needs. I can’t wait to hear what you think!

Make it a productive day! ™

Listen on…

(C) 2009 Laura Stack. www.TheProductivityPro.com

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Like it or not, social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are here to stay – and it isn’t just kid stuff anymore.  In fact, businesses and individuals worldwide keep finding interesting ways to use social networks and other interactive online media to do some pretty amazing things – from building their brands to getting to know their customers. How do you keep it from sabotaging your productivity?

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My QVC segment aired live on 1/8/08 at approximately 8:20 EST.

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Tune in on Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 7:00 AM EST to QVC and watch Laura Stack LIVE as she sells her Productivity Pro(R) Day-Timer(R)!  Or if you miss the show, go to www.QVC.com and watch it on-line.

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http://www.theproductivitypro.com/newsletters/num115Dec2008.htm visit for full newsletter

Importance of Productivity during Down Times

In the summer of 1900…

• The average life expectancy in the United States was 47.
• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11, which was an incredible sum because the average American made .22 cents an hour, or about $400 per year.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Only 6% of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores.
• There were about 230 reported murders in the US annually.

Amazing what a century will change. Amazing what a few months will change. Growth ends, recession sets in, the stock market stops booming, and companies go bust. The recession is impacting our clients in various ways: we’re hearing of layoffs, hiring freezes, reduced budgets, not rehiring for positions as people leave, go on maternity, etc.

Tough economic times are packing a one-two punch in the workplace.

First, everyone is forced to do more with less (POW!).

Second, you have to do it all while dealing with the nagging anxieties that come with an uncertain economy—threats of downsizing, bankruptcies, cost containment, you name it (POW, again!).

So how do we cope—as leaders and as productive employees?

To succeed and keep their doors open, companies must make more money but spend less money and create greater results with fewer resources. You could attempt to cut salaries, benefits, staff, costs, or the quality of your products—all poor options. A better choice? Increase employee productivity. If you have 10 people, and you can get them to improve their productivity by 10%, you just effectively added another staff person without increasing salary expense—a much more attractive response. To do this, your employees need your help.

First of all, get a grip on your personal negative feelings that result from your lack of control. You DO have control over your friends, your love relationships, and your career. You decide for yourself what’s right and what’s wrong, whether you should stay in this weekend or go out, whether to vote Democrat or Republican. You decide who to see, what to wear, what to eat.

However, you have VERY LITTLE control over the government, economic policy, the rise and fall of the stock market, Mother Nature, international events, and even your company direction. Changes can often disrupt your life and force you to change your plans. Often there is little you can do and yet you are overwhelmingly affected by it. Accepting what is means realizing you can’t control certain things and to stop trying. You can sit around and wonder, “Oh, my gosh, how is this going to affect me? What if I’m next to go? How will I pay the bills? I’m going to be a bag lady!” You stew and worry and literally make yourself sick.

These things will happen. They just will. You will get no warning, and nobody will prepare you. And that’s frustrating. Because people will tell you to “reach for the stars—you can achieve whatever you want!” But they don’t mention you might get hit by a comet in the process.

It’s time to accept the things that you cannot change and focus on the things you can. What can you do?

Give yourself a break. Try to stay positive, despite the doom and gloom. Overdosing on pessimistic, overly dramatic news coverage is just going to weigh you down with bad thoughts—not good for those looking to clear their heads and get things done! It’s important to be informed about what is happening in the world, but you definitely don’t want to overdo it.

For months now, we’ve been bombarded with bad economic news every time we turn on the television or pick up a newspaper. No wonder everybody seems to be in a rut. Follow the daily news as much as you need to so that you feel in the loop and understand the issues that affect your industry. Other than that, it might be time to shut off the TV and catch up on some fun reading or spend some more time with family.

Know your job. Seems like this one should be a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed at how often our responsibilities can change and evolve without our even knowing it. Small incremental changes in how employees or departments do business can add up over time, leaving groups of people that work hard, but aren’t contributing to business objectives as effectively as they once did.

For example, in an effort to provide an exceptional level of service, you might find yourself doing work that is below your pay grade. Maybe you end up doing a large portion of the administrative work associated with a project that needs your input. Consider the value of your time!

Make sure that the things that occupy your time are worthy of your talent and expertise and hold your staff to the same standard. With any project, you should be able to look at the time spent, multiply by the pay rate of the ones doing the work, and still feel that your resources were well spent.

If you’ve got a $40,000/year employee stuffing a bunch of envelopes (even just that one time) or a six-figure manager assembling an important presentation page-by-page, then that work becomes awfully expensive!

These examples might seem outrageous to you, but believe me, it happens all the time. Never make the mistake of treating your time like it’s free. Time and other resources are limited, and we need to treat them that way.

As your company and your department are undoubtedly being asked to do more with less, now is the time to step back and take stock of the type of work you’re doing. Many times roles and responsibilities change, but job descriptions do not. As a result, we end up drifting away from core priorities and towards dong work that, while challenging, doesn’t really meet the organization’s immediate needs.

Now might be a good time to step back and ask that all important question: “Why am I (or we) doing this?” If you can’t answer that, or the answer doesn’t make sense, it’s time to purposefully make a change.

Break habits, build systems. Every office that has been around for any length of time has certain unwritten policies and procedures that exist simply because “we’ve always done it that way.” Now is a great opportunity to analyze your existing business practices and find opportunities to break the bad habits that may be bogging your operation down. Take you entire department for example. Do you and your people have a clear idea of your area’s specific responsibilities? Do you have the confidence and determination to say “no” when someone is asking you to do work that is outside your scope of responsibility?

Perhaps over the years your group took on the responsibility of coordinating quarterly meetings with senior managers. It might have made sense for you to be doing the legwork then, but now that the work has become routine, is it really the best use of your talent and resources?

That’s just one specific example, but there are many more out there. Usually, these are the kinds of tasks and responsibilities that make employees want to ask the all-important “Why am I doing this?” question. Rather than spend another day mindlessly plowing though projects that may or may not be a good use of your time, force yourself to take a hard look at what you are doing and why you are doing it.

If you had to pick three tasks or responsibilities that should be the top priorities for your department, what would they be? Once you know, evaluate how much time and energy is dedicated to those things. You might be surprised at how much time we can spend doing things that aren’t even close to the top of that priorities list.

It isn’t always easy to say “no,” but fortunately, that’s where your systems can come in. As you work to create smooth, efficient systems to do work within your department, you can give yourself some ammunition to fend off others in the company that might be inclined to slide work onto your plate where it doesn’t belong. If you don’t have firm policies and procedures in place to identify who should be doing what, it is much more difficult to make the case for “no.”

Analyze your relationships with other departments. Have trouble turning down work coming from other areas of the company? Now is a perfect time to start fresh and rebuild your department’s boundaries. In a frank and honest way, simply explain to others that in light of the current economic situation, your group has taken a critical look at its daily operations and needs to decline certain types of requests in order to build efficiency.

Perhaps you need to apply a little systems thinking and rethink the flow of information. Is there a procedure in place for other business units to request your assistance or input? If there’s not, you’re probably being hit from all angles with requests that may or may not be the best use of your time. Diagram how work moves through your department. Where does it come in from and go out to other departments? Interview your internal customers and find out how you can provide value through reduced services. Can you provide a report monthly instead of quarterly? Can you cancel the weekly project meeting and get everyone to email updates instead? Question travel requests if you feel a conference call will do. One of the best ways to take stock of the situation is to survey your group, ask them what gets in the way of productivity, and to genuinely ask how they would redesign things if they could.

Find the bottom line. Right now, businesses everywhere are taking stock of their must-haves versus their nice-to-haves. From an organizational perspective, which are you?

Economic necessity can force budget cuts and cost containment that might otherwise be unnecessary. One way to prepare yourself for this reality is to make sure you have a good understanding of how you and your people contribute to the company’s bottom line.

Sometimes, it’s easy. If you work in sales, for example, the correlation between what you do every day and the company’s financial success might be very straightforward—my group sells our most profitable product, which makes the company money.

Sometimes that correlation is not so obvious. If you operate in a support role, like Human Resources, you may want to start looking at your various responsibilities and deciding which among them have the greatest influence on the company’s bottom line—either by somehow driving revenue or by controlling expenses. Perhaps you help contribute to developing talent within the company, which clearly has an impact on the overall success of the organization. Employee development always seems to be one of the first things to go during down economic times, but this is not the time to reduce training if you’d like to get more work from fewer people. Or maybe you’re managing clerical or administrative functions that would be expensive to secure elsewhere.
If you can’t draw a line from what you do each day to the financial well-being of the company, then it might be time to do some hard thinking. Your other contributions might be valuable, but in difficult economic times, corporate leadership often becomes must more focused on dollars and cents, for better or for worse.

Where am I going with this? If it isn’t obvious how your contributions benefit the company, be prepared to explain how they do. If you CAN’T explain why certain aspects of what you do are valuable, then it’s time to stop doing them.

At the end of the day, productivity is about more than getting things done. It’s about getting the RIGHT things done and getting them done efficiently.

Make it a productive day! (TM)

(C) Copyright 2008 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.  www.TheProductivityPro.com

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Unless you’re in accounting or retail, many businesses slow down dramatically between now and mid-January.  Or maybe your normally-humming business has slowed down to a slow sputter due to the economy.  Take the opportunity to relax a bit and enjoy your family, but also take advantage of the lull by completing some of those projects that have been sitting on the back burner.  You always say, “I’ll get to that someday,” or “I’ll do it when I have more time.”  Well, now’s the day you have more time.  So knock some things out before things pick up again in February.  What could you work on?

·        Purge your filing cabinets of outdated materials you never refer to.

·        Pull all your 2008 tax information.

·        Move old client files to archive boxes in your basement.

·        Clean out your computer files.

·        Finally download, organize, and print your digital photos.

·        Go through your shelves and donate to charity, a retirement home, or your library.

·        Take clothes that don’t fit, you don’t like, or aren’t in style to Goodwill.

·        Organize your pantry and toss expired items.

·        Go through all your bookmarks and delete links no longer of interest.

·        Learn that new software package you bought but never took out.

·        Record a new podcast, youtube video, or product.

·        Write a book proposal or book (my current project), a white paper, or articles.

·        Get rid of items in your crawl space, basement, attic or garage.

·        Give your walls a fresh coat of paint.

·        Train your pet

·        Learn a new sport or start a new hobby.

·        Lose some weight and exercise.

·        Update your electronic press kit on the web (letters, photos, articles, etc.)

·        Sign up for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and learn to expand your network.

·        Begin a new marketing campaign.

·        Create new promotional literature and support pieces.

·        Update your video with new footage.

·        Read the stack of books that have been on your nightstand or side table for months.

·        Call every single one of your past clients to say hello.

·        Plan your 2009 goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics.

·        Map out future projects.

·        Start over.

What else can you do to productively take advantage of these slow times?
(c) 2008 Laura Stack

www.TheProductivityPro.com

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We’ve all been there at some point—you look back on the week or the month—feeling that too much has been left undone.  You say to yourself, “Where did the time go?” It’s a common lament.  If this sounds like you, it might be useful to try a time log for a week to discover your patterns.  Time logs can help uncover wasted time that can be turned into productive time.  They can also show you when you tend to be most productive, so you can organize your days to take full advantage of those productive times.  You’ll quickly so who is interrupting you the most.  You’ll discover your bad habits and see where you let pleasurable activities take over high-priority tasks.

There are numerous logging software tools available for download on the internet. These can be useful for those who spend their entire work day at a desk in front of a computer. If you frequently travel or spend time out of the office, using the old-fashioned pen-and-paper method works well because you can easily slip it into your planner. On my site at http://www.theproductivitypro.com/FreeStuff/Time_Log.doc, you’ll find a simple template with instructions that you can use to log your time.  Give it a shot.  You might be surprised at what you discover!

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Stop Trying to Be on Time!

Victor Borge, the Danish humorist and musician, was well into a performance when a woman came in late, fighting her way through the rows to her seat near the front. Borge stopped playing and as she proceeded—trampling over people, rustling, and disturbing her way to her seat—he said (much to her chagrin, as all eyes focused on her ill-timed arrival), “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.” After she sat down, he walked over near where she was sitting and said, “Where are you from, Ma’am?” “Fifty-Seventh Street,” she said. “Well, Lady, I’m from Denmark, and I was here on time.”

While Borge might have been trying to get a laugh from his audience, his obvious annoyance speaks to the principle of Preparation in Mark Sanborn’s newest book, The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do, which I’ll discuss in this brief article.  In the 16 years I’ve been speaking professionally on the concepts of personal productivity, one of the biggest complaints I hear from leaders who bring me in to speak to their employees on performance is something around “the inability to meet deadlines, always being late, constantly running behind, or being forgetful”—a performance that is hardly remarkable.

People are much more irritated by lateness than you can know or they will admit; it can dampen everything from promotions and raises to friendships.  Late people crowd you, physically and mentally.  When people show up late, it undoes your schedule and disrupts your day.  Showing up late or sending something in late—no matter how well done—still means a black mark against you. 

I consider myself blessed to be close friends with Mark and his wife, Darla.  Since we only live a few miles apart, our families frequently enjoy spending time together.  At a recent 4th of July barbeque at our home, Mark joked with me about the already-cut-up plates of tomatoes, onions, pickles, and lettuce, wrapped in plastic, and waiting in the refrigerator.  I joked back, “Why, I’m just following the principle of Preparation from your book!”  Does a simple act of slicing burger fixings in advance make for a better barbeque?  I think so.  Being unprepared would have meant trying to cut everything up while the burgers got cold.  I still would have been “on time,” but I’d be half listening to them and missing pieces of conversation while focusing on my task. 

This is the source of many people’s lateness, I believe: they are trying to be on time.  On page 17 of The Encore Effect, Mark defines average performance as, “the best of the worst and the worst of the best.”  He says further, “These performers are the best of the mediocre middle, neither hot nor cold but lukewarm.  The problem is that average performance doesn’t get you noticed.”  Simply being on time doesn’t get you noticed, because it’s fairly typical.  It just doesn’t stand out.  It’s okay…it’s just expected…yawn. Don’t be simply “average”!  So don’t be on time: be EARLY. 

Mark’s principle of Preparation—planning in reverse—speaks to this concept. I had to chuckle at his story of the fishermen on page 61.  It reminded me of cutting up tomatoes before the barbeque.  Being prepared means you do things EARLY.  Not on time.  Early.  Done in advance.  Proactive.  Forward looking.  With a long-term focus.  We’re not talking ridiculously early here, in a way that inconveniences your host when you arrive for a party.  It’s a way of thinking, a way of being, a way you frame your behavior.

The process of finding and seizing “The Crucial 5 Percent” (page 64), applies Preparation to people in this way:

1. “Late” people are perpetually behind on everything.
2. “On time” people arrive or finish a minute or two ahead or behind the goal.
3. “Early” people are remarkable and are prepared for everything.

Imagine how life would be if you were always so prepared that you arrived early everywhere, for everything.  You would:

• Get the first choice of many things,
• Gain admiration and respect,
• Are able to relax and not sweat,
• Get good press and publicity, and
• Have a bit time to relax, read, or return a call.

My point is that you can never really be on time…just barely on one side or the other…so you’re never totally trusted, no matter how skilled you are.  Being early makes you look remarkable and demonstrates to others you can be depended upon.  Being late, however, makes people wonder if you’ll be on time next time. 

Mark distinguishes between “routine” and “remarkable” on page 18.  I couldn’t agree more and would frame it in this manner:
• Routine “on time” people communicate through their actions, “I might not make the next deadline.”  “I’m barely in control.”  “I’m not looking beyond the moment.”
• Remarkable “early” people communicate through their actions, “I don’t need deadlines.”  “I’m in complete control.”  “I look ahead.”

(We won’t discuss late people, since that belabors the obvious.)  In trying to be early, don’t go out and simply set your watch five minutes fast to try to fool yourself, because psychologically, you know it is five minutes fast, and make up for it anyway.  Keep your clocks on the correct time.  Preparation is all about planning.  Instead of thinking, “I have to be there at 9:00 AM,” think, “I will plan on arriving at 8:45.”  Then work backward.  How long should it take you to get there?  Add a buffer in case there’s traffic.  What time would that require you to drop off the kids at daycare?  What time would you have to get them up in order to make that happen?  What time do you have to get up to make that happen?  And what will you do if you arrive even earlier than 8:45?  Be prepared to pay bills, make calls, read a report, or write thank-you notes.

Before you close shop for the day, ask yourself, “What’s coming up next week?”  “What can I get out of the way now?”  Before you retire for the night, go over the next day.  Know exactly where you need to be, what you need to have with you, and have everything laid out.  Have clothes selected, school papers signed, lunches made, briefcase packed, and schedule outlined.  As Mark says on page 58, “The future we experience depends on the preparations we make today.”

By preparing in this way, you enable yourself to be early.  Soon, you won’t have “deadlines,” because they will be unnecessary.  Deadlines eliminate all the job of accomplishment as you work for the deadline, not the completion of a project or task.  Deadlines were made for people who would not get things done without one.  You, on the other hand, are prepared, a remarkable performer, deserving of an Encore performance.

Stop being on time!
© 2008 Laura Stack.  Laura Stack is a personal productivity expert, author, and professional speaker who helps busy workers Leave the Office Earlier® with Maximum Results in Minimum Time®.  She is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., a time management training firm specializing in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations.  Since 1992, Laura has presented keynotes and seminars on improving output, lowering stress, and saving time in today’s workplaces.  She is the bestselling author of three works published by Broadway Books: The Exhaustion Cure (2008), Find More Time (2006) and Leave the Office Earlier (2004). Subscribe to her free productivity newsletter at www.TheProductivityPro.com.

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