"Suckers for irrelevancy"

I talk with people regularly about the pitfalls of multitasking. The majority of the time I receive enthusiastic agreement about the productivity downsides of trying to juggle multiple things at the same time.

And yet take even a casual look around our workplaces and roadways.... What do you see? I see plenty of evidence that our actions don't align with what we say we know.

Talking on the phone while trying to look up some information--while driving. Trying to draft an e-mail while having a conversation with someone. Checking messages on a Blackberry while sitting in a training session.

Earlier this year I interviewed Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking, for my People and Projects Podcast. Dave talked about how we actually switchtask rather than multitask, adding stress and wasted time rather than efficiency when juggling multiple creative tasks.

A new study recently released from Stanford confirms Dave's point. According to Professor Clifford Nass, high multitaskers are "suckers for irrelevancy", easily distracted by the noise that bombards us all every day.

Want to get more done today? Work on focusing on one thing and get it done.

And here's an idea! Check out the video below (but don't check e-mail while doing so)!

Labels: e-mail, Information Technology, multitasking, podcast, time management

posted by Andy at 10:05 AM  

What I "Can" Do

There are times when saying 'No' seems like a career-limiting move. Yet a clear personal productivity principle is learning to say 'No'.

Easier said than done.

I often cover this topic in our project management and leadership development workshops. Here's a link to my article "How to Say 'No' (Without Saying 'No')" that provides some helpful advice.

In addition, here's a piece from Rachel Zupek for your consideration as well. I like her focus on "What I can do..." as well as the coaching on watching your body language and vocal tone.

Clearly there are times when "No" needs to be the answer (for example, when asked to do something illegal, unethical, or against your value system). Yet some people err on the side of over-using "No" when there may be better ways to finesse the same result.

Ultimately, we need to be known as people who deliver--who make things happen. That will often happen by saying "Yes" to opportunities. But when "No" is really the best answer, it's helpful to be armed with techniques that can help you influence a "No" without always using the letters N-O!

Labels: communication, influence, managing stakeholders, managing up, time management

posted by Andy at 12:49 PM  

Get Some Time Back in Your Day

Two of my favorite productivity and time management experts are hosting free learning experiences this week.

Jason Womack: Goal Setting, this Friday 5/22, from 10:15am-10:45am Central. Click here for details on this free session. NOTE: Jason was a recent guest on my People and Projects Podcast. Click here to listen to the interview.

Dave Crenshaw: Author of The Myth of Multitasking, this Friday 5/22, from 4:00pm-5:00pm Central. Click here to register for the free session. NOTE: Dave was my guest on the People and Projects Podcast back in February. Click here to listen to the interview.

Enjoy!

Labels: learning, podcast, time management

posted by Andy at 6:16 PM  

Distraction Turns To Tragedy

Motorcyclist Fatally Struck by Car; Cops Say Other Driver Painting Nails

That was the headline in our local paper Sunday morning after a tragic accident the day before. The outrage continues to pour in, especially when it appears the nail-painting driver will only be charged with "failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident."

My guess is there will be additional fines and litigation against the offending driver. Yet I suppose the most painful sentence for her will be living with the result of her lack of attention. One comment on a discussion board mentioned the driver is a nurse: someone who helps save lives. In a split second, for no good reason, she ended one.

The discussion boards on local news sites are filled with "lock her up for life!" sort of judgments. My first reaction to the tragedy was similar: "What a loser! Painting her nails?"

And yet I couldn't help but be reminded of one of Jesus' comments about someone who had obviously made a mistake as well: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

How often will I text someone (while I'm driving) that I'm running a couple minutes late? Or scroll through a list of names to make a call? Or twirl the selector on my iPod to find the podcast I want to listen to? Or eat? Or review some notes before a meeting? Or shave?

Or [fill in the blank]? The answer: too often.

I've posted about attention and distraction a number of times and discussed it on my podcast with the author of The Myth of Multitasking. We are a culture of distracted multitaskers. The data clearly indicate it's not just the phone or iPod or nail polishing that impairs our driving. Reaching across the car to grab a bottle of water can make the difference between stopping now or a half-second too late.

I understand that many of us fancy ourselves as great multitaskers, and certainly some seem better than others. But brain science increasingly makes it clear that we are fooling ourselves: "To put it bluntly, research shows that we can't multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously," says Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules. He goes on:

"Cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes in emergencies, slower to return to normal speed after an emergency, and more wild in their 'following distance' behind the vehicle in front of them. In a half-second, a driver going 70 mph travels 51 feet. Given that 80% of crashes happen within three seconds of some kind of driver distraction, increasing your amount of task-switching increases your risk of an accident. More than 50% of the visual cues spotted by attentive drivers are missed by cell-phone talkers. Not surprisingly, they get in more wrecks than anyone except very drunk drivers."

This isn't just an issue on the road. People are distracted by e-mail in meetings. Managers try to draft something on their computer while having a one-on-one with a staff member. Noises from a cubicle next door make it difficult to focus on your work. Thankfully the results are not typically as tragic as someone dying, but there is a toll nonetheless.

Our local paper's editorial board had a good response this morning: "Don't _____ and Drive"

That's good advice for the road. And it can be a good reminder for us all to manage our distractions more aggressively as we go through our day today.

P.S. As I was finishing this post up this morning, my 12-year old son wanted to talk. I found myself bouncing between the conversation and this post. How ironic. I had to turn away from the keyboard and focus on him. Otherwise the likelihood of him feeling I wasn't listening (and a typo showing up in this post) would have dramatically risen. Here's to less distractions in your day today!

Labels: denial, mistakes, multitasking, podcast, reality, time management

posted by Andy at 7:41 AM  

Training the Darth Sidious Way

This week I facilitated leadership training with participants from across North America as well as Europe. Each day we had a different group of people join us in Chicago, which means someone from the U.K. would spend more time getting to and from the session than they would in the actual training itself.

Every indication was that people loved the classes. But I couldn't help but think about the time issue....

Think about how much time we waste... Waiting. Commuting. Hurrying up....just to wait.

Remember in the Star Wars movies when Darth Sidious would pop into a discussion as a hologram for a little pep talk with Darth Vadar? How different would things be if we had such technology? How would that change the way we look at business, meetings, office layouts, even cities?

What would the impact be to the travel industry? Training? Whatever industry you are in?

I've not shown up in a hologram yet but I've presented in meetings using state-of-the-art video conferencing technology (sometimes referred to as telepresence). It's impressive now but just a shadow of where things are headed.

I enjoyed watching this clip from a Cisco meeting where John Chambers has an on-stage holographic conversation with two guys who are 14,000 miles away. Even if you only watch the first couple minutes it will give you a sense that the technology might not be, well, light years away!

By the way, if you want to invest in your own skills (and those of your team) yet don't have much time or money, check out our e-learning offerings! It's the next best thing to beaming me to your office!

Labels: e-learning, innovation, time management

posted by Andy at 9:14 PM  

Join me in Atlanta or Lacrosse for Professional Development Days at the local PMI Chapters

If you live near Atlanta, GA or Lacrosse, WI and have an interest in project management, I invite you to join us for a day of learning with the local PMI chapters!

Location	Date	Keynote	For More Information
Atlanta	8/16	Lipstick on a Pig: How Illusion Leads to Crisis	Click here
Lacrosse	9/18	Beyond Time Management: 5 Keys To Getting More Done with Less Stress	Click here

I would love to have the opportunity to meet you! Check the chapter websites for details.

Labels: illusion, keynotes, Lipstick on a Pig, project management, Project Management Institute, time management

posted by Andy at 2:28 PM  

You Don't Have Time To Read This!

Doesn't it seem that way? There just doesn't seem to be the time to do the things you need to do.... Even for the really important stuff like investing in your own skills.

My executive coaching clients regularly express a frustration that could be summarized as, "I just don't have enough time."

"7 Signs of Poor Productivity" concisely shares some good pointers if you're feeling time challenged today.

We recently finished a major update to our keynote entitled Beyond Time Management: 5 Keys To Getting More Done with Less Stress. In this fast-paced, entertaining session I share 5 keys to help you and your organization get more done with less stress. Based on our work with leaders and organizations around the world, I share practical ideas that go beyond typical time management concepts. You will leave with specific, practical actions you can start using right away to help you and your teams get focused, take action, and deliver results.

Contact us today to add this keynote to an upcoming company or department meeting!

Labels: executives, keynotes, leadership, time management

posted by Andy at 8:22 AM  

So Much To Do, So Little Time

"So much to do. So little time."

It's the theme song of most professionals these days. "How can I keep up with what's most important when there's just so much to do?"

A recent CIO Magazine cover story laid out twenty of their best tips to invest 20 minutes wisely. Though they may overstate them as "20 minute miracles", the article has value for those seeking some relief from overloaded in-boxes and towering to-do lists.

Some highlights include:

• #2: The Mini-Meeting. We regularly coach leaders to be more aggressive in cutting the length of time dedicated to meetings. In our experience, recurring meetings are often the biggest culprits in wasting time. Though I rarely recommend trashing them (as suggested in the article), cutting their duration in half is a great place to start. Need some motivation? Take the hourly rate of everyone in those recurring meetings, and multiply that over the course of a year. Ouch! That's an expensive meeting!


• #7: Life Without E-Mail. Though I haven't found "Zero E-Mail Friday" practical (as suggested in the article), there is so much opportunity to be more efficient with our favorite tool to hate. My book How to Organize Your Inbox & Get Rid of E-mail Clutter can help you and your team save time and reduce the stress of e-mail overload.


• #8: Say Yes to Staff Training. OK, so you might suspect self-interest in my highlighting this one! But just this week I had participants in a project management workshop exclaim how techniques they learned will save them time. And training doesn't always have to take a big bite out of your time! Our Leadership Fast Track Program meets for 2 hours or less, 8 times between June and October. By spreading out the learning into smaller increments, we find you not only save time, but actually apply the learning. And since I facilitate it over the web, you're not wasting time traveling to a training facility. In fact, you can participate from anywhere in the world!


• #13: What's So Funny About Company Peace, Love, and Understanding? Basically this tip comes down to finding ways to get exposure to other departments. In our leadership keynotes and workshops we talk about practical ways to make this happen, and the advantages for you and others. Contact me to learn how we can help you improve your influence and exposure within the organization.
  

So much to do? So little time? We can help you sing a different song: Get more done, with less stress! Check out our Leadership Fast Track Program for details.

Labels: leadership, learning, networking, time management, work/life balance

posted by Andy at 3:14 PM  

The Truth about Being "Busy"

One of the favorite parts of my job is intersecting with a widely diverse set of organizations. Regardless of industry, company size, or country, inevitably one of the biggest management team complaints is "I don't have enough time!"

Busy managers. You probably work for one. Perhaps you are one. We're busy, but what about our effectiveness?

In A Bias for Action (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2004), authors Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal present staggering research about "busy managers". Their findings: Only 10 percent of managers in a typical organization get the work done.

What of the other 90%?

• 40% are considered Frenzied, distracted by treading water through all the demands of their day.
• 30% are Procrastinators, choosing to focus on being busy instead of being busy about work that matters.
• The remaining 20% are Detached, the people whose motto might be, "Whatever!"

10% of managers fit in the Purposeful category, those rare few who are highly focused, energetic, yet reflective and calm in the midst of chaos.

The 90% suffer from what the authors call active nonaction. Their focus is on activities not accomplishments, a dangerous formula when it comes to getting things done.

If you took an objective assessment of where you're at among the four styles, where would you land? I've spent some hard time in the Frenzied style, for sure, and it's pretty easy for me to slip into Procrastinator mode on big projects. How about you?

The authors suggest one of the secrets to moving from active nonaction to purposeful action is to understand the difference between motivation (which can easily change due to stimuli and perception) and willpower (a committed conviction to act). They go on to provide practical ideas to put this to work in the real world.

One idea from our Beyond Time Management: 5 Keys to Getting More Done with Less Stress keynote and workshop is to ask the following question when you're making a decision about what to focus on:

"If I do this, how will it help me ___________?"

You have to figure out what to put in the blank. For some coaching clients it has been:

• "deliver the project"
• "increase profitability"
• "get my promotion"
• "attract new customers"

I coach people to prominently post the question where they see it many times a day. It can help you keep the main thing the main thing!

I highly recommend A Bias for Action for your reading list (unless, of course, you're too frenzied to read a book)! :)

Labels: time management

posted by Andy at 9:12 PM