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Productivity Coach's Corner: Are You Ready To Get Busier?
November 13, 2009
By Jason W. Womack and Jodi Womack
It's that time of year again. You're heading into the holiday season, and it's about to get even busier! Your organization and productivity systems will be tested (as they always are) with one important element magnified: 'Tis the season to increase the promises you make to yourself about what you'll have done and by when.
Our executive coaching programs focus on decision making, promise keeping, and sustained self-management. We help you learn to manage your word—keeping all promises to yourself and others—so you experience an increase in productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.
One of the stressors of the end-of-year experience of managing actions and projects comes from managing an increase in volume. In this month's column you'll find three ideas on how to think through productivity as a process so you can create a system to manage it all.
It's important to stop from time to time to reflect, not just on what you do, but HOW you do it. Studying these three elements of productivity will give you some ways to think differently about how you work.
Consider taking one of the suggestions at the bottom of this article and experimenting with it over the next week.
1. Identify potential
Have you ever been reading and reviewing new e-mail in your inbox, and had someone stop by your desk to ask you, "Do you have a minute?" Have you ever arrived early to a meeting and started a conversation with a colleague about another project you're working on? When a new idea comes up, be sure to capture it for later review.
2. Make decisions
As you hang up the phone, end a meeting, close an e-mail, or get ready to leave the office, pause and ask yourself: "What do I need to do next?" Then, write down all of the answers. The decision making process is significant to your productivity and time management, especially as you get busier toward the end of the year.
Waiting until "later" to capture these reminders doesn't always work. You get busy, you forget, and then, in the middle of the night, you remember something you said you would do.
Element 3: Track Reminders
Everyone has "his or her way" of remembering and reminding. Some people add things to their calendar. You might make a to-do list. Still others e-mail themselves or call their own voicemail. Whatever you do, make sure your system is available whenever you come up with something—a project to manage or a task to do. Over the next two months, it's going to be more and more important to keep your system current, and there's a paradox there. The more you say yes to, and the more you write down, the more you'll be able to say "yes" to.
Tips/Ideas/Suggestions
1. Consider experimenting with voice-to-text transcription services such as:
www.Reqall.com
www.nuance.com
2. For the next five meetings you attend, build in 15 minutes at the end for yourself. Stay in the room after everyone leaves, and make a complete inventory of: (a) the sub-projects or milestones agreed on and scheduled, and (b) the actions you will take as well as anything you're waiting for from someone else on the team.
3. Consider keeping one area of your system as your "reminder inventory." Look at, clean up, and update that list to get it as current as possible over the next five days. Then, check in with that inventory at least daily to manage your progress over time.
Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA, and Jodi Womack, MA, help professionals up-level their organizational performance through maximizing time, energy, focus, and technology. For more information, visit www.WomackCompany.com. To receive your own Personal Productivity Checklist, e-mail Jason and Jodi at: info@WomackCompany.com
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