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Productivity Coaching, Time Management Consulting and Leadership Coaching for business and nonprofits - get your most important work done. Collaborating with leaders and their teams to become more strategic, focused and productive. Leadership and Board Coaching, Strategic Planning Facilitation, Productivity Coaching and Time Management Consulting, Professional Speaker.
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focus Tag

22 Jan

Posted at 15:36h in Productivity, Productivity for Leaders, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

improve efficiency

When I think of improving efficiency  I think of when I was in college and learned about the time and motion studies of the 1950’s.  I envision Lucy and Ethel wrapping chocolate on the production line.  And then I think that no one wants to live life with so much constraint that we are more machine than human.  However, so many of my clients tell me they want to be more efficient.

I am a big fan of putting rote tasks on autopilot so that our energy can be put towards creative process and enjoying life. I am embarrassed to tell you this, (but will because perhaps it might help,) but I’m always looking at how to do things in the fewest steps.

I will exemplify this with a task we all do – emptying the dishwasher. I’ve observed many people empty the dishwasher – I do it differently.  And I typically get it done in the time it takes to brew a couple cups of coffee.

  1. I work from the bottom up so that if water spills out of something it’s not going to get anything below it wet.
  2. I unload in groups –the silverware into my hand and then direct to the silverware drawer
  3. I place things on the counter at the location it will be put into
  4. I unload completely, then I put away. I’m only opening the drawer or cabinet once and I’m putting everything away at one time
  5. And I make it a game to see how fast I can do it. It’s fast and it’s done.

I waste not a moment on something as routine as unloading a dishwasher.

Now let’s apply that to our work.

  • How can I process my email as efficiently as possible?
  • How can I keep my to-do list as streamlined as possible?
  • How can I make my meetings as effective as possible?

I’ve blogged about all of this and I’ve linked the above questions to those posts.  What I’m addressing here however is how to create systems and processes to be most efficient, streamlined, and effective.

Creating efficient systems

  1. Notice it – recognize the opportunity. Don’t assume you can be efficient without thinking about how to be more efficient. Awareness is the first step!
  2. Analyze the steps. Is there a better, faster, more effective way to do something?  Can you eliminate, combine, or change the order of doing something.
  3. Do – Assess– Adjust. Try it out, practice, watch, question. Shift, try something else.  Keep modifying until you get it right.
  4. Practice and Repeat – use the system until it becomes routine and you don’t have to think about it. Watch your stopping and starting. Stick with a task until it’s done, or at least until there is a logical stopping point.

Sometimes having a productivity coach or organizing consultant helps. We work with our clients to help them develop the best ways to improve efficiency.

10 Sep

Posted at 22:18h in Envision Possibilities, Focus and Prioritize, Leadership, Planning Tools, Productivity, Productivity for Leaders

This week’s topic comes from a client’s inquiry.  She is seeking a better way to balance freelance work, her full-time job, and everything else going on in her life.

The word that comes to mind is RUTHLESS.  She will have to be ruthless in her planning, her priorities, AND her follow through.

A solid plan is paramount:

  • Treat this like you have two different jobs – treat the freelance job like you had a boss and you had to show up. If you’re serious about the other responsibility you can’t not do it just because you don’t feel like it. This holds true for freelance/gig/second jobs, volunteer commitments, family tasks, and other responsibilities.
  • Quantify time allocated to each commitment – If you want to work in your freelance job 20 hours a week and your regular job 40 hours a week, get real about what a 60-hour work week will be like. What do you have to say “no” to to say “yes” to this?
  • Plan it out on your calendar – now let’s bring this to life by clarifying what your week is going to look like. Plug into a calendar grid what you’ll do when. Create a spreadsheet beginning with what time you’ll wake up and what time you’ll go to sleep.  (I call this Ideal Week planning – ideally, if all things go well – my week will look like this…)
  • Pledge to yourself that your 2nd responsibility is as important as your day job – not necessarily in hours, but in commitment. Monitor your actions.  Log your time. If it’s not working ask why not.
    • Are you too tired?
      • Are you working with your body clock?
      • Can you swap office and freelance time?
    • What can change?
      • Are you going to bed at the right time?
      • What other work can you delegate/pass on? – hire someone to clean your house, have your groceries delivered, take your laundry to a wash and fold service.
    • Are you motivated enough?
      • How much do you really want to be doing all you are doing?
  • Assess success weekly – is there a friend or coach you can check in with to discuss how it’s going? Or is it enough for you to be accountable to yourself?
      • Did you reach your goals?
        • If so – what worked?
        • If not – what didn’t work?

At the end of the day there are only so many hours. If you are going to say “YES” to multiple responsibilities, what do you have to say “NO” to?

03 Sep

Posted at 07:51h in Leadership, Productivity, Productivity for Leaders

What is the connection between productivity and leadership?

Perhaps the question is how can these two concepts be pulled apart?

  • A great leader creates the environment for their team to be successful; thus productive.
  • A productive leader gets things done – and that’s not going to happen without strong leadership.

Leaders who produce:

  1. Know what’s important and ensures their team focuses on that work
  2. Have systems in place so team-members know what’s expected
  3. Create space for growth, creativity, and innovation
  4. Develop cultures in which team-member contributions matter
  5. Build connections so that team-members feel they belong

 

Want to learn more? This week I share my appearance on Smead’s Keeping You Organized podcast:

 

The Connection Between Productivity and Leadership

 

 

 

31 Jul

Posted at 14:37h in Envision Possibilities, Focus and Prioritize, Productivity for Leaders, Space

Be a More Productive Leader

Thrilled to be quoted in the same article as Bill Gates!

As the boss of Microsoft, Bill Gates would take one week, two times a year, and escape by himself to a secret clapboard cabin somewhere in a cedar forest in the Pacific Northwest.

It was what he called his “Think Week.”

Gates would arrive by helicopter or sea plane, and spend the week reading papers written by Microsoft employees pitching new innovations or potential investments. He read as many papers as possible, sometimes doing so 18 hours a day, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, according to The Wall Street Journal.

”…I would literally take boxes out to a beach place and sit there for a week reading them day and night and scribbling on them to putting it entirely online,” Gates said in 2008 video of of Microsoft’s CEO Summit.

Work done during one Think Week eventually led to Microsoft to launching Internet Explorer in 1995. And in 2005, Gates was reading a paper called “Virtual Earth” that described building a virtual map with information on traffic and live images of final destinations.

Gates’ Think Weeks started in the 1980s; the first ones were quiet visits to his grandmother’s house. As they evolved, no visitors were allowed to the cabin during Gates’ Think Week (other than someone who dropped off two meals a day at the cabin, and on year a Wall Street Journal reporter) and Gates’ cabin was stocked with Diet Orange Crush and Diet Coke.

“When I talk about the early days, it’s hard to explain to people how much fun it was. Even with the absurd hours and arguments, we were having the time of our lives.” – Paul Allen

View image on Twitter

Gates’ “week in the woods” idea is smart, says Laura Stack, president and CEO of consulting firm The Productivity Pro. “I would recommend this approach,” Stack tells CNBC Make It. “People should have a ‘third place’ that isn’t work or home, where they can find focused time to think and create and clarify your strategic thinking,” Stack says. “We must create an environment that gives us the ability to focus our minds without interruption from coworkers, spouses, children, pets and technology, or we’ll never be able to concentrate on higher-order activities.”

 

Leadership coach Ellen Faye agrees: “While exercise, yoga, and meditation are great solutions to managing the stress of every day, there’s nothing like disconnecting for a longer period of time to create the space for important decisions and objective creative thought,” she tells CNBC Make It.

“I think of it as a one week long shower. Because we know that in the shower we have these really great thought processes, but those are flashes and moments, and when you go away for a period of time alone you’re able to get more significant results,” she says.

Stack and Faye both employ the technique in their own careers.

“I check myself into my third space — a local hotel up the road — every quarter to write for 48 hours. I’ve published eight books in 14 years using this approach,” Stack says.

Faye says she spends at least four or five days alone at a yoga retreat every year “for deeper creative thought.”

But your “third place” doesn’t have to be far away or fancy. it could be “Starbucks, the library, or the gazebo in your garden. I recommend at least eight hours, but it’s best to take several days to ‘clear the decks,’” Stack says.

As for Gates, his Think Week eventually expanded from just him reading about ideas and providing feedback, to later Microsoft’s top 50 engineering “thinkers” throughout the company doing so.

In the 2008 summit video, Gates said, “We have institutionalized it as kind of a grassroots process and this is a way that somebody who is even just a year or two into the company and has ideas that may or may not relate to the group they are in can write something up.”

 

20 Jun

Posted at 00:03h in Envision Success, Focus and Prioritize, Stress Management, Tips for Easier Living

 

Helpful in the process of getting clear on what’s important is identifying and understanding your core values.

  • A value is your assessment of what is important to you in your life.
  • Your core values are those values that define you as concisely as possible.

Try the following Core Values exercise and see what you learn. Keep in mind that there is no right way or wrong way to do this exercise.

View or Print the Core Values Worksheet here.

Step 1) Circle 16-24 words from the list that best reflect your values.  Feel free to write in any values that are important to you that are not on the list.

Step 2) Narrow your selection by grouping related values together in the boxes provided.

Step 3) Select the one value per box that you feel best identifies a core value. Write that one core value in the corresponding box below.  You may use all 6 boxes, but if you only identify 3 or 4 values that is equally excellent. Example: Courtesy, empathy, friendliness and kindness are somewhat related. By grouping them together it may be easier to determine which of those terms would be your core value.

Do your intentions, focus areas, and characteristics align with your core values?

Do you need to make any adjustments to your intentions, focus areas or characteristics to match your core values?

Do your values support your living the life you want to live?

Take a few minutes and journal about what you’ve learned.

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 3rd in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

12 Jun

Posted at 08:42h in Change, Envision Success, Focus and Prioritize, Planning Tools, Stress Management, Tips for Easier Living

When setting intentions and goals it’s helpful to categorize, or as professional organizers like to say; group like things together.  When we see things in categories it’s easier to make choices.

My favorite example of this is black dress shoes. If you put all your black dress shoes together you will likely have about 10 pairs.  When you see them all in one place, it is easier to decide which pairs matter most. Only then you can give away the shoes that don’t fit, hurt your feet, or are too worn to wear.  Grouping like things together brings clarity to what is most important.

We can apply this concept of grouping to the activities, obligations, and priorities in your life as well.  When we “see” them all together it helps us focus on what is most important.

Look back at your definitions of success from last week.  Now consider how you are spending your time.

Are you doing the things that support your definition of success?

How can you group your life areas together in a way that respects the uniqueness of what really matters to you? Here are some examples to spark your creative juices. Feel free to use your own words as well.  I recommend picking the 4 or 5 “buckets” that reflect the things that support your definition of success:

Self-Care Family Spirituality
Friends Volunteerism Service
Activism Business Growth Career
Work Professional Development Health
Personal Growth Fun & Leisure Home Environment
Creativity Relationships Exercise

 

Your UNIQUE Focus Areas:

  1. ___________________________
  2. ___________________________
  3. ___________________________
  4. ___________________________
  5. ___________________________

 

CHARACTERISTICS of your Focus Areas

The next step is to identify CHARACTERISTICS of your focus areas, and in turn the actions that support what is important to you. This will help you get clear about your focus and priorities.

Remember, only when you are clear about what you want to FOCUS on can you FOCUS on it. 

Here are some examples that can be applied to your non-business self:

  • Self-care:
    1. Go to the gym twice a week
    2. Make time to talk to four friends at least once a week
    3. Meditate 20 minutes 4 times a week
  • Family:
    1. Spend at least one hour a week reading, playing games, or actively engaging with my children/grandchildren/nieces/ nephews/etc.
    2. Have lunch with mom once a week
    3. Have a date night with my partner two times a month
  • Service:
    1. Volunteer at least 5 hours a week
    2. Identify one cause to stand behind
    3. Don’t spread myself too thin

And for work:

  • Professional Development:
    1. Read at least one business book monthly
    2. Listen to a podcast once a week
    3. Prepare for certification exam by October
  • Business Self-Care
    1. Leave work by 6pm most days
    2. Work from home 1 day per week
    3. Have lunch with one new colleague each week/month
  • Business Growth
    1. Complete XYZ project
    2. Develop program to improve customer feedback X%
    3. Improve department profitability X%

 

What are the characteristics of your unique focus areas?

  1. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  2. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  3. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  4. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  5. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________

 

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 2nd in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.