Interruptions, A Productivity Killer

On a typical day, you can expect to get caught in the crossfire of interruptions, the unexpected will bubble up, and demands will fall out of the sky at inconvenient times.  Flexicuting will be required.

Yes, we invented the word flexicuting because we can’t think of a better way to describe this skill.  Events are so fluid in today’s work environment that we have to change, adapt, and shift our focus all day long.

Flexicuting involves the ability to:

• Be as willing to leave your activity list when priorities shift as you are willing to stick with it.
• Be able to turn on a dime in the middle of the day when an opportunity presents itself.
• Develop the habit of reserving some time every day to deal with the expected/unexpected.
• Be wired 24/7 without letting it be a source of distractions and frustration.

Would you like to become better at flexicuting?  Here’s how! Recognize it’s a survival skill by changing your mindset and practice the forgoing flexicuting skills daily. It can be quite fun.

Flexicuting involves the skill of both multi-tasking activities and alternate-tasking activities. It also requires the wisdom to know when to use and when to avoid either of these approaches.

We’ll talk about multi-tasking first. In our society, the term multi-tasking is overused. Even worse, the skill has been elevated to the pinnacle of desirable abilities and we often find ourselves abused—and sometimes abusing—in the execution of multi-tasking because there are some guidelines to multi-tasking that most people aren’t aware of.

The best advice we can give people is to BEWARE OF MULTI-TASKING! Here’s why. When you are executing multiple activities at the same time, none of these activities has your complete focus. If you must multi-task, it should be done only when you combine simple, mindless tasks such as opening your mail and watching the news.

TIP: Never, never, never multi-task while carrying on a conversation with another person.

Multi-tasking, when abused, leads to time contamination. An example of time contamination would be taking your child out for pizza so you can have some quality one-on-one time together, and then taking a cell phone call for fifteen minutes while your child stares into space. Time contamination is also working on your laptop while supposedly watching your child’s soccer game.

Alternate-tasking is the natural result of being wired 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year (24/7/365). Living under these conditions, it makes sense to alternate our work and personal life activities in a way that we can fully experience both. While multi-tasking can contaminate time, alternate-tasking does not.

Alternate-tasking is being 100% where you are. Be 100% in the pizza shop with your child and then place the call after the pizza outing. Alternate-tasking permits us to fully engage all activities without dilution or contamination of the experience.

Alternate-tasking can help you get more done in less time than multi-tasking because, when you are fully engaged, you are more efficient and productive.

TIP: Alternate-tasking requires FOCUS. Begin with tasks that you can get done in 15 minutes or less until and free yourself from interruptions by shutting your door, closing out email, and don’t take calls etc.

Integrate, don’t contaminate, work-life activities

Work-life integration is the alternate execution of work and personal life activities in a manner that permits us to fully experience the quality of both.

Work-life contamination is the simultaneous execution of work and personal life activities in a manner that prevents us from fully experiencing the quality of either. This is commonly referred to as multi-tasking.

An example is: opening your mail while carrying on an important business conversation with somebody in your office. Not only is it impolite, you might miss something very important.

Resolve to integrate, not contaminate! Your life will be richer and fuller.

Learn more tips at http://www.attackyourday.com

Get what you want out of life

Get what you want out of life. You can have it or not, based on your activity choices.

A key part of choosing activities is refusing activities. Good choosers are also good refusers. They know how to say no. One of the first steps to overwhelm is the inability to say no to activities that distract from value-added activities. Put another way, overcoming overwhelm is all about saying no.

Most people think saying no involves only saying no to others. The real gist of saying no is being able to say no to your self. There is always the temptation to say yes to activities that are fast, activities that are fun, activities that are familiar, activities that are easy and instantly rewarding. It’s so much easier to clean the kitchen sink than to balance the checkbook. We sometimes even welcome interruptions as an excuse for procrastinating on activities we really don’t want to do.

Learn to deal with interruptions.

It’s dinner time!

Those were words everybody looked forward to hearing several decades ago when life moved at a slower pace. Unfortunately, dinner time has become one of the casualties of modern society and poor time management.

Taking time to sit down together as a family can pay huge relationship dividends. Sitting down together with your partner, your child, or your friend can truly be quality time.

Why not set a goal right now for some dinner time this month? Mark it on your calendar and enjoy far more than just good food.

Do you suffer from FPAA?

FPAA is floating paper anxiety attack! It’s caused by writing important messages on scraps of paper, yellow stickies, business cards, the backs of cash register receipts and who knows what all. The paper is easily lost; it mysteriously floats away. Then up goes anxiety. The information is important and time is wasted trying to get it again.

The solution is simple. Use the catch-all space in bucket two. Use one place to record information tidbits. When floating paper is handed to you, write the information in your “one place’ in your time management tool. We get enough stress from outside sources; no need to do it to ourselves.

A fire is not an interruption of a fire-fighter’s work

Early in my career, I recall complaining about having too many fires to put out, to which my boss replied, “If you didn’t have them, you wouldn’t have a job.” Enough said! I discovered four ways to not stress over interruptions that are necessary.

First, I changed my mind.  I chose to see these things as the reason for my job, not interruptions of my job.

Second, I learned to anticipate the fires.  I wrote “responding” next to the action list item and often prioritized it as a red.

Third, I learned to say “no” emphatically to issues that others could and should resolve themselves.

Fourth, I added every fire I put out to my list of accomplishments for the day.  This helped replace my stress with high self-esteem and a sense of accomplishment.

Why not give these four ideas a try?  If you stress over fighting a fire you were hired to put out, you are doing it to yourself.

How to deal with activities that break our focus

The most common activities that break our focus are interruptions and distractions by others. If we have a wimpy “no muscle” then we will be dominated by them. Dealing with them is easy. All you really need to know are the four response options and the three focus techniques for saying no.

The four response options to interruptions are easy to use. How do you decide which one to choose? Simply color your choices as we described in the first chapter. The four response options are:

1. Respond and do it now when it’s red.
2. Reschedule for a later time when it’s green or yellow and can be postponed.
3. Refer it to someone else if it’s not in your domain.
4. Refuse to do it when it’s gray. This is when you use your “no muscle.”

The four techniques for refusing or saying no are:

1. The Immediate Response Method

This is when you refuse a request on the spot, immediately after it is made. There are four elements you can include in your refusal statement to soften the response.  The elements express:

• A desire to be helpful
• A singular reason you can’t
• An expression of regret
• And a thank you for asking

Here’s an example of the refusal statement using those elements. “I’d love to help but right now I just have too much on my plate, I’m really sorry but thank you for asking.” This is a classy approach most people will feel good about.

Caution: When giving a singular reason for saying no such as your plate is full, don’t give details. The more specific reasons you give, the less persuasive you’ll sound. You are not obligated to give reasons.

The Delay Tactic

This is when you are unsure and you want to think through the request. People often say yes when they should say no because they are under the pressure of the moment.  For example, use a simple statement such as, “I’d like to but I’m not sure I can. Give me some time to think about it and I’ll get back to you.” If, after thinking about it, you decide you can’t, then use a refusal statement with the elements described above.

The Helping Hand Approach

This technique is driven by a sincere desire to be helpful even though you must say no. For example, recommend to the person somebody else who might assist them, or you could suggest alternative solutions. You might also agree to commit some limited time to it. It’s good time management to always lend a helping hand when we can.

Just say NO

This takes courage. But when a person approaches you with “gray matter” just say NO.  Remember, gray stands for activities that are a complete waste of time, such as office gossip.  In our seminars we go through an exercise where participants stand up and yell in their loudest voice, “NO…NO, NO, NO.  What part of no don’t you understand! Can’t you see that I am working here!”

Practice these techniques and your “no muscle” will get stronger and stronger.

For more great productivity tips and strategies go to http://www.attackyourday.com.

Arrange Your Plate

The old way of thinking has been to place emphasis on the linear nature of time. Digital clocks blink away our life from the past to the present to the future. Often we find ourselves racing against time lines. It reminds us of the old saying, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”

What if we think of time as space? Time is the space in which we live. Just as a box is a space we fill with goods, an hour is a “time box” we fill with activities. Looking at time as space makes it easier to manage.

When we begin to look at an hour as a space in which we will execute activities, we are forced to be more realistic when we plan. A box—whether it’s cardboard or time—can only hold so much.

We think most people intuitively recognize time as space. They refer to their day as a plate, which is limiting and they have too much on it. Furthermore, they don’t seem to know what to do about it. Yet, each day a new miracle occurs—we are given a fresh plate consisting of twenty-four spaces of time called hours, into which we can pack any activities we choose.

So, what activities are on your plate today? Did you take some time to arrange your plate? Or do you let others come along and throw their stuff on your plate? The too-much-on-my-plate challenge cannot be resolved without developing a simple and very enjoyable ritual. That ritual is to make a daily appointment with yourself to arrange your activities for the day.

Call it planning if you like, but we prefer the term arranging.

I sometimes ask people if they plan their day. Often they will respond by saying, “Sure, here’s my list.” But, making a list isn’t planning. Everyone is running around with lists. We agree with the British humorist who said, “The only important question in life is: what will I do next?”

Arrange your day and focus on your high priorities in life first.

This is an excerpt from our book Attack Your Day.

Pre-determine and Anticipate

The process to use to avoid spinning your wheels is quite simple. First, you need to pre-determine outcomes; next, anticipate the activities required to produce the outcomes. The most important step is to then decide which activities need to be done today and do them.

Humans are wired to follow this exact process. Think about it. Either consciously or sub-consciously, we say to ourselves all day long, “What will I do next?” We then choose a desired outcome followed by the execution of activities that will make it occur. Much has been written about this simple process. It’s called goal setting.

What’s the best way to stop wheel spinning and get in gear? First, take time to create clarity of purpose or a clear understanding of your desired results. Define very specifically the results you want. Clarity is the mother of decisiveness, and is the reason for the activities you choose and execute.

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Avoid Spinning Your Wheels

The process to use to avoid spinning your wheels is quite simple. First, you need to pre-determine outcomes; next, anticipate the activities required to produce the outcomes. The most important step is to then decide which activities need to be done today and do them!

Humans are wired to follow this exact process. Think about it. Either consciously or sub-consciously, we say to ourselves all day long, “What will I do next?” We then choose a desired outcome followed by the execution of activities that will make it occur. Much has been written about this simple process. It’s called goal setting.

Goal setting actually intimidates some people, but it shouldn’t. We are, by nature, designed to:

• Create a mental picture of what we want.
• Make a plan of the activities required to get those results. (This is what we refer to as building an activity path.)
• Do the activities we’ve planned.

What we are saying is that it is impossible to be a good activity chooser without first glancing into the future and visualizing the results you want.

Once you put this process in motion, you will not be like people who spin their wheels at work. People who do spin their wheels at work are on the slippery slope of indecisiveness, and indecisiveness is the enemy of getting started. Similar to a car in neutral, one which can’t go anywhere until it’s in gear, indecisiveness puts you in neutral time.

What’s the best way to stop wheel spinning and get in gear? First, take time to create clarity of purpose or a clear understanding of your desired results. Define very specifically the results you want. Clarity is the mother of decisiveness, and is the reason for the activities you choose and execute. The skill of making effectual choices starts with this process.