Time Management is Productivity Management (Part 2)

One of the most important ingredients of business productivity is time. Business initiatives are accomplished by applying resources that cost money to activities that take time to achieve a desired set of objectives.  How time is used is critical to successfully achieving business objectives. 

In Part 1, we reviewed some of the common causes of degraded Productivity from either Distractions or Inefficiencies. Here we discuss some steps to take in operations that improve time use as an ingredient of business success.  

Tips for Avoiding Distractions

The only way to defeat a time thief is to lock it out. Protect your focus and lock out the mobile device distractions that steal from your productivity.  Remove these interruptions and temptations. Turn off your personal cell phone and stay out of personal email. Use an auto-responder message saying when you will check your personal inboxes. Practice quieting the anxiousness of needing to feel instantly in the know.

• Social media - disconnecting from this greatly improves productivity.

• Surfing the web - everything you click is tracked – so it’s your choice what you surf.

• Personal texting - not that important - go to airplane mode.

• Emails at work - more about emails below.

• Personal phone calls during productive time (voicemail is still available).

Tips for Overcoming Multitasking

Acknowledge the problem of being a multi-tasker and instead embrace “single tasking.” Make a schedule and work on one thing at a time. Limit “digital” interference – this allows more productivity and creativity.

Not all things carry the same importance at the same time. For deciding what to give your attention to, use the simple but useful sorting method for prioritizing the Important from the Urgent.

• For both Urgent and Important – attend to immediately (and personally)

• For not Urgent, but Important – defer (but set a due date and attend to personally)

• For Urgent, but not Important – delegate, or re-assign (ex: interruptions, emails)

• Not Urgent, and not Important - ignore for now

Tips for Improving Email Effectiveness

Prioritize emails using the Urgent/Important sorting method mentioned above.  Unless something really needs detailed documentation, brevity is better.  Don’t write novels – they rarely achieve much, and are quickly forgotten. Use bullets or numbers to organize information. Insist on the “5 Second Rule," with the key issues grasped in 5 seconds:

1. What’s the issue - in a short summary.

2. Potential impacts - to Scope, Schedule or Costs.

3. Recommended solutions.

4. What actions are needed.

Avoid “FYI” or “See below” - followed by a long email chain forcing the reader to figure out the issue. 'CC' lists – who really needs to know?  How many times do they need to know? Strive to reduce email clutter. Use the ‘Subject’ field effectively and descriptively. Don’t expect instant responses (people have their own work priorities). Control email diversions by letting people know you will be checking email at a certain time using an out-of-office response message. Just as you leave a prompt message for incoming voicemails, an auto-reply acknowledgment to the sender is a nice courtesy and sets expectations of the sender. Insist that work email never be used for personal communications – that is a time waster.Tips for Meetings 

Meetings are expensive investments. So valuable results should be extracted from them. Have a meeting purpose and plan, then stick to it. Distribute an agenda beforehand: who attends and why you want them there; what’s to be discussed and why; location, time, date. Remind people that you will be starting on time, then start on time. Introduce the meeting purpose & issues (many will not have read your agenda). Stick to the time intervals in the agenda, and get through everything on your agenda. Control meeting focus - don’t let it meander. Control sidebar conversations - they will occur naturally when ideas are churning - but bring discussions back on track. Have someone else take notes to document inputs, while you guide and focus discussions. Establish action items and assigned them. Then review action items as part of meeting wrap-up. Follow up with distributed summary minutes & action items. 

Have “stand-up” meetings - literally stand and talk about the topic for 15 minutes max.  In Agile-style project management, this is called a “Scrum.” Each person gives a short update on “What was done yesterday (or didn’t get done), what’s happening today, what are the impediments, and what to do about them”

Tips for Procrastination

Face and embrace that undesirable avoid task. Break it up into tiny steps that accomplish anything, then celebrate any accomplishments as successes.  Set deadlines for yourself. 

Tips for Dealing with Fatigue

Schedule periodic breaks during the day, such as going for a brief walk - it really does get you opened up again. As the expression goes, "Breaks can give you breakthroughs." Drink more water, maintain a healthy diet, exercise and get your sleep – sleep is biologically critical to restoring your creative thinking brain chemistry. Know when your productivity is slumping – it’s not really better to try to work through it. Know yourself - your own strengths and weaknesses. Each of us has both. When are you most efficient at delivering customer value? When are you least efficient?  If you’re a “morning person” then that's when you tackle your most important tasks.  

Tips for Delegating

As the leader of your productivity, you have to set the vision for your objectives and where you are going.  Create a team sufficiently informed and empowered with your vision so they can adapt to changing circumstances and make the right decisions on your behalf. Create well-defined processes that can be done in your absence. Control work priorities and expectations. Learn to say “No” and not take on too much yourself. This leads to burnout. Don’t allow little problems to become big problems. Stay focused on what needs to get done. 

Tips for Prioritizing and Scheduling your Activities

For Productivity Management start with what you want to accomplish to fulfill your goals. Remember: your time is about getting something accomplished. The “Agile” project management framework focuses on delivering the highest known benefit to the customer first. Rather than have a master plan before moving forward, start with what you currently know, focusing on fulfilling a short list of priorities within a defined interval of time, say a few weeks or a month. These defined intervals of focused, concentrated production are called “sprints.” Each day, and each week of your sprint, you focus only on fulfilling only the current priorities you’ve set for that sprint. In Agile you can change your list of priorities.  But while in a sprint, you focus only on accomplishing the priorities set at the start of that sprint.

Keep in mind that Pareto's 80/20 rule is in effect all around you.  For example: 80% of your problems are caused by 20% of your process; 80% of your results are accomplished with 20% of your actions; 80% of your sales are from 20% of your clients; only 20% of your emails are important.

Daily Strategies

We all know what happens to our plans and priorities.  They can get swept aside with the first phone call or email announcing some fire drill or crisis that falls out of the sky. The daily fire drills aren’t going away.  A strategy for accommodating the fire drills is to allow a time contingency for them.  This means knowing how many hours of effort your priority items will take (your daily commitment to your Sprint progress), but allowing contingency each day for the fire drills.  But you have to commit to (and militantly defend) your daily contribution to your priorities.

Another strategy is to split the day into two halves. For example: tend to emails and meetings in the morning to get the day launched.  Then insist on focused time in the afternoon.

Another daily time management strategy is using short time blocks, either 30 minutes or 50 minutes long, and do not allow any interruptions – you are having a meeting with yourself and are not to be disturbed. The “Pomodoro” technique defines 30 minute blocks: 20-25 minutes of focused time, then 5-10 minutes of break. 

Final Thoughts

Do what you love, and love what you do – then it's not so much work. Make sure that what you do is fulfilling to you.

Protect and guard your personal productivity. It’s important to your success. Stay focused – stay disciplined - stay on your vision and the tasks that fulfill it.

Always look for ways to simplify or streamline your productivity process – get rid of complexity. Have a “Lean” culture of Continuous improvement - get everyone involved.

Know yourself – know your strengths and weaknesses. Work with your strengths. Don’t get down on yourself. Honor yourself. 

Don’t try to be productive all the time - you can’t be. Have sprints – focus to get something done. Set deadlines to keep things moving forward. Then take a break.

Have a business that does not always demand your time and presence - have processes that can be accomplished by others in your absence. 

Have fun - play a little every day.

Time Management is Productivity Management (Part 1)

We’ve all heard the phrase “Time is money.”  But what does that really mean? It refers to how much we put into accomplishing something for the earnings we get back. Time Management is about Productivity Management.  

In project management we refer to the three primary ingredients of productivity as the “Triple Constraints:” Scope (what needs to be done), Schedule (when it needs to be done), and Cost (the resources needed to get it done). You can always adjust scope, or maybe get more budget, but time is the unchangeable ingredient that can’t be modified.  Time is fixed by the number of hours in a day and always draining away. What we are managing is what we accomplish in the time we have available. 

In this post we'll talk about some common issues that impact daily productivity, falling into two main categories:

• Distractions - things that steal our attention from what we are trying to accomplish.
• Inefficiencies - things that degrade our performance while we are working on them.

Distractions

We’ve passed from the Information Economy to the Attention Economy, or more accurately the “distraction” economy. We live in a continuous snowstorm of information, and we think we can take it all in.  But it comes at the cost of being distracted by information that is usually unimportant most of the time. These distractions are like little time thieves.  And we all know what they are:

• Checking social media
• Surfing the web
• Personal texting
• Personal emails at work
• Personal phone calls 

These distractions are so imbedded in our daily lives, that texting while driving now causes 1 out of 4 car accidents, and is the leading cause of death for teenagers in America.

Inefficiencies

While distractions are obvious, inefficiencies are often more subtly working against us while we are trying to be productive.  Below are some of the many inefficiencies commonly faced.

Multitasking
Our information technology fosters multitasking because it promotes multiple and continuous sources of issue inputs at the same time. Multitasking of any kind reduces productivity.  The more you try to accomplish at the same time, the less you actually accomplish. Multitasking robs productivity because of the start-stop-start again from task interruption and reengagement.  Mental task loading can reach a point of saturation where the ability of the brain to multitask is exceeded. Multitasking leads to mistakes that require rework, and lost customer confidence.  While popular knowledge might lean differently, there is no gender advantage at multitasking.

Emails
Emails can be a real time sink. Think about how much of your economy is based on emails. If a mere four minutes is given per email for 60 emails a day, that's four hours on email alone. We think we are being productive if we can just get a few of the issues arriving by email dealt with – then go back to what was planned for the day.  However, this approach never works well, and the real work backs up.

Meetings
While meetings can be good team building events, be aware of meeting costs and impacts to the productivity of the participants. Is a meeting really that valuable or necessary? Who really needs to be there and why? Having a group gathered and not interacting may not be the best use of their time (and expense).

Perfectionism
There is no end to getting something “perfect.” The expression, “90% done, 90% to go,” refers to significantly diminishing returns for time invested.  How good does it really need to be?

Fatigue
Fatigue brings all kinds of problems that lower productivity; less energy, decreased concentration, plus reduced ability to solve problems and think creatively. You also have lower tolerance for stress and anxiety. Fatigue also leads to mistakes that require rework, and possibly lost customer confidence. 

Not Delegating
Don’t take on problems (fire drills) that your team can and should handle themselves (i.e. urgent but not important).

Procrastination
We all get stuck not doing something because it's more pleasurable to do something else, or because of stress, anxiety or fear, or just lack of discipline.

Software Tools
Be careful – managing the tool is not necessarily being productive. You can spend a lot of time managing the software rather than doing the work that the software is tracking. 

In the second part of this post, we'll review some techniques and strategies for improving on distractions and inefficiencies that impact our productivity. 

The Agile Waterfall – Taking A Hybrid Approach for Better Productivity

After many project and program management roles, I have learned to appreciate the attributes of both Classic and Agile development approaches for project delivery management.

The Classic approach, with its emphasis on pre-planning, is appropriate when the entire project value is understood and agreed upon ahead of time. The project plan then becomes the delivery map for the promised scope by a certain date, with payments made at performance milestones, agreed upon by contract.

In our rapidly changing and highly competitive innovation economy, value delivery through technical development sometimes requires more frequent delivery iterations to the customer.  The Agile development approach encourages more stakeholder interaction for defining features and flexibility in sequencing features, with the project’s utility released through specific, shorter intervals.

These approaches are intended for different production objectives, but should not be put at odds to one another. One applies more for when you know all your requirements, and are managing to schedule and budget constraints.  The other is more appropriate for when you have a vision, but need to determine how outside influences might impact your requirements planning, or when you are faced with incremental funding per value output. Both approaches apply the organization’s talents to deliver value to the customer. Both approaches are resolving the same questions of any project value delivery effort:

• What are we doing?
• How are we doing it?
• When does it need to be done?
• Who’s doing it?
• What resources do we need to accomplish it?
• Where will we obtain the resources?
• Why isn’t it done yet?

These two delivery perspectives also remind us of what is important for managing the organization’s project culture.

 Communications – more frequent is better

 Team building – through a defined process

 Documentation – as little as necessary

 Stakeholders – keeping them as team members

 Obstacles – removing them to maintain progress

It’s not so important to get stuck on a certain framework or methodology, as long as these basic ingredients of good value delivery management are satisfied.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s more Classic or more Agile or a combination of both. Whether sprint releases or waterfall phases, there is really no right or wrong way – there is only what works.

Don’t be afraid to adjust your process to give your organization the best process that works to your success. Organizational improvement is always about finding a better process, so feel free to borrow from either, and create a hybrid approach.

The important thing here is to have a defined process for your organization. A defined process is your best way to get the delivery team working together and participating to their fullest individual ability.  If you don’t have a process, then you’ll be relying on personalities for productivity.  No need for that proverbial extraverted rock star to run your projects. A defined project delivery process is your best investment for building a more productive team.

Then manage your process with good tools to understand your performance, and keep information about progress flowing back to your team. Information is the fuel of team collaboration.

The winning combination is always about teamwork through process. And having a process is the best way to build collaborative teams for better productivity.