In this Episode…
I’ve had a good productive day today. I was able to get started on a difficult and awkward task and stick with it until it was done. I did bitch and moan about it though but learnt from the experience.
Getting more focused has started to make me more aware of the things I am doing to become even more productive. I am finding some great ideas come to mind. I am also see some green shoots of behavioural shifts towards how I am working. This can only be a good thing.
Listen it to hear what happened today. My particular favourite was the section where I talk about not all hours are made equal.
Episode Show Notes….
Reducing Friction Helps Boost Productivity
- There are many ways to become more productive. One of those is to reduce the friction associated with the tasks you have to do. Can you make a 3 step process into a 2 step process? Can you make things easier to access? These are all excellent ways of reducing friction.
- Today I have been working on the system myself and my excellent assistant use to produce these episodes and get them published online. There was one step I could have left to my assistant to do. It’s not a task I’d relish and if I don’t like the idea of doing it then I’m sure she wouldn’t. So I spent a chunk of time to find a way that would make it easier for her to do. That investment is worth it for yourself and for others if you can do it.
Another Example Of How Multi-Tasking Doesn’t Work
- I was having my usual morning google hangout chat with my assistant this morning when my partner rang me. I don’t know why I took the call because I know it interrupts my flow. But I did and quickly realised my mistake. It immediately knocked me out of my “work” mode and I had to take a few minutes to recover from it.
Persistence Pays Even It Feels Uncomfortable
- Today I was feeling the reluctance to complete a task I was striving to complete. It was mid morning and I wanted to take a break because of the “discomfort” I was feeling about sticking with the task. I had to tell myself to suck it up and get on with it. So I did and I plowed through and got it done. It felt good to do that task.
Not All Hours Are Made Equal
- Yesterday I heard a great story from Gavin Ingham on his Sales Compass training programme I am enrolled in. He told a story about all sales leads, prospects and even clients are not made equal. This reminded me of an experience I had working with a financial training organisation a few years ago. Their sales model had prospects signing up for a free trading seminar. Then an inexperienced sales rep would ring them up to make sure they attended the free training. If they did, after the training they were hounded by their experienced sales ninjas into submission.
- At the time I felt they had it the wrong way round. Getting the prospects to the free training should have been the job of their best sales people. But it wasn’t. What’s the point of having your best sales people waiting in reserve to be given the glory of the follow up sales call if they were relying on inexperienced sales people to get them in the funnel. I did tell them but I wasn’t as highly paid or as American as the sales guru who eventually got them to change it round.
- Which leads me on to the fact that not all hours are made equal. I have personally found when I leave my most important tasks to the end of the day, I am leaving them to the hours when I am least productive. Similarly, when I start my day with trivial tasks, I find myself over achieving with them because I’m at my best then.
- Perhaps it’s time to swap that around.
The Resurgence Of The Routine
- Reflecting on yesterday, I noticed how I let the day drift away from me. This Led me to think more about scheduling specific times to do specific things. routines to keep – eg my PPP routine.
- So I spent some time blocking out and planning my routine activities in my schedule. I put stuff in I do regularly and some things that don’t even exist at the moment. Wasn’t sure if I was doing it the wrong way round as per that classic story about the professor filling up a jar with stones, then pebbles, then sand then water.
Grrr – Dealing With Those Pesky E Mails
- I started addressing my e mails today. I had 279 sat in the inbox. I scanned through them and managed to reduce that to 213 just by getting rid of ones I’d left lurking after reading them.
- As I looked at what was left in the inbox, I could see many of those were because I was indecisive about what to do with them. A few weeks later when the time is past, it is much easier to file them.
- Dealing with that indecision is probably the secret to dealing with this challenge. I also think there are some habits and routines I need to put in place that will make decision making easier and keep me on top of them better. I must remember though that my job is not to answer emails. The ones that remained were receipts for payments for the many online resources I use that have a subscription based model.
I’m In training
- I have reminded myself today that I am in training. That means I have got to work out and do some reps. I’ve got to realise my aim is to get into productive “shape”. That means training. That means exertion and that means discomfort.
Can Knee Jerk Reactions Be Avoided?
- A coaching client contacted me today to cancel at short notice because they’d been called into a meeting at short notice. Is this a genuine emergency or the reactive nature of her business environment.
I’m Seeing Small Green Shoots And Am Closing The Gap
- I think this productivity stuff is starting to wear off – I created a meeting template I could print off in preparation for a meeting. Then immediately after the meeting I got on with the capture of the notes. That loop has been well and truly closed.
- I also got onto a task straight away today instead of my usual add it to the list approach. Felt good to make that shift.
