Productivity

How to Delegate Effectively – Part 2: What to Delegate – YMM #6

September 7, 2011

This post is part of a 3-part series on delegation:

How to Delegate Effectively – Part 1: It’s a Process

How to Delegate Effectively – Part 3 – 7 Steps of Effective Delegators

What to delegate

To start off, I'm going to state the obvious, or at least I think it's fairly obvious. A key to getting more out of delegation is to delegate cool tasks.

Most people tell you not to. They recommend delegating the crap jobs you hate doing. That may sound good when you first hear it, but guess what, your subordinates hate those jobs too.

On a more serious note… your ultimate goal should be to delegate anything that doesn’t require your direct attention.

That's a much simpler way to delegate. Of course, you can’t just throw your subordinate under a bus by giving them complex work right from the beginning. It’s best to use a strategy to start them at a reasonable level of responsibility and then begin adding complexity from there.

What should you start with?

A Totally Free Productivity Tool You’ve Never Heard Of – YMM #3

July 14, 2011

Direct Link to the video

What is it exactly?

If you’re like most people, you’ve got a million word documents (or some other word processing software) on your computer. Why? It’s because when you find something you need to keep, you make a new document and save it somewhere on your hard drive, so you can go back to it later.

This works, but there’s a better way.

We’re going to look at a time saving tool that’s done wonders for me

I’ll admit, right off the bat, that when you see it, you’ll think it’s ugly, but that’s because it’s all about function. The design is secondary. If you use a Mac, you’ll definitely get hung up on the fact that it’s not pretty, but forget about it. A program like this is exactly what you need.

It’s called yWriter.

Why you should consider it

I love this program. It’s done a lot of good things for me so I want to share it. I’m not getting paid for this, and I’ve never even talked to the guy who made it (his name is Simon Haynes by the way).

It’s free. There aren’t ads or anything, but if you try it and like it, I’d suggest making a small donation, say $5. I’d love to give Simon some incentive to keep working on it.

Here’s why you should consider this:
Continue reading…

The Ultimate Time Blocking eBook

June 16, 2011

What is Time Blocking?

You may have never heard of time blocking before, so here’s a quick summary.

The overall goal of time blocking is to increase your productivity by helping you get more done during the time you work. It’s a way of making you more efficient.

Time blocking encourages you to set aside short time periods during the day, and then use those “blocks” of time to focus on specific actions.

Here’s a more in-depth description of Time Blocking.

About my eBook

I’ve broken the book down into four sections. I start out by giving you an idea of what time blocking is, and then outline the steps to put it into action.

Time Blocking 101 let’s you:

Use what you already know and build on it.
Start small and gradually build up.
Focus on your high priority tasks.
Reduce the impact of distractions.

How to get it

There’s no cost to you to download a copy of Time Blocking 101. All I ask is that you provide your email so I can let you know when my new Mega Productivity course comes out. No spam and no games. So go ahead and get your copy today.

Here are 3 quick ways to write effective emails – YMM #1

May 23, 2011

Right click here to download the mp3

Right click to download the transcripts
email

The problem with most email communication

Most people write terrible emails. It’s too bad, because by simply following a few easy rules, they could reduce or eliminate the need for a 10 message “email conversation” most of the time.

Here are three techniques to help you improve your email communication.

1. Think for 10 seconds before composing – Seriously!

When sending an email, do you just open a blank window and spew out information?

Have you ever had someone reply to your message with a question to clarify what you’re asking?

Of course you have. Congratulations your normal. We’ve all sent rushed or poorly worded emails in the past.

The good news is that by taking an extra 10 seconds to think out the message before touching the keyboard, you’ll be able to communicate more clearly and effectively.

During that 10 seconds, ask yourself some basic email etiquette questions like:
Keep Reading…

Pecha Kucha Your Way To Productivity

April 4, 2011

Pecha Kucha (also known as 20×20) is a simply way to present material. The word comes from Japanese for chatter or chit chat. It’s a presentation of 20 slideshow slides, timed to automatically advance every 20 seconds. A complete presentation takes six minutes and forty seconds.

Using this format can be a great way to enhance productivity, as it limits wasted time during presentations.

How do you say it?

It seem like no matter how you say Pecha Kucha, someone will accuse you of mispronouncing it.

From what I can tell, the proper way to say Pecha Kucha, is quickly with stress on the first Cha, and no delay between words. Kind of like, Pet-ChaKooKa. Here’s a funny video show you how to pronounce it like this.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdghID66kLs

Unfortunately, that pronunciation doesn’t sound very good in English, and I imagine that a more Americanized pronunciation, Pet Cha Koo Cha (just like it looks in English) will be what you hear in most places.

One Paragraph History

Pecha Kucha was created in 2003 by two architects in Tokyo. They wanted to provide a forum for discussion and to expand their social networks. By limiting the presentations to 20 slides at 20 seconds each, they effectively put a time limit of 6’40” on each presentation.

WIIFM – What’s in it for me?

Here are three benefits you’ll get from using Pecha Kucha techniques:

You only have time to focus on the important points. Too many off-the-cuff comments will create havoc with your presentation and make you look silly, as the slides change behind you while you’re still on the same topic. This encourages you to present only the best, most relevant information.

You must thoroughly prepare and practice. Sure, it’s possible to just get up there and “Wing it,” but you’ll look much better if you take the time to thoroughly prepare the presentation. A Pecha Kucha project will force you to rehearse and prepare to deliver a more powerful presentation.

All the slides become part of the story, not a staccato presentation of slide after slide. A good presenter will spend hours to make sure the slide transitions go with the spoken word. The end goal is to make the slides reinforce what you’re saying. All that extra work will inevitably pay off in a more persuasive presentation.

How can I use this?

Work Presentations – Wouldn’t it be nice if some of the boring presentations at work were limited to around 7 minutes. You can also feel free to modify the timing and number of slides, but I suggest you try the tried and true timing as a starting point. It amazing how much information you can convey in a well-constructed 7 minute speech.

Information Slideshows – A great way to share information at work is to do an informative slideshow. You can do a how-to video, or simply relay news to the rest of the company. By changing slides at least every 20 seconds, you’ll keep the viewers engaged as they learn.

Toastmasters – If you’re a Toastmaster, you’ll probably notice that the 6’40” length of the speech fits perfectly within the ‘typical’ 5-7 minute speech guidelines. This give you plenty of opportunities to practice and refine you technique in front of a willing audience.

For more information…

Check out Pecha-Kucha.org for more information and to find a Pecha Kucha Night in your area.

There are also several examples of presentations on the site.

8 More Time-Creating Tips

March 14, 2011

Here’s a list of 8 more ways to create extra time in your life. If you missed the last post, here’s the link: 10 Time-Creating Tips.

1. Using downtime

A classic technique that most people know about, but very few put into practice. It’s using the times when you’re travelling or waiting to your advantage. You could listen to podcasts or other audio programs when driving in your car. You could also carry reading material with you for times when you’re waiting in lines, or for when you arrive early at meetings (books, eBook readers, and even your phone work great for this).

2. Just-in-time learning

It’s important to be constantly learning new information all the time, but your time is best spent focusing on material that’s immediately important to you. This isn’t restricting what you can learn, but rather helping you focus on what you need to know “right now.”

3. Don’t keep checking your to-do list

Pick a task and do it. Then, and only then, go back to your to-do list. When you sit there and stare at the list, nothing gets done. It was Henry Ford who said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do,” but I think Larry the Cable Guy says it best… “Git’er done!”

4. Stop watching TV

Stop watching TV, or better yet, cancel cable (or satellite) altogether. All prime time shows are available online, so if you really NEED to watch something, you still can. The average North American spends somewhere between 3 and 5 hours a day watching TV. Yikes!

5. Be Prepared

The Boy Scouts were right. I recommend that you keep a pen and small notebook with you wherever you go so you can write down all your amazing ideas. It’s best to write down great ideas immediately, since the often come when you’re doing something else. Great ideas are more forgettable than you’d think. I still like taking a notepad with me, as it feels more creative.

6. Get up earlier

I’ve been driving my nephew to work for the past couple of weeks, while he saves for a new car. I usually get home by 6:30 AM (that’s early for me :), and I find that I can get a lot of focused work done, before my daughter gets up. This isn’t for everyone, and you’ll probably need to go to bed a bit earlier, but try it and see if you like it.

7. Reduce your social media time

You may have found this post from a social media link, and I definitely appreciate that. What I’m challenging you to do is be more focused when you check out your favourite social media sites. Have fun, but be strict on how much time you’re going to spend on it each day.

8. Book time off for leisure activities

For busy people; if an activity isn’t planned, it probably won’t get done. By planning your downtime, or at least booking off an hour or two for fun, you now have a better chance of sticking to your plan and enjoying your success.

Good luck with these tips and feel free to let me know if there’s something you think should be on the list.

10 Time-Creating Tips

March 10, 2011

productivity-tips Here’s a list of 10 great time management and productivity tips:

1. Only use one calendar

It’s confusing when you constantly switch between calendars (work, personal, your spouse, kids, etc.). By combining all your schedules in one spot, it saves time when you’re scheduling new activities. This is where a tool like Google calendar might help. You can easily turn different calendars on or off, and the entire schedule is viewable at a glance. You can even sync your online calendar with Outlook.

2. Finish things

I always tell people, “You don’t get paid for working hard; You get paid for getting results.” You’ll find that by completing one task and then moving on, you’ll have more time and energy to spend on other important tasks. It’s when projects drag on that problems creep up.

3. Just say no

The classic way to have more time. It’s always better to do a few things really well, than a lot of things poorly. It takes tact to be able to say, “No,” without looking like a jerk, so remember to be polite.

4. Use time blocking

I know I’m biased on time blocking, since I have an eBook coming out this month on it, but it really does work. In a nutshell, it’s about setting aside a certain amount of time during your day to work on one activity.

5. Focus on what’s important

You can’t do everything in a day, but if you take care of what’s important, well in advance, you’ll go far in preventing panic situations.

6. Use a Time Tracker

Keep track of your time for a while. You’ll be amazed at how many ways there are to reduce or eliminate time wasting activities from your life. You might even think twice before turning on the TV or PS3.

7. Do whatever you hate the most, FIRST

Once a tough job is out of the way, everything else seems easier. If you leave it, you’ll just end up thinking about that task all day and be stressed out.

8. Don’t do everything yourself

You’re not a superhero. Learn how to delegate tasks to others. They may not do things as perfectly as you can, but give them a chance. Were you ever new? With some training, you’d be surprised how effective others can be.

9. Stop planning, start doing

It can be hard sometimes to finish the researching and planning stage of a project. Don’t get me wrong, planning is good, but action is the missing ingredient in most failures. Push yourself to start moving forward and DO something. You can always change direction later.

10. Schedule ‘clean up’ time

Schedule time in your day to get odds and ends done. When it’s scheduled, you can honestly tell someone that you’re busy at that time. Then sit down and either do it, file it, or throw it away.

How Multitasking Can Suck the Life Out of You

February 28, 2011

The Multitasking Time Drain

multitasking For most people, it can take anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute to switch between tasks.

Think about it. When you’re working on your email and you need to make a phone call, what do you do? You probably roll your chair back, pull the phone close to you, take a sip of water, and then dial. There’s your 20 seconds of wasted time right there.

But… I’m a multitasker

Now, I realize everybody wants to be known as a multitasker, because it’s the cool thing to be right now. Unfortunately, multitasking may just be a time drain and actually cost you valuable time during the day.

You can practice all you want at transitioning between skills, but no matter how good you get, you’ll still be losing time whenever you shift your internal focus to a different task.

I know it doesn’t seem like much, but all those transitions add up during the day, especially if you switch activities a lot.

Supporting research

There was an in-depth study done a few years ago that asked subjects to switch between tasks. Some were new to the person, and some were familiar.

What they found was that there were two distinct phases in changing tasks. The first, called goal shifting, is when you mentally tell yourself, “I’m now going to make phone calls.” The second step, called rule activation, is when you turn off the rules for whatever you were doing before and bring up the rules for the new task you’re starting.

This switching only takes a split second, but if you change activities often enough, like when you’re multitasking on the computer, this transition time can really add up.

How multitasking hurts your productivity

Here’s an example:

Say you get 100 emails a day, which is a conservative estimate for most of you. We’ll also say you make 30 phone calls every day, and that there are 50 pieces of paperwork on your desk needing attention.

To keep the math simple, I’m leaving a lot of other things out.

We’ve got 180 activities and a 20 second average gap during switches (in reality, some will be longer and some will be shorter). You won’t be constantly switching tasks, so we’ll figure that you’ll switch half of the time, or 90 switches per day.

That adds up to 30 minutes during your day, and that’s being very conservative.

Do you see how much time you’re potentially leaving on the table? Imagine what you could do if you used that extra time on something productive.

How to be more productive

The easiest way to be more productive is to reduce the amount of task switching during the day. By focusing on one activity for a longer period of time, you’ll get more done. If you get paid for results, then this is important news for you.

You can always continue to feel like a superstar by multitasking, but when you really want to get things done during a day, reduce the multitasking time drain as much as possible.

Mastering Roundtable Discussions

February 17, 2011

Whenever you hear someone suggest a roundtable discussion, do you roll your eyes and say, “Here we go again?” I’m the same way.

So, why is that?

For me, it’s because roundtables usually end up having one person hog the spotlight and put us all to sleep by talking on-and-on. Then, because they’ve said most of the ideas in the room, nobody else feels like they’ve contributed.

Don’t get me wrong, round table discussions with your peers can be a great source of ideas, but they can also turn into huge time-wasters.

Around the world format

You can do a roundtable discussion using an around the world format, which means you start on one side of the room and then move one-by-one around the table until everyone has had a chance to speak.

This structure has some benefits, because once a loudmouth has said his/her piece, that's it. Unfortunately, you need to go all the way around the table and it can take a long time. If there are 15 or more people in the room, you’re going to be there for a while.

Volunteer format

If you open the floor to volunteers, you get the people who actually want to speak.

I prefer this method, but you may then have to watch out for people commenting on a speaker before them. I think it’s mostly because a speaker says something that triggers an idea in their head.

Normally, you would have to wait until your turn, or if there were a lot of people before you, the urge to respond may pass before you get to speak. When all you have to do is put your hand up, you can fire off your response too quickly, and sometimes without thinking things through.

How to continue or extend the discussion

Don’t force people to talk if they don’t want to. Instead, you can provide multiple avenues to generate discussion. By allowing ideas and feedback to be contributed in a variety of ways, the discussion can continue long after the meeting ends.

Here are a few simple ways to facilitate an extended discussion:

Paper – The old standby method of receiving feedback. It’s not perfect… but it works.

Social Media Tools – I use a tool called Poll Everywhere when I speak to groups. It lets me ask questions and allows people to text or tweet the feedback to me. If you have a small group (under 30 people), the service is free. You can also just use whichever social media tool is in favour with your group.

Flip Charts – If someone records the information on flip charts, it makes the current information more visible, so there is less overlap, and also lets you keep a record of what was said. An alternative would be to use a Word document or a mind map chart projected onto a screen.

How to set up an effective roundtable session with your group

Here’s a quick preamble you can use to set up the roundtable discussion.

Everyone speaks once. If you have additional comments, please write them down, email, text, or tweet them to me.
You have a maximum of 2 minutes. Please respect our busy lives. You WILL be timed.
During your turn, please add any relevant comments that have not been shared yet.
Keep the feedback focused on our objective. Here's a reminder of the objective…

Why You Should Be Getting Google Alerts as an RSS Feed

January 17, 2011

Why not just get email updates?

google-alerts There are already a lot of people out there who use Google Alerts (or a similar alerts system) for information on a wide range of topics.

Here’s the problem. Most people have their Google Alerts set up to email them the information.

That’s fine, but email can be a real time waster when you’re trying to be productive. When you have a lot of alerts, all you’re doing is contributing to inbox clutter.

That makes things tough, because I’m sure you’ll agree that whenever you hear that email beep, you immediately lose focus on whatever you’re doing until you go over and see who sent that precious message.

I suggest you turn your Google Alerts into just another information commodity and get rid of it from your inbox. The alerts are important, but having them in your inbox makes them seem urgent.

Two Important Definitions

Here are two quick definitions in case you’re not familiar with Google Alerts or RSS Feeds. If you’re a web pro, you can skip to the next section.

Google Alerts – Google says they’re, “email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.” In a nutshell, they let you track stuff.

* You need a Google Account to use this service. If you already have Gmail or another Google product, it’s as simple as entering your email and password.

RSS Feed – (Really Simple Syndication) It’s a way to be notified of new information on a website, blog, or podcast. You simply add the address of the RSS feed to your RSS Reader and you’re all set. Here’s the RSS Feed for You’re Making Me (shameless self promotion 🙂

Stay proactive

Choosing to get your information via RSS lets you review the information on your terms and puts you in control of when and where you review it.

Choosing to be proactive is clearly a more effective strategy than letting yourself be interrupted by unnecessary emails, so make the time to look over your RSS feeds for news about yourself and your career.

Just remember that like anything else, too much of a good thing can be bad for you. It can be easy to sit down and start reading away for hours at a time. Having too many feeds on an RSS reader can be a time waster, so you’ll need to set a time limit and stick to it.

I also recommend that you do as I do, and regularly review the items in your RSS reader (I use Google Reader). Go through and delete any Alerts that don’t meet your needs.

What should you track?

Here are a few suggestions on what to track. As a word of caution… make your alerts specific or you’ll have a million results show up. I’ve included some other tips in the list.

Your name – (Who’s talking about you? You can put your name inside quotation marks “” to have only exact matches show. If you have a common name, you can reduce the chances of getting alerts for other people by using the minus ‘-‘ sign. For instance, if someone else with your name lives in California, you can write –California to eliminate those results.)
Your industry
What is your competition up to? (use alerts to keep tabs on them)
Who’s linking to your website? (use link:yourdomain.com . Replace yourdomain with the name of your site. Don’t worry about the www before the domain name. Google doesn’t need it.)
Who’s linking to your competitors websites? (use the exact same system as above. Just replace the yourdomain.com with a competitors site)
Which industry do you WANT to be in? (Start tracking the field you want to be in, so when the time comes, you’ll know all about it.)
Who do you admire?
What makes you happy?
What are you an expert on? (Keep up on news in your field)
Press Releases – (Is your information getting out there? Who’s publishing it?)

Let me know how it works for you?