Tag Archives: “time management”

Lean towards lists – and keep your equipment safe.

10 Friday Jan 2020

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This morning, I had a plan. I had a doctor’s appointment first, followed by several numerically-ordered ‘As’, as per the advice given by so many time management writers to whom I have been loyal for some time.

Unfortunately, the doctor directed me to the local X-Ray department after his inspection, which meant that all the other things got demoted and had to wait their turn. Still in numerical order, but now subordinate to the additional task.

Some people, some intelligent people, don’t cope with such a situation as well as perhaps they could.

Some may have resolutely declined and delayed the radiologist’s company in favour of their plan, thus (arguably) risking their physical health in avoidance of a mental breakdown caused because their plan was at risk.

Other people would have gone to the local hospital’s radiology department, bitching the whole time that they ‘have better things to do’ and would have to reorganise their day to cope with this health-focused deviation from their intended schedule.

Did I go nuts? Of course not. And the reason I did not go nuts is because I had an organised list of things to do, written down and ready for review when the interruption was over.

David Allen, author of ‘Getting Things Done’, says, “You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know everything you’re not doing.” In other words, part of the mental challenge of personal organisation and productivity is having the capacity to know – or be able to quickly and easily find out – what is important, what is less important and what is not important, so that constant re-planning of tasks is not a routine part of life.

If you have no written list of things to do, ideally prioritised in some way, then you are relying on your memory to hold an abstract list for you. Unfortunately, the brain does not have an indexing system as reliable as a ‘list’ – it bundles every thought in one giant retrieval system, yes, but you have to think about retrieval at a time when your mind is struggling with multiple thoughts and inputs just when you need it to concentrate on just on problem. You are creating the bullet points as you remember the ‘thing’, but the bullet point disappears as soon as your brain moves on. And the bundle contains not only the things you must do, but also a bucket-load of the ‘not now’ and the irrelevant, both of which get in the way of cogent thought on the Now. (Oooh, very Mindful.)

I recall a training session where a colleague said he didn’t have a list because he liked to be spontaneous. I suggested that his supervisor (present) might like him to know what was expected of him and for him to organise his priorities accordingly, after which he could be spontaneous.

Having an organised list or plan allows you to free up your memory for thinking creatively, proactively and in a less-stressed fashion. Not having a list/plan means making it up again and again as you go along, always playing catch-up with yourself while ‘yourself’ keeps running off at tangents. Like playing tag with a chicken – as Rocky Balboa.

But above all, having a plan/list means that interruptions – an inevitable reality of working life – can be dealt with consciously, competently, effectively and without the urge to punch a fax machine. (Yes, I did. Once. A long time ago.)

Keep your technology safe -make lists.

20th Century Thinking. It’s BRILLIANT!

07 Tuesday Jan 2020

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Are your practices outdated?

I don’t mean the skills you possess and perform. Most professions require, expect and train you for competencies specifically relating to your role. It’d be a poor employer who didn’t, surely?

In this context, I am asking whether the ‘soft skills’ surrounding your professional productivity are up to scratch, and whether or not you’re still utilising pre-digitalisation thinking in your processes and procedures.

I’ve just left the police service, and that has been wholly digitalised. You’d think, as you watch NCIS press the “evidence button” that identifies, in one click, which suspect car has a specific tyre tread bought in that shop with that credit card by a person with that driving licence (doesn’t and a can’t happen, btw), that police forces would be completely at ease with IT.

Nope. And I wonder if this is reflected in other organisations, too.

First of all, and I admit I can only speak for the organisations I worked for, people are trained in THAT programme but never in ‘how computers work’. For proof, next time you’re arrested, watch the custody sergeant hunt and peck with the mouse instead of tabbing from field to field. No-one has told her how to use ‘computers’, just how to use ‘the custody programme’.

Next, the counter to IT training is the associated inability to think for themselves once digi-trained. If it isn’t ‘in the system’, no one knows that you can knock a neighbour’s door to see if someone still lives at 123, Acacia Avenue. No-body seems to be willing or able (or allowed) to leave ‘their’ patch to make eye-to-eye enquiries, relying on the uninformed to do it for them.

Finally, and this just blows my mind, they’ve stopped working for each other. In 1986, if I wanted a statement done in Essex (200 miles away) I would telex (look it up) that force and they’d do it for me. Now, we send someone that 200 miles because Essex is busy. A working day and a half to take a one or two page statement, instead of (for us) little time at all and (for them) an hour.

Personally, my preferred option for ‘outside force enquiries’ was to conduct a telephone interview with the witness and then arrange an exchange of documents via email, which was never challenged in all the crown court trials where I used that method (which also crossed international boundaries but don’t tell anyone). Occasionally a visit was necessary, but not every time.

My point is that people get so bogged down in ‘doing it like this’ that we stop thinking ‘is there a better, more efficient AND effective way to get X done?’ Or, as suggested above, ‘How did we do this before IT got in the way?’

Look at how you do stuff – do you send people places to get things that could be electronically got? Do you send emails or texts and then wait to get urgent information, instead of making a telephone call and getting the answer right away? Do you email people in the next room instead of getting up off your ‘arris and talking to them. Yes, I had a boss who did that.

In other words, has IT stopped you using your head and your imagination?

If so – Houston, you have a problem.

I just had a funny thought about millennial combat pilots using texts in a dogfight…………………….

Put your focus on focusing.

03 Friday Jan 2020

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Last October I wrote about the Circle of Influence, and in doing so I made a fleeting mention of the briefly identified but ne’er seen again ‘Circle of Focus’.

Just to recap, Covey had detailed the Circles of Concern (everything affecting our lives) and Influence (things upon which we can have an effect) in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In his later First Things First he and his co-authors went further and defined a further, inner Circle of Focus.

They defined it as ‘things we are concerned about, that are within our ability to influence, that are aligned with our mission and are timely.’

He went on: ‘When we operate within our Circle of Influence we do some good, but what we do may be at the expense of something better. When we set and achieve goals that are in our Centre of Focus, we maximise the use of our time and effort.’

The question arises, therefore – how much time do we spend administering, pandering, diverting, interrupting (and being interrupted) and time-wasting at the expense of the time we should spend within that focused centre?

Life gets in the way. Professionals who once had staff to assist with all those things now find they have to do their admin (etc.) themselves and so their focus has become blurred as a result. But that doesn’t mean we can abandon the Focus at the expense of the mundane. It just means we have to manage our selves better.

Now, what tends to happen is that we do whatever arises as it arises – an e-mail pings, someone pops by, the phone rings – and we redirect our (very important) focus away in their direction.

Stop it. Stop it now – or at least as much as the Gods of customer service allow.

A thing that pings or rings or is passing(s) should be given only appropriate attention, not undivided, immediate attention if you are to maximise your productivity and effectiveness.

I suggest that you do a couple of things which might help you do that.

  1. Ignore emails, and plan to deal with them at a time which suits your responsibilities – maybe at the start of the day, immediately after lunch or last thins as part of tomorrow’s planning.
  2. Shut your office door if you can. People won’t interrupt if they can’t see you. Honest.
  3. Turn your smartphone off if you want uninterrupted time.
  4. Block time out for uninterrupted, focused thinking/doing time in your planning system Or, put another way, make an appointment with yourself and keep it inviolable.

While Covey and his associated training company never again seemed to refer to the Circle of Focus after the 1994 publication of First Things First’ I find that the concept of the Circle of Focus (like the short chapter on The Three Resolutions in ‘Principle Centred Leadership’) is one of the most profound time management concepts I’ve ever known.

Try it at work, if possible.

Set time aside for the most important stuff, the stuff which, if focused upon 100%, will provide the maximum bang for buck you can achieve.

Then try this at home……………………

Did it all go to plan? Did you HAVE a plan??

31 Tuesday Dec 2019

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That’s that, then. In a few hours we’ll be celebrating the end of 2019 and the start of a new set of numbers, the Twenties. And some New Year’s Resolutions will begin their Mayfly-long existence of ‘a day’. ‘Twas ever thus.

Recently you will recall I posted about the planning process, which included an Evaluate the Week activity, where you review that past 7 days to identify what went well, what you learned and what you’ll do next time. (It all gels when you look deeply into what Covey wrote about personal planning, productivity and execution instead of decrying it.)
Today, there’s an opportunity to do your Annual Review, looking at the past 365 days to see – well, you know.

What went well? I got a new job and I was learning as I executed, which was fun. I restarted my daily blog. I maintained qualifications and memberships that helped me to serve others, and everyone I served obtained the objectives my service was intended to support. I had fun learning to enhance those abilities, too. I’d say I achieved 60-70% of what I intended.

What did I learn? I learned that some people have more than one face. That I am not perfect but I can stand up and accept my failings. That some things aren’t worth fighting for. I learned that I have some excellent friends, supportive and non-judgmental. And I have learned that I can’t keep pretending that I can start eating and exercising well ‘tomorrow’. I need to start NOW. (Again.)

And what will I do in the future? To be frank, that’s probably what today will be about (as it is for so many), even though some goals have been telegraphed by the lessons I learned in the last months.

This is, of course, the brief version of a review. I propose you use the Review to look at things like your sense of purpose and meaning, your intellectual life, service to others, your finances, your relationships, and anything else which comes to mind. Ask the three evaluation questions and discover for yourself what the next year is going to ask of you.

I’ll be making an Annual Plan of objectives/outcomes/goals that should keep me occupied and productive. All of which, I hope, will make me better in the round. And as I will be inviting my own circle of family and friends to help me in my pursuit of ‘success’ as I define it, I will be doing my best to help them do the same.

I’ll be utilising the time I have – turning 58 and seeing so many famous people croaking at 79 makes you feel time’s a-wasting – and using my time management skills to best effect. I’ve invested enough time and money is developing those skills, after all.

What’s your plan?

And if you haven’t got one, enjoy helping someone else with theirs. You might as well be doing something useful, even if someone else benefits more than you.

Or you could benefit together?

Just a thought……..

Where ARE you?

17 Tuesday Dec 2019

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Taken from the book Police Time Management, by me.

 “We need a sense of vision of we are to get something worth having. We need to have a goal or goals towards which we can strive. But in order to know where we are going, we also sometimes need to know where we are.

I remember many years ago when I was driving “The Big Van” in support of officers anticipating the usual weekend public disorder in what was euphemistically referred to (in those days) as a Cowboy Town. The Big Van would drive around the extended Division, crewed by two divisional officers whose remit was to attend any disorder in support of local officers. This involved the van being staffed by officers from different town sections so that we could safely be expected to know the expanded area which we were expected to patrol.

One night, my partner and I stopped in what was ‘his’ patch, and a young lad walked up to the open window on the driver’s side, apparently to ask my driving partner for directions. No sooner had my partner started to provide advice on how the lad could get to his stated destination than the said lad knocked my partner’s hat off and ran away. Naturally my partner pursued him, alighting from our Van in order to do so. And equally naturally, they ran the way we had just come so I could not simply follow in the van.

I scooted over into the driving seat, laboriously turned the van and drove in the direction they had run, driving around a roundabout in order to do so. Then the call came that my partner had apprehended his prey and a struggle was taking place. He named the street he was in – which was familiar to him but not, as luck would have it, to me. He’d run after the lad in ‘his’ town leaving the officer from abroad (me) in the van.

I called for directions and was told by a control room operator to ‘go to the roundabout and take the second exit’. I started driving back towards the roundabout, and it was only as I arrived at that hazard that I realised that the person who’d given me the directions hadn’t a clue where I was because I hadn’t told him – so how could he possibly have known which exit I had to take? In order to accurately get me to the required destination, he should first have asked me where I was. (Which may have explained my accident with a taxi, but that’s another story.)

This is true in all journeys from where you are to where you want to be, both physical and metaphorical. If I want something, I need to know how to go about it, and I need to know what skills, knowledge and interest I have NOW that may need to be complemented if I am to achieve my desired result.

If I want to lose weight, I need to know how much I weigh NOW so that I can identify how much I have to lose, how I should lose it, and how I am progressing as time passes. I may also need to know why I am the weight I am so that I don’t repeat the mistakes that got me overweight in the first place. I need to look at what has led to NOW so that I can discover my route to the outcome sought.

In other words, in order to get to where I want to be, I have to take a moment to ascertain exactly where I am in order to deduce the route I need to take. The same applies in all areas of life, personal and professional.”

 

Take a moment to identify where you are now in terms of where it is you are going – you might find out you need to change direction if you’re going to get there.

“It’s the most ‘orrible time of the year. (Ding Dong!)”

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

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14 sleeps.

Yes, two weeks tomorrow, it is Christmas Day. Many have been planning it since July. Christmas movies have been accompanying those who have been planning for Christmas since the start of Summer. My wife is watching one now. 10p says the girl’s cured of cancer after a last minute scare, the split family gets together and the choir wins. Or all three, and more.

The celebration, the Feast of Stephen as it were, consists of a birthday party for Jesus Christ. Notwithstanding the present giving to everyone but Jesus, part of the day is given over to a celebratory dinner. Turkey with all the ‘trimmings’, an expression that no-one can define.

Think about that for a second. A Christmas Dinner. ‘A’. Signifying ONE dinner.

Why is it, then, that right now thousands of people are clogging up the local shopping centre car parks in a mad panic to buy enough food to serve HMS Queen Elizabeth’s entire crew for a 6-month cruise around the equator?

Why is it that they are buying so much food in one go, knowing:

  1. It’s for one day’s celebration (really):
  2. They will eat it all because it’s there:
  3. With the exception of a very small percentage, it’s all over-salted or over-sugared, non-nutritional crap; and
  4. They know will later bitch about the weight they put on while eating that ‘one’ meal twice daily for about 7 days? Excluding between-meal nibbles.

How much money are they spending and how much time are they taking that could (in both cases) be better used?

How about next year (“It’s too late for me, save yourselves!”, they cry) you decide what you are going to eat on the day, buy that and get it delivered, and then glory in the way you feel better than everyone else when you go back to work?

In other words, plan the celebration and manage your time in its regard, with your common-sense personal value system dictating what you do, instead of complying with Christmas ‘conventions’ and (occasionally) a desire to compete to see who can demonstrate the most largesse and/or stupidity over Christmas.

Not to mention that, at THE most expensive time of the year, everyone wants to have an expensive works ‘do’ where you spend more on a three hour party than you will on your own present. Where people buy rounds all hoping you get as much as you give and that no-one abuses the ‘system’ – which, if you think about it, would happen if you just bought your own drinks.

And don’t forget! Most important of all!!

All that food you don’t eat, which you won’t eat because of the weight you gained and the fact that you’re starting that diet ‘tomorrow’?

Don’t forget to take it to work to valiantly, considerately and generously help all those doing and feeling the same???

 

Happy Christmas.

Does it REALLY matter? If so – how much?

05 Thursday Dec 2019

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Do you know what ‘priorities’ are?

In most organisations, ‘priorities’ consists of a long list of important ‘stuff’. The bigger the organisation, the longer the list. What’s more, the higher the number of individual departments in the aforementioned corporate monolith, the more varied and even greater the priority number.

Each department, if it is like the public sector, will have its priorities met by the activities of other departments and, more often than not, front-line staff.

Think about that.

Department A will set priorities, as will departments B and C. All three departments’ activities will be conducted by their staff. Department A’s priorities may not be B’s (etc), but without a doubt Dept A will state that ‘X must be done by the end of the day and returns submitted by 5pm by staff in Departments B and C.’  Meanwhile, Department B expects the same of staff in Departments A and C, which means all three departments will be working hard at complying with three sets of priorities, and I’ll bet a week’s wages that they all have to be complied with ‘by 5pm’ so even though NOTHING WILL BE DONE WITH THEM until the end of the next week.

But by setting that 5pm today deadline, they expect that any late returns won’t be too late. In other words, an artificial deadline is set so they save time – at the expense of the other people running around after them.

Ring a bell?

Did you know that ‘priority’ means:

“the fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important.”

Synonyms include: “prime concern, first concern, most important consideration, most pressing matter, (etc).”

Notice that each of those terms implies that NOTHING is more important than the ‘priority’.

Make a note, staple it to your forehead and wear it as you walk into to the C-Suite.

If you have too many priorities, you have NO priorities.

I suggest that, in acknowledgement that some organisations do have more than one ‘service responsibility’, the number of priorities should at least be reduced to a couple, instead of hundreds; that the departments in the entity be told when ‘their’ priority is not a priority at all; and that staff be so briefed so that they can act on THE priorities that remain.

This is not to suggest that all work is not important. But there are degrees to which (for example) the assembly of statistics (and their circulation to the disinterested) by an administration department is far less important than the activity of the front-line employee actually delivering the service that your organisation was created to deliver.

And, might I say, constantly berating said employee for not blindly prioritising the said admin department’s number crunching really has to stop.

I say this because, from a time management perspective, creating false priorities warps the decision-making of the employee to the degree that mistakes are made in failed efforts to comply with too many masters.

You make better decisions when you have to make fewer decisions.

And having to many priorities undermines quality decision-making.

 

The Institute of Advanced Existence.

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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I teach people advanced driving. Friends who have known me since I learned to drive still don’t believe that. In fact, given my history, I have some trouble convincing myself that I can behave, but I can.

Most of the time. 😊

Lying in my sick bed these last three days, hence my absence, it struck me that the System of Car Control for police driving – which is the advanced template – is a great metaphor for life and self/time)-management.

The system’s mnemonic for an approach to any hazard is IPSGA, which means Information (what’s happening?), position (where do I need to be?), speed (need I slow down?), gear (what’s the best gear for getting through?) and acceleration (drive through and away to the next hazard).

The information phase isn’t just looked at once – it envelopes all the other phases so that, if the situation changes, you can re-enter the system at the appropriate point. (In the olden days of 2.8i Ford Granadas there was a requirement to do it all over again. And to learn all the definitions by heart.)

Isn’t that a great approach to any goal, challenge, opportunity, project or task?

There’s an event that I wish to bring under control.

  • What information do I have, or need? Where can I get it? Who can help, what might be a threat to my success? Information.
  • What’s the current position and what changes may (or may not) be needed?
  • How quickly should I start – do I rush in without thought, or is my current rate of approach just right? Need I slow down to allow more thinking time?
  • What equipment (gear) do I need? Do I need the latest whizz-bang laptop or can I do what’s needed on my phone? Am I working with the right team?
  • And once all that is settled and in hand – we can make serious progress.

In driving, doing any of that in the wrong order causes accidents (worst case), clumsiness (less impactive) and gives an accurate impression of total incompetence.

The same applies to managing projects, surely? And ourselves.

Some people don’t like advanced driving. They think it’s done by big heads and wannabe cops. Driving, they have decided, is ‘easy’ and a ‘chore’.

I look at the driving experience as something to enjoy, something to master, and something where I should seek the maximum levels of competence that I can. Which, incidentally, protects my family.

I wonder if some people’s lives reflect the same line of thinking.

Is your life a chore, or something to be enjoyed, mastered and done well?

 

Go to www.iamroadsmart.com for info on driving really, really fast and well better.

3R Blog

Me driving the Nissan GTR 800bhp Fast and Furious Model. Sweeeeeeeet.

Read three lines, then act accordingly.

22 Friday Nov 2019

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If this post just popped up in some kind of inbox and you were alerted to it, let me suggest that you open the tab and then go back to what you were doing. Read it later, when you have a clear, spare two minutes.

Can you imagine if other people did that? Allowed YOU to decide when to be interrupted?

I have noticed that people are now imitating mobile phones. (Eh?*) When a phone rings, we answer it without thought. We have adapted to the urgency implied by the self-selected, jolly amusing ringtone and, even if we are engaged with someone else, will usually interrupt ourselves and answer it.

Unconsciously, people have now adopted the belief that they are smartphones, and I bet you have experienced the situation where you are chatting to a colleague and someone interrupts – and the conversation sways that way instead of where it was. Absolutely unbelievable and incredibly RUDE.

A wise man speaking as I did a spin session said, “An interruption is something that happens when someone thinks you care.” I like that. It’s a little blunt and it doesn’t apply to all interruptions, of course – but it is funny.

Interruptions – unwelcome interruptions – are those events that interfere in an untimely way with what we are doing that is more important. If an event intercedes with what we’re already engaged in, but the new event is more important, it is NOT an interruption – it is a new priority until it is effectively dealt with, even if that only means arranging the response for a later, better time.

That’s why a firefighter isn’t ‘interrupted’ by a fire alarm – that is their job and their greater priority. And given the aforementioned definition, they care.

But a lot of ‘interruptions’ are lesser priorities, and we need to (a) manage ourselves to have the discipline to negate their impact and (b) teach other smartphone-people that their urgency is not necessarily ours. (In fact, we often need to teach people that their urgency is their fault, but each occurrence has its own characteristics and we can’t generalise. Some such interruptions need our input.)

The proper response to a needless interruption is – “I’m sorry, I can’t deal with that now*, come back at/email me about it.”

I was once asked by a manager how he could prevent unnecessary interruptions. I asked him if he, like many managers in the organisation, routinely left his office door open. He replied that he did.

“Close it when you’re busy,” I suggested. He later provided feedback to the effect that shutting his door when busy was the most effective time-saver he’d ever used.

The key to managing interruptions is to know what your priorities are, plan your time to maximise the impact you have on those priorities, and manage everything else around that plan.

And ensure you communicate that system to those around you. If they know how you manage, they can adapt their needs (priorities, plan, execution) around yours, too. And little fleas have smaller fleas, as they say – the systematic approach to work, properly communicated, cascades downhill until only those interruptions that matter come to your attention.

Which in itself frees up enough of your time to make reading this article the best use of your time – and the best thing you have learned – today.

You’re welcome.

 

*American readers – ‘Eh?’ ‘now’ is UK English for ‘Wait, what?’ and ‘now’ is UK English for ‘Right now’. I am bi-lingual.

Misery is Optional – I know that, now.

20 Wednesday Nov 2019

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In time management terms, there have been only a few writers whose works have properly impacted that science. Alec R McKenzie and Alan Lakein are two, but for me the three ‘greats’ are Charles R Hobbs, Stephen R Covey and Hyrum W. Smith, Covey passed away in 2012, Hobbs earlier this year and, two days ago, Smith passed for too quickly after a cancer diagnosis in his mid-70s. But in Smith’s case, the work of most relevance to me at the moment is one he called ‘Pain is Inevitable: Misery is Optional.’

What’s that got to do with time management?

Time management, looked at in its essence, means focus. It means doing the best thing at the optimum time with maximum attention, whether you want to or not.
We can schedule a lot of ‘best things’ and do them at the most appropriate moment, but focus – that’s down to us.

As I have implied in previous posts, I recently made a mistake. The consequences did not have to be what they were but remaining in the situation wasn’t an option because of the way it came about. I’m not blameless in my ‘downfall’ by any stretch, but the whole thing could have been better dealt with by some of the others involved.(Okay, me too.)

Since that time, I have walked my dog nearly every day, and nearly every day the events repeatedly arose in my mind. This happened so much that I created a psychological connection between the walk and the event, which meant reliving the ‘what if’s and the ‘who did’s. Constantly, on every walk.

Until today.

When I got the news of Hyrum’s death, I started reviewing some of his writing. There were a few Kindle samples viewed, but then I remembered ‘Pain’, and this morning I read the opening pages between a 60-minute spin cycle (I came out very clean) and the aforementioned dog-walk. And two things occurred to me.

As he wrote of his own mistake (worse than mine, heavier, longer-term consequences to his spiritual wellbeing) and the experiences of the 9/11 families, among other things, I realised my woes are teeny weeny in comparison. I also remembered that this kind of setback has happened to me before and I’ve bounced back – usually better.

I gave ‘The Event’ no thought on the walk. Sure, a particular tree or corner reminded me of it, but I gave it no further thought. It’s finished.

The mental space needed for creativity and focus on the important things mean that we must acknowledge that any negative event that hurt us in the past needs to be kept there so that our mental energy can be better used on the now, and on the future.

The pain of a negative experience is temporary. I think 7 weeks isn’t that long to ‘feel’ it. But the misery I felt became, after a time, a reactive choice. Today, thanks to Hyrum, I made a better, proactive one.

Namaste, everyone. And RIP, Hyrum.

HWS