Smart Work Read online

  Computers have made it so much easier to do many of our daily tasks, allowing us to communicate faster with more people and to expand our workplaces from local to global. But these changes have meant more pressure, tighter deadlines and more work for most of us. Recognising this, I decided that I needed to go beyond teaching the basic time management principles that were relevant in the workplace of old. I needed to help my clients to adapt to the new workplace, and that meant learning to harness the power of the technologies that were changing our world. It also meant working smarter in this challenging new workplace.

  In Smart Work I explore how we can adapt to a new way of working and organising in the digital age. My aim is to provide a simple, practical guide to working productively in today's workplace. Smart Work delivers a practical approach to productivity and clearly addresses the issues that modern executives and workers face every day.

  It does not set out to explain the psychology of productivity or base its recommendations on scientifically researched studies. It simply suggests a range of practical solutions that work, and attempts to link the theory of productivity to the technology that we are already using every day.

  Read this book from cover to cover if you are interested in a comprehensive approach to personal productivity using technology. Or dip in and grab an idea or strategy that you can implement straight away. But know this: if you do not adapt, you will be left behind, drowning in unprocessed emails, overwhelmed by your workload and feeling like you are getting nowhere in this brave new world.

  It is time for smart work.

  INTRODUCTION

  The workplace has changed. How we work has changed. The pace of business has changed. How we communicate has changed, and the tools we are using to organise ourselves have changed. It stands to reason that we need to adapt our work practices to deal with these changes.

  Productivity in the 21st century

  From a productivity standpoint, our workplaces have seen massive changes over the past 30 years (see figure A, overleaf). The tools we use to organise our work have shifted from paper diaries to personal desktop organisers to sophisticated group scheduling systems. We have progressively moved from a paper-driven workplace, to an electronic workplace with a computer on every desk and handheld devices to help us stay organised.

  The challenges we face to stay productive have also changed. Many of us are now working in a global workplace, with colleagues and clients located all over the world. We are working longer hours to keep up, and more is expected of us as we compete in the global economy. The workspace too has changed, from individual offices and cubicles to open plan for all and activity-based working where we don't even have our own desk. Massive changes to how we work and stay organised have occurred — some good, some not so good, but all very different from what we have been used to.

  Figure A: traditional to 21st century workplace

  Many modern workers and managers face three key productivity challenges in this 21st century workplace.

  Too much to do, too little time

  Today we have way more to do than we have time in which to do it. Most organisations expect management and staff to get more done with fewer resources. They are downsizing their workforces, but not downsizing the work! Add to this the number of meetings we are expected to attend, and the volume of emails we have to wade through, and it seems hard to imagine how we will get it all done.

  Of course, many people are throwing the only weapon they feel they have available at the problem — more time. We are working longer hours to cope with the increased workload. Many senior managers I work with are in meetings between 9 am and 5 pm, then catch up on emails and other tasks between 5 pm and 9 pm. We know that this is not the solution!

  Information overload

  As the volume of information we receive each day continues to grow, the pressure is becoming overwhelming. It is not unusual for me to work with managers who receive 300-plus emails per day. This is crazy! We do not need 300, or even 100 emails a day to do our jobs effectively. I would argue that these emails are actually stopping us from doing our jobs effectively. But that sense of overwhelm is definitely being felt at all levels in organisations. We need a solution, fast.

  Still using outdated tools and strategies to organise our work

  We are not leveraging the technology at our fingertips enough — tools like Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes®, Google Calendar™ and smartphones. We use them every day, but in my experience most of us are not really harnessing their power. In fact, I would suggest that the average worker probably uses about 20 per cent of the functionality of a tool like Outlook. And yet this is the first thing they turn on every day to check their email. We learn the basics — how to send an email, how to schedule a meeting. But few of us go on to utilise these powerful tools in a holistic way to organise our time, priorities and information.

  Instead, we are grappling with modern productivity issues using old-fashioned tools and strategies. Paper lists, sticky notes and piles of paper — none of these answer the challenges of managing our work in the modern workplace. We need to get smart about leveraging our technology.

  The real issue — a sense of urgency or senseless urgency?

  There is no doubt that these three issues are having a major impact on our effectiveness and motivation. But I believe there is a fourth issue that has an even greater negative influence.

  When is everything needed? Now! ASAP! Yesterday! Five minutes ago! We are under great pressure to deliver everything instantly, and this constant urgency is affecting the quality of our work. It is causing reactivity in the workplace that is increasing stress levels, increasing working hours, and decreasing the quality of our thinking and outputs.

  This reactivity has come to be accepted as the norm in many organisations. ‘But that's just the way it is around here’, they say. It's just how it is in global finance, the legal sector, the insurance industry, even in the consulting industry. Well, I don't agree. I do not accept that it has to be that way. I believe that to a large degree this urgency has been driven by the ‘instant’ nature of electronic communication. Certainly we need to ensure that we all work together with a sense of urgency to get things done. But have we gone too far with this, creating instead senseless urgency?

  Sometimes I imagine myself as a superhero, flying in to save the day in my clients' offices. If I was, I would have to have a nemesis, an arch-enemy. The enemy I have sworn to banish from as many organisations as I can get to is unnecessary urgency.

  I see workers battle with urgency every day. And they are losing. They are becoming resigned to the fact that this is ‘just the way it is around here’. The battle is complicated by the fact that there are different types of urgency at play. There is the real urgency, the things that crop up which need our immediate attention, no question. But often masquerading as real urgency is false urgency. These are the things that are not really urgent, but other people have worked out that if they shout loud enough they will get cut-through in a hectic workplace. And sometimes we make things seem urgent when they are not. Do you react instantly to email alerts and allow yourself to become distracted from other, more important work?

  Urgency can also be reasonable or unreasonable. Reasonable urgency applies to time-sensitive work that needs our urgent attention and could not have been planned for. Something has happened, and it needs our prompt response. Unreasonable urgency is work that has become urgent either because someone else has not done the work in a timely way or, worse, because we ourselves have not done the work in a timely way. This needless crisis now risks throwing your day (or someone else's) into chaos.

  The cure for urgency — working proactively

  This last scenario is avoidable, and much of this book is aimed at reducing this unacceptable and unnecessary frenzy of activity. We need to get back to completing tasks in a timely way, to working proactively most of the time, and reacting only to the real and reasonable urgency that should arise infrequently. If we dial down the urgency just a couple of notches, our work lives will become less stressful, more enjoyable and, ultimately, more productive.

  So how do we change this dynamic that is so entrenched in the modern workplace? Can we control urgency? I believe we can. It requires a mind-shift and a certain amount of discipline, but I do believe we can move to a more proactive work style.

  In my observation, the most productive (and inspiring) people are proactive. This means they are driving the next steps and are in full control of their work and priorities.

  We can drive productivity at the individual level, at the team level or at the organisational level. But it always starts with the individual — how we behave, what we choose to focus on, what we allow to drive our day.

  This book is designed to help you dial down the urgency and work more proactively using an integrated productivity system (illustrated in figure B, overleaf) that I have developed over the past 13 years while working with corporate clients. It sets out the steps and strategies to help you take control of how you organise and keep track of your incoming work (inputs), what you spend your time on each working day (actions) and what you achieve (outcomes).

  Figure B: integrated productivity system

  The integrated productivity system at a glance

  Increasing your productivity is not just a case of implementing a few tips and tricks, and it's not solely about email management or how you organise your priorities. True productivity in the 21st century workplace requires a more sophisticated approach. That does not mean it has to be complex, though. All of the productivity strategies in Smart Work can be implemented to increase your productivity in a simple and practical way.

  Centralise your actions

  As our work becomes more complex, we need a system to manage what we need to do and when we need to do it. Centralisation is the key. To manage our actions, commitments and priorities effectively, we need to have everything centralised in one organising tool.

  Having everything in one place gives you focus, clarity and a better ability to prioritise. The electronic calendar has become the default tool for managing meetings and appointments, and has been embraced widely in the corporate workplace. The calendar centralises all of your meetings in one place, and it works pretty well most of the time. But you also have many, many tasks and priorities to juggle outside of meetings. This is where systems become decentralised, with work buried in separate ‘piles’. This is neither efficient nor effective.

  The case for using electronic calendars as your main meeting scheduling tool is obvious to most. Meetings happen in collaboration with others. Our schedules are complex, and using a system that allows us to clearly check everyone's availability and lock in mutually convenient meeting times seems only logical.

  The case for using an electronic task list is not so clear to many, so fewer have made the leap to ditch their paper lists in favour of digital tools. For me, it all boils down to one simple but compelling function. With the click of a button emails can be converted into tasks and scheduled as prioritised actions in tools like Outlook! Just as you benefit from the efficiency of meeting invitations that are scheduled at the agreed time once accepted, your productivity will be increased once you begin to schedule emails as tasks to be prioritised and completed at the appropriate time.

  So you need one tool to manage your meetings and one tool to manage your tasks. Just taking that first step towards centralisation will increase your focus and effectiveness. And if you create a system that combines both your meetings and your priorities in one view, it is very likely that your sense of control and productivity will undergo a massive increase, as you start to manage all of your activities from one platform.

  Organise your inputs

  Once you have set up a centralised system for managing your actions, you need to look at what feeds this system. How does work arrive on your desk (or in your inbox), and how do you make good decisions about what work should get your time and attention? These inputs are the second element that needs to be considered in your integrated productivity system.

  Many of us receive hundreds of inputs every day in the form of emails, phone calls, voicemails, instant messages, physical interruptions, meeting actions and thoughts. Much of this is just noise and does not deserve much of our time and attention, but some of it is important and does need action. Should we do it now or later, though? We need to avoid reacting instantly to every incoming email, but at the same time, we don't want this work just to pile up until it overwhelms us.

  The key to managing your inputs effectively is to take a proactive approach to processing incoming work and to create a connection between your inputs system and your actions system. New inputs that need your attention should be either dealt with immediately or recorded in your action management system, depending on their urgency. Using your inbox as an action system for emails does not work, as you just end up with a pile of ‘action emails’ buried in a pile of ‘non-action emails’, with no sense of their respective priority or timing.

  Your inbox has one purpose, and that is to receive emails. Just like the letterbox outside your house, it should be emptied regularly and the mail dealt with appropriately. Of course, on any given day you will receive way more emails than letters, and you need strategies to reduce the noise so you only have to deal with relevant messages. You also need an efficient filing system in place so you can file things quickly and easily — and find them again just as quickly and easily.

  Your ability to manage the flow of incoming work, whether it is email or any other form of input, is critical to your productivity. If you do not control your inbox, it will control you. Email is not the main reason you have a job. You could contribute so much more than that, if you only had the time. We need to make the time by being clever and harnessing the power of technology.

  Realise your outcomes

  If efficiency was your only productivity goal, then processing your inputs and managing your actions would achieve it. But to be truly productive, you also need to work effectively. To work effectively you need to look at one more core element in the system — your outcomes. To ensure you are doing the right work, you need clarity of purpose. What are you trying to achieve? What are your goals and objectives? Where do you want to end up? You need to look beyond simply reacting to everyone else's needs and proactively schedule into your system the right actions that will help you to achieve the right results.

  To do this you first need to clarify what you are trying to achieve and get some perspective on what is really important in your role. Your goals and objectives are often linked to team, departmental, divisional and organisational goals and objectives. In most organisations, much time and effort goes into creating performance plans that align and cascade to ensure everyone is pulling in the same direction. But does this really drive your activity on an individual level, and on a day-to-day basis? Not often enough, I fear. There is frequently a disconnect between what you are trying to achieve and what you are actually spending your time on.

  Taking time out to plan and prioritise is crucial to creating both clarity of purpose and a connection between your outcomes and your actions. Creating regular spaces where you stop doing and think about the bigger picture is the real key to working effectively.

  Making the system work for you every day

  So your actions, inputs and outcomes come together in an integrated system for working productively. Yet systems only organise information. You still need to do the work, and you need to feed and maintain the system constantly to ensure it keeps you organised and moving forward. There are three key practices that maintain and sustain the integrated productivity system. They will keep you on track, even when you are at your busiest, and will allow you to be productive without even having to think about it — they will, in other words, shape ‘the way you work’.

  In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg discusses ‘keystone habits’. These habits, once formed, increase the chances of other habits forming successfully. Processing, planning and prioritising are the keystone habits for maintaining the integrated productivity system.

  Processing. Processing connects your actions and your inputs. It is the practice of proactively reviewing your incoming information and making decisions about what needs to happen to every input. Processing your inbox(es) down to zero once a week is one of the most effective strategies for working productively and focusing on the important work that deserves your precious time. Processing ensures that you are on top of the flow of incoming work but not dominated by it.

  Planning. Monthly, weekly and daily planning rituals create the connection between your outcomes (what you want to achieve) and your actions (what you will do). Each planning routine has a particular intent. Monthly planning gives you perspective; weekly planning gets you organised; and daily planning gets you focused for the day ahead. Planning ensures you are doing the right work at the right time — that you are being proactively productive.

  Prioritising. Processing and planning both involve prioritisation. But as a practice, prioritising should stand alone. Prioritising helps you to manage the opportunity cost of spending your time unproductively, and sits at the heart of effectiveness. If you have more to do than you have time available (and who doesn't), prioritisation helps you to consider all the things you could invest your time in, and choose the right actions. Prioritising therefore creates a connection between outcomes and inputs.