Tip-Of-The-Month: How to manage the e-mail overload, part 4 of many

Fearlessly facing the issues

E-mail messages, especially the not-so-easy ones, seem to sit in our inbox for a while before we finally take actions on them. We may agonize about them for days and looking at them dozens of times before we finally take the necessary action. By that time, it may be too late and we may find ourselves missing important windows of opportunities or critical deadlines and therefore needing to do some damage repair. Or even if it is not late, we still feel exhausted and guilty, having spent valuable mental and emotional energy without making much progress. 

You know these messages that I am referring to. Scan your inbox right now and identify 5 to 10 of these messages and let’s get to work:

1. If you need more information before you can handle the message (like more clarification on certain issues, or access to a report that has some relevant data), then initiate the request to get the necessary information. Put a reminder so that if you don’t get the information within the necessary timeframe, you can follow-up in a timely manner. Then move to the next message.
2. If you need time to think through the content of the message and/or preform the related task, then set time on your calendar to do so, and then move to the next message (most important treat this time like a serious appointment that is not easily subject to change. So when the time comes, just do it!).
3. If you need to consult with others before you can handle the message, then initiate the request to consult with the relevant people. Also, put that reminder so you can follow-up. Then move to the next message.
4. If you have the information you need, and don’t need more time to think it through or perform a related task, and don’t need advice from others, then prompt yourself to take the action now! If you have been postponing such a message, it is likely that what is stopping you is an underlying fear of facing the issues (making a decision, saying no to people, giving information or opinions that may rock the boat, etc.). So the solution is to fearlessly face the issues and learn in the process. Below is the 5 step process that can help you do so.

Fearlessly Facing The Issues: A Five Step Approach

• Step 1: Draft your “fearless” response (but don’t send it yet). In other words, how would you respond if you had no fear and if you were to face the issues to the best of your knowledge.
• Step 2: Write down what you are afraid of (specific thoughts that are causing your fear), and what are the likelihood that these unfortunate events will come true (jot this down, don’t just think it), and how you would manage them if they would come true.
• Step 3: Review your “fearless” response again and potentially refine it to minimize any associated risks. At this point you may already feel ready to face the issues and send your response. If not, go to step 4.
• Step 4: Get feedback about your response from someone else, and preferably someone objective who is not a stakeholder in the issues. Get some objective feedback on your analysis in step 2 above.
• Step 5: Refine your response and send it and stay tuned for more learning.

If you start fearlessly facing the e-mail issues on a daily basis (every time you go to your inbox), you are likely to dismantle these fears quickly and accelerate your e-mail process! 

Additional Resources

• Special Lunch & Learn Webinar: Empty Your E-mail Inbox--hands-on session (August 5)
• Managing and Organizing Your E-mail Inbox Workshop (August 12)

Old terminology, new terminology: "People connecting with other people"

Brian Solis & Deirdre Breakenridge in their book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations talk about the new terminology in the social media era. Old terminology, before Web 2.0 and social media, refers to messages that get broadcast to users. New terminology refers to conversations that are shared with people. Brian and Deirdre also refer to what Josh Bernoff from Forrester wrote about his frustration with the term "users". Web users are no longer "users" he says. Knowing that we are at 80% of Net penetration in the US for instance, these "users" are now "people" looking for information. In the social media era, "users" are "people connecting with other people".

The most important part is not the terminology but the thinking that goes with the terminology. Thinking in terms of people and conversation changes everything. It creates a two-way street that allows all of us to change and learn in the process.

I believe that in training (or "learning" in the new terminology) and productivity ("accomplishment" in the new terminology) a similar terminology and mind shift are happening. Here is a start for comparing old and new terminology:

Traditional ways to refer to things	The new terminology and mindset
Users, attendees, trainees	People, participants, learners
Messages, course material, presentations	Conversations, topics, interactions
Time management, getting organized, being productive	Working well, optimizing, accomplishing

You additions and comments are welcome!

Do the most difficult first; 3 ways to get the ultimate business result and for managing stress

It is a human tendency to take the path of least resistance. To do the easy stuff first. As we do the easy things first though, what is ahead of us is always more difficult than what we currently have. We end up living a "difficult" life with a persistent anxiety about what is next. After all, with this approach, what is next is always more difficult and we end up with more stress and less results:

Let us take a look at the alternative. If we reverse this tendency and do the most difficult first, observe what happens:

What happens is that our anxiety is gone. The next task is now easier. Most importantly, we face the real issues, get real data, gain experience, develop skills, and increase our confidence. We most often rise to the occasion and reap the benefits. Even if we don't fully succeed at the task, we still succeed at learning from it, and being able to apply this knowledge again and again.

Here are 3 ways that can help us adopt this new approach of heading towards the most difficult first:

1. Start with sound task design. As I suggested a few weeks ago (see When the task seems overcomplicated or overwhelming, reconsider the "task design"!) start by setting the right expectations, then line up the necessary resources, and don't forget to break down the task into manageable components.
    
2. Get support and advice. More often than not, the help we need to approach the most difficult is just around the corner or even in front of our eyes. All we have to do is look around and ask. People are more willing to help and provide support when we make it easy for them to do so.
    
3. Just do it. We have heard the "just do it" a million times but hearing it and applying it are two different things. It is only when we dive into the action that we can truly experience the learning and the emotions that go with it. It is all wishful thinking until we action.

Your turn to get better at managing stress and getting business results through action with the most difficult action first! Your comments below!

Face it, accept it, move forward, change, continually learn! Not just time management tips

This sequence actually wasn't meant to be about productivity and the challenges of the information overload. It is what Brian Solis and Deidre Breakenridge told PR professionals (in their book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations) when it comes to the changes that are taking place in the PR profession as the whole industry is being reinvented in the new world of Web 2.0 and social media.

However, this sequence caught my attention because it also reminded me of many of the concepts that we evangelize and teach to help today's busy professionals become more effective in today's everything overload (information overload, competing priorities overload, interruptions overload). There are lots of time management tips out there, but the above sequence is not just about tips, it is a series of mindset and behavioral changes that can bring about more significant outcomes. Let us expand on it a bit in the context of managing the overload:

1. Face it. Let us face the fact that the overload is here to stay and get worse! Sorry! No point in fantasizing that it will go away or that we can somehow bypass it.

2. Accept it. Resisting it instead of accepting it will only make us ineffective in dealing with it. It is only by accepting that we will be ready to move forward and effectively manage it.

3. Move forward. In other words, move to action. Action is it. At the minimum action gives us real data and prepares us for taking correct or better action. At best it gives us the desired results and an incredible sense of accomplishment.

4. Change. While action is momentary, change is lasting. Now we are moving from one time action to on-going practices and shifts in mindset. Now we are talking!

5. Continually learn. After all it is "all" constantly changing. Ideally it is not just about taking action and changing, it is about getting adept at this sequence so it becomes second nature.

So when we think things are overwhelming, let us think again, and follow the sequence! Let us get to action sooner than later and keep learning.

Tip-Of-The-Month: Managers, pay attention! Are you driving your team’s productivity down by constantly interrupting them?

More often than not, when I ask our workshop participants why they get interrupted and why they are unable to stay focused on the task at hand, they say things like e-mail, Instant Messages (IM), phone, people stopping by, and the list goes on and on.

As we discuss this further, the role that their boss plays into these interruptions becomes more apparent, and many don't hesitate to air their frustration about this. Most participants report that it is their boss's e-mails, IM messages, phone calls, and surprise visits and requests that are one of the leading causes of their interruptions and inability to accomplish what they are expected to accomplish.

So I decided to write this e-mail to the bosses (following what Steve Krug did in his book Don't Make Me Think in which he wrote an e-mail to top management regarding website usability issues). Please forward this to your boss.

From: Pierre Khawand
to: <your boss>
Subject: How Managers "shoot themselves in the foot"!

Dear <your manager's name>,

As a productivity expert, I frequently discuss with my workshop participants and my readers, the role that interruptions play in diminishing our productivity and preventing us from getting our job done. One of the issues that come up often is that managers largely contribute to interrupting their staff and in a way are preventing them from delivering the same things that managers are eager to get delivered.

I decided to share my research, my thoughts, and my experiences relating to this topic with you as a manager. Having been in this role myself over the last two decades, I understand the demands that this role puts on us. On one hand we have to satisfy the needs of the people that we manage, and on the other hand, we need to satisfy the demands of top management, shareholders, and other stakeholders. This makes it difficult not to quickly react to the constantly changing environment and interrupt our staff with the hope of finding a solution to a problem or improving a certain situation.

Unfortunately these interruptions tend to disrupt progress on current tasks, reduce productivity considerably, and just as importantly impact the morale and create additional stress. Ultimately these interruptions deprive us as managers, and our workforce, from the results we desperately need. I would like to suggest three important measures that can be taken immediately to help manage the manager-induced-interruptions and minimize their impact:

1. Differentiate clearly between items that are truly urgent and items that are perceived urgent. Items that are truly urgent have specific, measurable, and significant consequences on the end results if not acted upon within minutes. Items that are perceived urgent are based more on opinions, reactions, and office politics and can wait for 30 minutes to an hour or until the designated staff member is finished with their focused work. Managers who start to make this distinction, find out that most of the items that appear urgent fall in the category of "perceived urgent" and only a few pass the test of being "truly urgent."
    
2. For items that are perceived to be urgent, shield your team from them. Instead of interrupting the team (via e-mail, IM, phone, or in person) and sacrificing the task they have at hand, make a note of these items on a special to-do list that you create for each team member. Then communicate this list at the next opportunity--the next time you have a conversation with them, the next one-on-one, or when they are not focused and able to communicate.
    
3. Allow your team to tell you when they are focused, and be willing to defer items until they are done with their focused work.  Make it "okay" to say "no" to you. In parallel, let them know how you would interrupt them when truly urgent issues come up-issues that cannot wait until they are done with their focused work.

Having such a discussion with your team will not only result in tangible business results, but will engage the team and greatly improve the team's morale.By the way, the above will also help you minimize your team's interruptions of your focused work, and also optimize your focused and collaborative/management effort.

To get the full appreciation of how significant is the negative impact of interruptions on your staff, I urge you to take a look at my findings and suggested solutions in The Results Curve^TM: How to Manage Focused and Collaborative Time (free eBook or video). I also welcome your comments on this blog post, and any additional thoughts or questions that you might have.

Regards,
Pierre Khawand
Productivity Evangelist

When the task seems overcomplicated or overwhelming, reconsider the "task design"!

Are you struggling with a task (or a whole task list) and don't know where to start and therefore keep postponing it or avoiding it, or maybe get started and feel lost and overwhelmed? More often than not when I face a task that I perceive as over complicated or coach people who are facing such a situation, here is what we realize among other things:

• The task is actually a bunch of tasks that are disguised as one.
   
• The task includes several sub-tasks that require different skills, different tools, different approaches, or different moods.
   
• The effort it takes to get the task done is way under-estimated, like thinking we can get it done in a couple of hours while in reality this requires at least a couple of days or even weeks.
   
• Substantial thinking and strategizing is necessary before undertaking the task, which we may not have realized or thought we could bypass.
   
• Some documents or tools or people are needed to help or support the task but aren't available or easily accessible.

There are many other factors that play into this, but there is one important theme about the issues highlighted above and that is: They relate to what I call "task design." If we spend some time, maybe a few minutes for a simple task or longer for a more complicated one, strategizing and thinking through the task, we are likely to uncover these potential obstacles and:

1. Be able to set the right expectation (our own and others) of what it is going to take to get this task done.
    
2. Get ready for the task by lining up the necessary information, tools, and people.
    
3. Break the task down into manageable components and a more reasonable timeline that we can then approach with enthusiasm instead of fear.

When you review your task list or to do list (hopefully the more strategic to do list that I have been describing recently), reconsider task design. This will help you avoid inefficiencies, avoid feeling overwhelmed, and better managing stress, and most importantly it will lead to a successful task execution.

For more insights about task design, check out the article I wrote in March 2008 about "The power of working in iterations! Give yourself the freedom to do so, and celebrate victory against procrastination and perfectionism."

Now that you streamlined your to-do lists, how do you keep them well under control?

Now that we have talked about the to-do lists bailout and the backup plan (if a full blown bailout is not possible), and now that your to-do lists are streamlined and strategic, how do you keep them this way!

The answer lies in an article I published 3 years ago titled "To do or not to do, that is the question!" 3 ways that can help you get more accomplished.

In essence, I am inviting you to start a not-to-do list in 2010, and I would go even further than I did in 2007, and suggest that when a to-do item comes your way, unless it is strategic and core, put it on the not-to-do list. Then let that item fight its way to the to-do list. Let it (and the forces behind it) justify why it should be promoted to the to-do list. Not easy but it can be done when coupled with setting expectations and some negotiation. Setting expectations and negotiation are the two skills that are more applicable and necessary today than ever before.

Let 2010 be different! Conventional time management tips and to-do list management techniques won't work in 2010 nor will they work in the new decade where information overload and economic challenges are the realities. In 2010, start fresh, start strategic, start bold!

Not ready for a full blown to-do lists bailout, ok, read the 3rd law of usability!

I am not going to leave this to-do lists bailout issue alone until I wrestle it to the ground. Until you agree with me that these to-do lists could very well be the barrier that is holding us back and that a fresh start is of utmost importance.

Yesterday, I described a full blown to-do lists bailout strategy. If you are not ready for the ultimate bailout, here is a milder version of a bailout that can still give you some great benefits.

This version follows Steve Krug's advice on how to enhance the usability of web pages and make them more effective (even not related to to-do lists, but quite applicable). In his book Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug states his third law of usability as follows: "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left."

I suggest that the same law applies to to-do lists. Applying Steve Krug's 3rd law of usability on to-do lists, would result in having about 25% of the original list. Not bad. I would even go a bit further. For those of you who have read my book or attended my workshop, you may have guessed where I am headed with this. I am going to suggest getting rid of 80% of the items on the to-do lists, and focusing on the core 20%. After all the 80/20 rule says, 80% of our results come from 20% of our effort.

Instead of getting busy with insignificant time management tips, or attempting at managing stress with inconsequential small steps, or getting really busy trying to get organized, it is far more impactful to address the root causes in our to-do lists. Cannot do the bailout, go for the 80/20!

Throw away your to-do lists. Join the to-do lists bailout. 5 new types of items will emerge!

How about starting 2010 differently? Starting it free of to-do lists. Yes, I said it. Free of to-do lists. Imagine what this would be like. It would be like a to-do list bailout. After all, everyone is doing it, from car companies, to banks, to real estate developers, to governments. So why not you and me?

Now that you're convinced, let us explore the potential of this undertaking

On your first day after the to-do list bailout, take the day off and do "nothing." Well not exactly nothing, but let it be unscheduled. What is most important on this day is to unthink and incorporate the desperately needed play time. This is a day for the intuition, which has been kidnapped and suffocated by to-do lists, to resurface and come to life again.

Then the next day is your day to think, but now think freely and creatively. As you think freely, instead of a to-do list, a more meaningful set of ideas and initiatives are going to form. These will develop into a streamlined and extraordinary to-do list (and a much shorter one).

This to-do list is radically different

This new to-do list is radically different from the earlier ones because items on this list are:

1. Strategic: They are fewer items but they address key areas and important issues and are likely to get the desired outcomes.
2. Bold: They face the issues instead of dancing around them. They confront the more difficult ones instead of keeping you busy with the noise.
3. Challenging: They aim high, and seek to leverage your talents, experiences, and passions.
4. Exciting: They portray hope and get you inspired and motivated.
5. Socially and environmentally aware: They contribute to the surrounding and fully support your team, your organization, and community.

The point is: If we truly want to accomplish more in 2010, and get different outcomes, something radical has to change. The to-do lists have to change! Let the 2010 to-do lists bailout free you from the noise of the past and create a crystal clear sound for 2010.

Don't just make "resolutions", instill new "practices" instead!

According to this article in About.com, the most common new year's resolutions seem to be (and in this order):

1. Spend More Time with Family & Friends
2. Get Fit
3. Lose Weight
4. Quit Smoking
5. Enjoy Life More
6. Quit Drinking
7. Get Out of Debt
8. Learn Something New
9. Help Others
10. Get Organized

However, it is also known to many of us that many of these resolutions either remain unfulfilled or are short lived before old habits take over again. How can we change this?

How about shifting our thinking from "resolutions" to "practices"! Practices that we can instill and reap more sustainable benefits from. So what is a practice anyway? Here is what Wikipedia has to say about a practice:

Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect". Sports teams practice to prepare for actual games. Playing a musical instrument well takes a lot of practice. It is a method of learning and of acquiring experience. Sessions scheduled for the purpose of rehearsing and performance improvement are called practices. They are engaged in by sports teams, bands, individuals, etc. "He went to football practice everyday after school," for example.

Applied to some of the above resolutions, this "practice-centric" thinking might lead to some of the following transformations:

1. Instead of "Lose Weight", I might want to practice counting calories, planning more nutritious meals, and adding a regular exercise routine that can all together get me to the desired weight and even more importantly sustainable healthy living. 
    
2. Instead of "Get out of debt", I might want to include the practice of preparing monthly financial reports and planning expenditures more carefully, and planning paying out previous debts. Obviously there is more to it, but it all starts with the practice of stopping periodically with the purpose of planning and implementing concrete steps. 
    
3. And instead of "Get organized", I might want to review how I manage my "stuff" and develop better practices that I can apply and improve on a daily basis, and reap the benefits every day of the year.
   

Happy holidays and happy "practicing"!