Less-Is-More Blog by Pierre Khawand

I found myself at Starbucks this week, trying to take advantage of this precious hour I had in between meetings. It was quite noisy but this didn't bother me for too long. I quickly got my iPod ready and put on my favorite music. Then within minutes, I was setup, connected, and fully functional. This made me think about productivity on the road and the tools we use today compared to those we used in the mid 90's when many of the technologies that we take for granted today were then in their early development.

My on the go toolkit today

Laptop + Spring 3G card + iPhone + iPod (classic) + headset + paper journal + pen

And power cord, extension cord, and network cable--just in case.

When on the go internationally

Even though these are applications and services, but they play such an important role in staying connected and being productive overseas:

Add Google Voice, Skype, Skype-Out, and Skype iPhone App.

And not to forget one more useful addition to the mix the Kindle iPhone App.

How can it be optimized?

• Consolidate the iPod and the iPhone
   
• Would be nice to have one provider instead of two (but for now AT&T has a hold on the iPhone and offers the voice/data capabilities internationally, while Sprint has the impeccable signal in the San Francisco area).

Soon, I will write more about what this looked like in the mid 90's

What does your on the go toolkit look like today? And how can it be optimized?

This question comes up often during our workshops. Participants see that both platforms can help with document collaboration and information sharing, and they start to wonder which platform is more appropriate for their needs.

While this can be a long discussion, I am only going to provide a few key insights here, and please add your comments below so others can benefit from your experience.

What is SharePoint best at?

• More appropriate for managing "documents."
• More appropriate for managing calendars and tasks that are structured.
• More suitable when you want to setup several levels of user permissions.
• More suitable when you are using Windows and so is your team/company and therefore integration with Windows, with Microsoft Office Applications, and Exchange/Outlook is desired or mandatory.

What are wikis best at?

• When you want to co-create content at a more granular level (quickly and easily update sentences and paragraphs, expand and branch into new pages).
• When you are at the early stage of an idea or a project and flexibility and innovation is more important than structure.
• When everyone is on equal footing and involvement/engagement are key as opposed to having a hierarchal structure and a structured review process.
• When users are using a variety of platforms (Windows, Macs, others).

Having said the above, it is common to see teams use both tools. Some projects and initiative require the flexibility and ease of use of a wiki while others require the more structured approach that SharePoint offers. Sometimes it is easier to start a project using a wiki and then when the project develops further and formal documents start to take shape, SharePoint can then be introduced.

More resources to check out

• Microsoft SharePoint Techniques workshop
• Emerging Collaboration Technologies workshop (blogs, wikis, SharePoint)
• www.wikimatrix.org for comparing wikis
  

One thing we see often when we work with business professionals on their PowerPoint presentations is that the typical slide tries to tell too much. Their intentions are good but these intentions tend to backfire. They want to be complete, detailed, and accurate. They want to tell the whole story and not leave gaps. However this overwhelms the audience and causes them to "check out"! You probably heard about the death by PowerPoint.

When the audience are subjected to this slide, are they going to see the completeness, the details, and the accuracy. Unfortunately not! This is what the audience is more likely to see:

You lost them right away! And now you have to fight to win them back.
Here is one of approaches that we teach to help eliminate the PowerPoint clutter, avoid losing the audience, and get them curious and engaged instead. This approach is called "breaking down the content." Here are the related steps and a couple of illustrations below:

1. Reduce the slide to the core messages; ideally 3 to 5 of them, expressed in 3 to 5 words each. Let us call this the "3x5" rule. This leaves the audience curious. It opens up the room for reflection and then conversation.
    
2. If some of these core messages require additional details, create a separate slide for this core message, following the same rule (3x5 rule). However use these detailed slides if and when necessary; right when the situation calls for it.
    
3. Balance between text and visuals, and select your visuals carefully. Visuals need to be relevant, simple, and clear. They should easily convey the point instead of making the audience think or wonder.

The reduced slide might look like this:

The slide that expands on feature 1 might look like this:

Stay tuned for more PowerPoint and presentation tips this week, including the complimentary lunch & learn webinar about Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 Techniques this Thursday January 28, 2010.

It was at one of the local Whole Foods Market stores, and suddenly her voice got louder and louder. Everyone was scrambling to see what is going one. One thing was obvious is that this customer was very upset. Angry is more like it. From what we were able to understand, it sounded that "I almost fell" what she was saying, as she pointed to something on the floor and continued the scene for another 5 minutes, only to restart again when the next level manager showed up.

Does "almost" count? And how much does it count?

Let us move on to a new scene. You do the work. You do your best, and do great work, and use great judgment, and you almost make the quota, or win that customer, or get that project successfully completed, but you don't. Does "almost" count?

After all, you put the effort, and it was the right effort. Should you still be rewarded for putting the effort as opposed to getting the business results (which let us say you didn't get in this case)? Or do the business results rule everything? Are the "results" king and everything else not worthy?

What do you think? Let me know and we will continue the reflection and conversation!

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.

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

Technology can be frustrating at times. And usually it decides to fail exactly at the time when we need it the most. At least this is our perception because this is when we really notice it (when it is working seamlessly in the background, we don't seem to stop or notice that it is working and doing amazing things).

Even on a daily basis when computers or networks slow down, or when services are not available for 10 or 15 minutes for one reason or another, we can get quite frustrated. I was frustrated recently when my Windows 7 system was slowing down a bit and showing some of the signs that got me to switch from Windows Vista-slow application loading and slow switching from application to application. I had to remind myself that I only had about 20 browsers open, another 20 or more documents of all kinds and some of them quite large, and I was connected to a dozen of services that are accessing a variety of databases. I had to remind myself that is quite amazing!

This comedian takes a closer look at how technology is amazing and gives us some funny stories to remember:

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 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!

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!