Procrastinating in Sheeps Clothing

Most of the time, procrastination is easy to spot.  However, there is a subtle and very dangerous type of procrastination everyone should be on the lookout for.  It looks like productive work, but the result is the same…it keeps you from accomplishing the things you need to accomplish.

This type of procrastination can take several forms, but in the most dangerous one, the victim appears to be involved in good habits of organizing and planning their work.  In reality, they are being lured into doing nothing that will actually move them closer to their goals.

To avoid this type of procrastination, you must be alert. When you get the urge to suddenly rearrange your office from productivity, or create a detailed list of everything you need to do for the next 10 years, stop and see if there is some task you are avoiding.  Your planning and organization might be beneficial, but make sure it isn’t preventing you from doing what really needs to be done.

Originally published on June 6, 2006.

Streamlining your business

Owners of small businesses are particularly concerned about productivity.  For a small company the difference between being highly efficient and moderately efficient can be the difference between profit and going out of business. Most efficient  practices are also applicable to personal productivity as well. However, with businesses, small productivity gains can be replicated over many people multiplying the  gains well beyond the benefits you’d get just for yourself.

A focus on productivity can let you cut your costs so you can make a profit even when your competitors are losing money. Here are eight key points to consider when establishing productive practices for your business.

1. Simplify your processes.  Many processes become complicated over time.  By simplifying these processes you can make your processes more repeatable.  Also, simple processes are easier to automate, outsource, or pass on to less expensive employees.
2. Automate your processes. Human time is expensive.  If something can be done by technology, you should seriously consider automating it.  Always do a cost benefit analysis in deciding what to automate.  Start with the things that give the best return on investment.  A $5,000 investment in technology to eliminate $50,000 in labor costs is a no-brainer.  A $100,000 to eliminate $3,000 in labor is probably worth passing.
3. Measure everything. If you are serious about being productive, you need to be a good manager and measure all the important parts of your business. It is surprisingly easy for the daily effort of running your business to obscure the big picture of where you are spending your time and money.  Having good measurements in place will let your employees better understand how they are doing and will give you a basis for doing reviews.
4. Standardize where you can. You only want to have to solve problems once.  By standardizing,  you can reduce the number of things that can go wrong. This gives you more time to concentrate
   on your business. For example, if you have 10 computers in your office, it will save you time if they are all the same (or similar) models.
5. Think about the total cost. Don’t just look at the original cost of purchases.  Think in terms of the cost over the entire useful life over time.  For example, I used a discount host for my business website and email.  The pricing was very inexpensive.  However, the email went down at least once each week and required about an hour of my time working with them trying to get it back up.  I finally switched email to another more expensive host because the “cheaper” host was so expensive in terms of the amount of my time that it required.
6. Focus your time. Many business owners combine their work and personal lives in unhealthy ways.  When you are working make sure you are able to give your total focus to working.  When you are relaxing, don’t be preoccupied with work.  It is easy to merge everything together so you don’t ever really get a chance to relax.
7. Invest in education. Time spent on education can give some of the highest rates of return.  If you spend 5 hours per week for 18 weeks increasing your skills in a way that will save you 10 hours
   per week for the rest of your life, it is a very good investment.  It is hard to measure some of the return on education because it can often times open up avenues that weren’t even possible for you before.
8. Solve problems once. When faced with a decision, try to see beyond the specific problem.  For example, don’t think in terms of “Mrs. Jones didn’t pay her bill.” Think in terms of “Some
   customers might not pay their bill on time–how should we handle late payments?” If you can understand the general issue behind the problem, you may be able to come up with a way to handle the general problem that eliminate it all together or allow you to create a policy that will let other employees deal with similar issues in the future without requiring your attention.

Originally published on October 2, 2006.

Dealing with an Unorganized Boss

In the last few months, I’ve spoken with several people who are having a difficult time working with their boss.  In each case, the boss isn’t a bad person, but they are so unorganized that it is difficult to get much done under their leadership.  Obviously, the fault lies with the boss.  However, for people who are used to being highly productive, knowing where to place the blame offers little consolation.

This is the first in a series of posts listing common problems you’ll face with an unorganized supervisor and some suggestions on how to best deal with them.

The boss who doesn’t know what needs to be done.

This happens in two different forms. Some bosses know exactly what
they need to do, but aren’t really sure what they should have you work
on. Other bosses aren’t really clear on what they should be doing
(which of course means they have even less of a clue as to what you
should be working on).

If you find yourself in this situation, you’ll need to direct most of
your work yourself. However, you still need to keep your boss informed
and make sure that they approve what you are doing. Otherwise, you run
the risk of having them change your goals once you get started.

One way to do this is to make a list of everything you know needs to
be done and ask them to tell you what they would like you to work on.
This puts them in the position of feeling like they are managing you,
which means they are more likely to defend what you are working on if
it ever comes into question. Also, since you have their buy-in, they are
less likely to come in later and change what you are working on.

It is very important to make sure that any direction they give you
is documented. Most unorganized bosses will never put anything in
writing, so if you have a face to face meeting with them where say you
should be working on X and Y, don’t assume that they will remember that
conversation later. Be proactive by following up your conversation with
a short email summarizing your conversation. This gives you a record of
what you’ve been told to do and gives them a chance to clarify anything
that you may have misunderstood. If your boss later asks you why you
are doing something, you can refer back to your email that summarized
the meeting.

Other posts on dealing with an unorganized boss:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Originally published on December 13 2005.

Productivity at the Fringes

The physics most of us are familiar with is called Newtonian physics.  You can use it to calculate how fast a ball will fall when dropped from the Eiffel tower, where a canon ball will land when shot at a particular angle and all kinds of other useful things.  However, if you start dealing with things that are very small or very large, Newtonian physics is no longer accurate.

When dealing with very small things like computer processors, individual photos and other partials, you have to use Quantum Theory to produce meaningful results.  When dealing with very large things, distances and objects, you have to use Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. With Newtonian physics, the GPS in your car would be impossible to build.

Most of the normal advice you read about productivity is like Newtonian physics.  It is very useful for the normal things in our experience, but it is unusable if you are operating at the edges.

For example, most people believe that writing down all of the tasks you can think of is a good productivity practice and is part of GTD.  This is true for most people working normal jobs.  However, for people who are extremely productive, there is a fundamental shift in how they work.  Keeping track of trivia would only distract them from their larger goals.  Also, their accomplishment is based on picking the right things to do and not as much on doing as many tasks as possible.

When you are operating at the edges, be very careful what advice you follow.  Just like Eistein had to come up with new theories to deal with very fast and very large objects, you will probably need to discover new (and sometimes unintuitive) rules that work for you.

How big are your blocks?

The ability to be productive is not something that is evenly distributed to each human.  Take five random people and give them all the assignment to create a storage shed and a week to work on it.  At the end of a week, how much variance would you expect to find?  Some individuals wouldn’t have started while others would be completely finished.

There are several reasons for this.  If one of your subjects happens to be a carpenter, it makes sense that he would make more headway than the Wal-mart clerk.  So skill and past experience definitely have an impact.  However, there is another difference that is even more important that has to do with how different people see a problem and what level they focus.

Let me give you an example.  Let’s say one of your subjects starts thinking about a storage shed in terms of where to locate trees that can be hewed into lumber to build a shed.  Obviously that person is going to take a much longer time to complete the shed than a carpenter who starts by sketching a plan and going to the lumber yard to buy the supplies.  The first individual is dealing with much smaller “blocks” than the carpenter.  The carpenter is thinking in terms of walls and roofs while the other individual is thinking in terms of single boards.

I suppose the logical extreme would be someone who starts by purchasing land on which to grow trees to be used as lumber in 30 years.  That person would be using “blocks” like dirt and seeds. The person using the biggest “blocks” would probably be the one who goes to Home Depot and orders a storage shed to be delivered the next day.

The difference in between these approaches has to do with how each individual views the goal.  One sees it as a product made from trees, another sees it as something made from boards and nails, and another sees it as a completed product that just needs to be ordered.

Consider another example.  Let’s say we have three people who are put in charge of supplying a medium sized start-up company with computing infrastructure.  Some individuals are going to deal with “blocks” like video cards and hard drives.  They are going to research what each individual needs and build them a customized computer from the parts.  Other individuals are going to deal with individual computers. They are likely to end up ordering a bunch of custom-configured computers from Dell or IBM based on each employee’s needs.  The person dealing with the biggest “blocks” is probably going to start off by contacting a leasing company to work out the best deal possible and then using a standardized PC for everyone.

There is a very wide range here.  One person is dealing with individual electronic components and another is dealing with the entire computing capability of the organization as a single unit.  Even if the component person creates computers that are individually much better than any of the leased computers, his overall productivity will be much lower because so much energy is going into very small “blocks”.

One of the best ways to increase your productivity and effectiveness is by constantly forcing yourself to step back from your purposed solutions to see if maybe you should be working at a different level.  Don’t spend all of your time trying to fix 10,000 pin hole leaks in a 40 year old roof–replace the roof, it is cheaper and requires less effort.

Originally published on January 29, 2006.

Relaxing on Purpose

Over the last holiday, I spent some time thinking about how we relax. Personally, I find that there are two ways achieve “down time”.  The first way is when I intentionally plan to take some time relaxing.  This occurs when my wife and I decide to watch a movie, go on a walk, take some vacation and visit family, or go to the lake.  The second way is when I have a list of things that I need to work on, but I really want to take a break.  In this situation, I intend to do work, but instead I find myself fiddling with some gadget, browsing the web, etc.

The first way of getting down time is relaxing, fun and refreshing. The second is frustrating and makes me feel worn out and like I need to take another break. Avoiding work often seems to be more exhausting than work itself.

It is far more productive for me to intentionally do something recreational when I feel like it than to tell myself that I’m going to work but not do it.  If I don’t feel like working I shouldn’t try to force myself.  It doesn’t result in any significant accomplishment and if anything gets done it takes 10 times as long. (Obviously, if the work is on a deadline and has to be finished, I don’t have an option, but in those situations I don’t end up procrastinating anyway.)

One advantage of this approach is that it trains you to not procrastinate.  If you don’t feel like working–you don’t work. There is not of this sitting around finding things to distract yourself with while you avoid a task.  On the other hand when work needs done, you focus on the task at hand.  Just knowing that you are giving yourself a choice, puts you in a different mindset and lets you put all of your mental energy behind what you are doing at the moment.

Obviously, this type of setup only works for people who actually enjoy their work.  If you hate what you do for a living, this advice will probably lead to unemployment.  However, I doubt that people who hate their jobs are going to be spending much time reading a website about increasing their productivity.

Originally published on November 28, 2005.

Reader Question: Why isn’t my assistant saving me time?

I just got a personal assistant, but they aren’t saving me any time. What am I doing wrong?

Several people have asked me about this. There are many different issues that could be involved, but I see a lot of people who hire an assistant and then can’t think of what they wanted them to do. Either that, or it turns out their original ideas are all things that really can’t be handed off to someone else.

Benefits of a Large Monitors

If you are thinking about adding a larger monitor to your workspace, you might want to checkout these articles:

• Large Monitors for Productivity - Jason Calacanis
• The Large Display Paradox - Jeff Atwood
  
• Increase Your Productivity - Buy a Large Monitor! - Andrew Mason
• Dual Monitor Display Increases Productivity - Chris
• A Large Monitor Makes You More Productive - Jeremy Zawodny
• Big Monitors Can Increase Productivity? - DanB
• Enhance Your Productivity with Multiple Monitors - Mike Gunderloy
• Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? - Patrick Dubroy
  

No Flotation Devices

We signed our 15 month old daughter up for swimming lessons at the city pool. Arriving early, I read the pool rules for the regular swim periods. I hadn’t been to the pool in about 14 years and was suprised to see that they didn’t allow any type of flotation devices. No rafts, life jackets or arm “floaties”.

I asked one of the lifeguards why, and discovered that the city pool puts some real thought into their policies–much more than the local library. The lifeguard explained that when people have a flotation device, they tend to rely on it instead of their swimming skills. A child with a life raft is more likely to get into water that is too deep than one without. Worse still, parents don’t watch their children as carefully when they have the “floaties” on their arms. They decided it was safer to ban flotation devices entirely because it made people more responsible.

I realized that this is the same problem I have with many of the devices and systems that are supposed to increase your productivity. Palm Pilots, Smart Phones, and organization software are all useful, but many people think that having a good tool will somehow do the work for them. I’ve seen unproductive people buy software package after software package just trying to find the perfect tool. Their tool set isn’t the problem. The problem is that they aren’t taking responsibility for getting the work done on their own.

If you don’t learn to swim and spend all of your effort on finding the perfect flotation device, you will eventually get yourself into trouble. If you don’t learn to actually execute and spend all of your time trying to find the perfect way of listing your tasks, you aren’t going to be effective.

Most execution problems are not technology issues, they are simply a lack of self-discipline. Technology can help you keep track of things, but if it ever becomes a distraction from work, you are in trouble.

I will leave you with a few thoughts about how to implement technology effectively.

• Think in terms of return on investment - If you invest 40 hours in finding and implementing a new tool, how long will it take to “pay you back”? 40 hours in finding a tool that saves you 15 minutes each week is probably not worth it.
• Discipline first - If you are having trouble accomplishing things, start off assuming it is a problem with your self discipline. Technology may help, but work on the discipline part first. If you are not disciplined, technology is not going to help you, anyway.
• Be slow to change - If you have a process that works, don’t be quick to change to something else–especially if it involves buying a new gadget. Just because an iPhone comes with a great task management application, doesn’t mean it is any more effective than your 3×5 cards that you’ve been using for the past three years.
• Technology for collaboration - As a general rule, technology for managing what you need to do is much more useful in a collaborative environment. No matter how special, it is hard to make an application that works better than paper at keeping track of the five items you need to do today. This does not mean you should avoid any type of digital to-do list. You just need to be aware of what types of things technology is good at and what types of things will only result in marginal improvements.

Whatever gadgets or tools you use to organize your life, make sure they are actually helping you and not just giving you a false sense of accomplishment.

Past Post: The Power of Definite Goals

An experiment with loggers demonstrates that “doing your best” isn’t as good as doing something specific.

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