High Impact Strategies for Managing Your Day
Walter Rogers
President and CEO
Baker Communications, Inc.
"You‘ve got to think about the big things while you are doing the small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction" – Alvin Toffler
Nearly every executive, leader, manager and individual contributor is inundated with information, tasks, projects, deadlines and fire drills. They are bombarded by "administrivia," distracted by interruptions, and all but overwhelmed by crises large and small. Toffler‘s advice is easier said than done, but the issue is not ease of performance, it‘s improving your personal productivity by managing your day.
The business landscape is rapidly adapting to new business models, new competitors, new technologies, new processes, new threats, and, of course, new opportunities. Now, more than ever, personal productivity is a critical competency that must be mastered. Yet in the face of all the noise, very few take the time to methodically organize and run their own activities like a business with a P&L. That‘s right, a P&L! Every activity we chose to do or react to is either going to produce a personal productivity profit or a loss.
Over the years, I have researched hundred of articles, books, white papers and other documentation, and my conclusion is that there are just a handful of best practices that can massively impact your productivity. None of these best practices is inherently complex or requires advanced software or tools to implement. In fact, it is very likely you already have 100% of what you need to implement them today!
These best practices don‘t require advanced training or study. The only hard part about using these "7 Key Techniques to Improve Personal Productivity" is having the wisdom to focus your activities to accomplish essential goals, and the discipline to perform this simple set of tasks each and every day. However, these 7 practices, when implemented faithfully, will enable you and your team to achieve 80% of the results you want with only 20% of the work.
7 Key Techniques to Improve Personal Productivity
MONTHLY
1. During the first three days of the month, determine the 3 main goals that are critically important to accomplish during that month. Write them down. If you don‘t write them down, it will be much more difficult to manage your months, weeks, and days.
Note: If you list more than three, you will probably not get them all done.
2. Determine the top 5 impact areas that drive those three goals; for instance, Finance, Marketing, and Sales, and schedule weekly meetings to address each of the 5 impact areas. Each meeting should last one hour, and must include everyone you need to make decisions to support that goal and that impact area. These meetings need not be face-to-face; team members can participate by telephone, online, or other technologies. Discuss all of the issues that are related to the specific impact area, instead of reacting to "pop-up" items all through the week.
WEEKLY
3. Separate the important issues from the "noise" and create a weekly goals list. Write the list early on Monday morning or late on the previous Friday so you can start the week off "clean."
DAILY
4. Before 9:00 am each day, decide 5 actions you will take that day to help drive your weekly goals. These items should be incremental, small steps, and, of course. They should be in writing. Give each one a start time and an end time on your calendar. You should also include a specific definition of what you are trying to achieve with that activity. If it is too broad, you may not address the key elements in it. If it is not in your calendar, you may not do it at all.
Do everything in your power to complete these critical actions. The cumulative effect of managing these actions will be a well-managed day. Most people tend to do the easiest action first, and then lose momentum as the day unfolds. Instead, work on the most difficult of the 5 first, as early in the day as possible, before "stuff" starts coming up and you get distracted. Save the less important and least difficult items for last.
5. Hold your "high impact" meeting no matter what.
6. Use extremely specific subject lines on every e-mail. As you send emails about a goal, impact area, or action, change the subject line for each e-mail you send to say what you want the reader to do. And, check your e-mail only during scheduled times.
7. Also, whether you use Sales Force.com, another CRM, Outlook, or a pen-and-paper calendar, pick one of these tools and don‘t scatter your notes and messages among various types of media.
"Big picture" thinking is essential to the personal productivity that comes from managing your day. It does not do much good to accomplish the activities on a list if they are not moving you towards your goals. The key to managing your day is focusing your efforts towards a meaningful objective.
As noted above, "Every activity we chose to do or react to is going to produce either a personal productivity profit or a personal productivity loss." Each one will be measured by whether it moved you closer to completing your goal(s) or farther away, and it will tell the tale on how well you managed your day(s).
Alvin Toffler‘s words bear repeating:
"You‘ve got to think about the big things while you are doing the small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction"
Walter Rogers is the President and CEO of Baker Communications. Baker Communications is a sales training and development company specializing in helping client companies increase their sales and management effectiveness. He can be reached at 713-627-7700.
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