Priorities

12th January 2012 / Posted in: Business efficiency, Operational management, Planning and preparation, Priorities, Productivity, Time management

Tips to boost your productivity

On 10th January I gave a 10 minute presentation,  at the Chichester College Business Breakfast Club, on what gets in the way of working productively. Judging by the number of e-mails, texts and tweets I received the subject and presentation were spot on. The slide presentation is on Slideshare and the following are the key points from the presentation:

• About 50% of the audience admitted to allowing their work to be interrupted by pop up messages on their screen, pings etc when e-mails, texts etc arrive. 
• Interruptions damage waste your most important commodity - time. Once used time has gone for ever.
• Interruptions are a distraction and reduce your ability to focus your concentration and effort on the matter in hand leading to lower quality work that takes longer to produce
• Many people use their diaries simply for appointments and sometimes to list reminders. Using your diary to schedule everything is a discipline and a disciplined approach to managing your time delivers results.
• To start using your diary effectively do a brain dump of everything you need to do - not just tasks, but strategic priorities or the actions needed to achieve these priorities. Go through this list and highlight everything you need to do this week then separate in to two lists for the week - one for strategic and revenue-generating priorities and the other for everything else.
• Schedule the strategic priorities into your diary first remembering that you can’t focus for more than 90 minutes at a time, effectively, then take a break. Make the most of the first 90 minutes of your working day - it’s when you’ll work most effectively  (See ‘The way we’re working isn’t working’ by Tony Schwartz.)
• In your breaks you need to do something different. If you’ve been sitting at your desk looking at Facebook or Twitter isn’t a break. Move around. Have a change of scene.
• Remember - successful people like Richard Branson schedule time to look at an action e-mails - rather than looking at umpteen times a day,  and also define one important or key task as the priority for the day.
• Electronic diaries make using different colours for different types of task easy so you can see what is fixed and what can be moved around.
• Like any new habit working this way takes a bit of time but once you start using your diary effectively you’ll:

1. achieve more priorities - providing you put everything in your diary and you don’t shy away from diarising the ones you don’t want to do
2. feel good about achieving more priorities .... and the business will benefit
3. be less likely to forget to do things as if you need to reschedule something you simply move it to another time
4. be better prepared for client meetings, phone calls etc because you’ve identified planning time in your diary
5. be in a better position to drive opportunities forwards and keep ideas on the agenda if you schedule time to write notes after all meetings
6. become more realistic about the time it takes to do something and hence better at estimating how long something takes - which is really important if time is money
7. find yourself working faster or more efficiently if you know you have an hour do to something - providing your interruptions are being kept to a minimum and you remember to take proper breaks
8. achieve things rather than getting to the end of the day and feeling a failure as you haven’t crossed anything off the to do list
9. discover if you really have more do to than time allows, thereby putting yourself in better position to evaluate what to delegate or outsource
10. have a better work-life balance
11. be happier!
12. It’s worth spending part of Friday afternoon planning your diary for the week ahead

If you work with other people the business will be more successful if everyone recognises that time is their most important commodity and knows how to manage it effectively.

Click here to go to the slides

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3rd January 2012 / Posted in: Business efficiency, Management, Planning and preparation, Priorities, Time management, Top tips

3 top tips for client meetings

When we're busy we often don't allocate enough time to prepare for meetings with our clients or follow up after the meeting.  Every meeting, or significant telephone conversation, presents an opportunity to sow seeds which may develop and grow the business with that particular client.

These three tips may help you make the most of these opportunities: 

► Send a summary of what was discussed and agreed within 48 hours of the meeting. If you don’t already send minutes or action plans Minutes.io is a useful tool.  A summary is useful ground work for future meeting agendas.

► Take time to reflect on the meeting and whether any additional information, or clarification, is needed to progress any work

► Plan the actions required by the client remembering to schedule time in your diary. As well as making sure actions don’t get overlooked, scheduling helps keep track of the time actually spent on each client/project

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21st April 2011 / Posted in: Business efficiency, Operational management, Planning and preparation, Priorities, Productivity, Staff engagement, Time management

Turning Bank Holiday Disruption on its Head

In the days when I was young, and an employee, the prospect of 4 bank holidays in less than a fortnight was a dream. Now that I run my own business and advise others about running theirs I feel very differently.  The prospect of a reduction in trading days in April and May, the distractions caused by Easter, the Royal Wedding and the recent sunshine, and staff wanting to take an extended Easter break will be bad news for many businesses.

Don’t take the defeatist approach assuming that business will be bad, but turn the situation around to limit the damage or even make it work in your favour. The most valuable commodities to your business are probably your staff and time so focus on making the most of what you do have during the next few weeks. Refocus everyone’s energies and priorities on what delivers your strategy and drives revenue into the business.  It may even give you an advantage over your competitors.   Finally, don’t forget to communicate these plans clearly with your staff, explaining why you are putting them in place and getting their feedback. Good two way communication and a few treats in the office will motivate your staff, keep them focused and make them feel appreciated.  

'What gets measured, gets done. And what gets recognised gets done again, and even better.' Robert Crawford, Director, Institute of Customer Service

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10th January 2011 / Posted in: Business efficiency, Management, Operational management, Planning and preparation, Priorities, Productivity, Social networking, Strategy, Time management

Have you resolved to change?

Last week I had never seen so many people in the swimming pool before work. I daresay they’d resolved to wear off their Christmas excesses. This morning there were far fewer cars in the car park and I had a choice of lanes in the pool. The gym was slightly busier, but mostly familiar faces who were there pre-Christmas. Have so many New Year resolutions already failed simply because old habits die hard?

Doing something differently – be it dieting, getting fit or managing your time better -isn’t easy because we humans find it easier to stick to the path of least resistance and do what we’ve always done. We like being in our comfort zone so we stick to the habits we’re comfortable with.

It’s easy to say my New Year resolution is to blog once a fortnight (by the way – it isn’t!) but the reality of doing that means I have schedule time in my diary every fortnight to plan what to blog about, write it ….. and stick to my schedule!

We’re creatures of habit, so why is changing a habit, or creating a new one, so difficult? I asked Google how long it takes to form a habit and the answers ranged from 21 – 28 days, then I came across some really interesting research undertaken by Phillippa Lally and colleagues from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre based at UCL Epidemiology and Public Health. They found it takes an average of a staggering 66 days to form a new habit. (See
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/09080401 and http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php.)

That got me thinking. The reality of 66 days is scary. If your New Year resolution was to manage your time at work more efficiently and effectively so you could leave at 5.30pm three times a week to do some exercise, then if you started on Tuesday 4th January it would probably take until Wednesday 6th April for this to become a habit.

Going back the resolution I didn’t make I know that if I had agreed to write a fortnightly blog for a client, or someone else’s website, the chances of it happening are much higher as I wouldn’t just move the scheduled time in my diary because something else needed doing.

If getting something done that is outside our comfort zone works better if a third party is involved then perhaps we should be sharing our New Year’s resolutions with our social networking buddies. #tweetnag?

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20th October 2010 / Posted in: Management, Priorities, Time management

If you don’t know where you are going …

In March 2001 Margaret Eva, was made Acting Head of Bourne Community College – the school where she had been Deputy Head for nine years, a school in “challenging circumstances.” Today, Wednesday 20th October 2010, Margaret is off to Buckingham Palace to receive an OBE for her services to education. The story about how she became Head Teacher in April 2002 and turned the school around to achieve outstanding in every area of the 2006 Ofsted report is remarkable – see http://bit.ly/c7IsSC.

When I met Margaret she showed me something that puts her head and shoulders above many of her peers and – and above most CEOs of medium sized businesses. Next to her desk is a shelf of lever arch files – not unusual in itself – but the documents inside were fascinating and very much alive. They contained the Strategic Plan broken down into clearly documented targets, objectives, action plans and development plans for every member of staff, both teaching and support. Reporting lines, roles and responsibilities were abundantly clear. Regular entries confirmed the documents are part of everyday working. It may not seem remarkable but, in my experience, very few medium (or small) enterprises manage to translate their Strategic Plan (assuming they have one!) into a delivery plan, involving all staff at all levels, which translates into monthly and weekly priorities. Margaret and every member of her staff know exactly where they are going and how they will get there – and with a very tight budget they haven’t had any help from external consultancies. Interestingly, when I was enthusing about what she had achieved for the school Margaret says she’s just doing her job. Makes you wonder what education and businesses would be like if everyone did their job as well as Margaret?

This serious approach to strategy is complemented by Margaret’s infectious passion, energy ... and a beaming smile. Before taking me on a tour of the school she told me she always puts on “a bit of lippy and a smile,” however she is feeling, as she can’t expect the staff and students to enjoy what they are doing if you look like you aren’t. The “lippy” isn’t for everyone but smiling is!

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