Making Time go Further

The biggest lament from clients is usually that they lack the time needed to implement new ideas, projects and activities.  They know what they 'should' be doing to get ahead, but they lack the time to do it.  In this overloaded world we live in, time is often the most critical resource.  Consider the importance then, of a tip that helps you to reframe your time in such a way that it makes your time go further.  You still have the same 24 hours as everyone else, but rethinking your approach to time can actually allow you to get more done in those 24 hours, if not have a little left over.

The idea I'm speaking about is typically referred to as a 'Multiplier', which is a term applied to the engagement in a single activity that satisfies multiple goals.  Unlike Multi-tasking, which has you engaged in multiple activities in an effort to satisfy multiple goals, a Multiplier is a single activity that allows you to work on multiple goals simultaneously.  The beauty of this, of course, is that the same action moves you forward on multiple dimensions, taking you further, faster.

It requires us to become a little more strategic and thoughtful about the way in which we use our time, looking at our to-do lists to combine various activities, to roll them into one.  For instance, perhaps you have on your list that you need to finally hit that yoga class and you need to catch up with a friend.  Instead of scheduling these two tasks separately, consider calling your friend and getting them to go attend the yoga class with you.  One activity that crosses 2 items from your list and that reduces your time expenditure.

In business, this idea should be used strategically in determining what new projects to volunteer for.  Let's assume that you are looking at two different projects, both of which would heighten your visibility within the organization.  However, you have also been wanting to strengthen your community involvement, perhaps in volunteering for a charity.  One aspect of project number 2 involves a charity fundraiser to heighten the profile of the project within the community.  This project then satisfies two of your goals and should therefore be the one you say 'yes' to.

Think now of the multiplying advantage of a multiplier activity that satisfies not just two of your goals, but perhaps three, or four!  More done in less time, brilliant!  This is what working smarter, not harder, is all about and is a defining characteristic of most highly successful people.  There is a reason they somehow manage to get more done in less time.  It's not because they get more time than the rest of us but, rather, that they consciously use the time they have - differently.

Become time affluent by spending the time you have wisely.  Look for those Multiplier activities that allow you to satisfy more of your goals through one activity, blowing past those multi-taskers.  Grouping your goals into activities that satisfy them all allows you to stretch your time and have it working harder for you.

And that, in the words of Martha Stewart, is a Good Thing!

Focusing and Single-Tasking

Despite the much lauded concept of 'multi-tasking', we truly don't get anything done without the ability to focus.  The greater our ability to minimize the distractions surrounding us, and concentrate our thoughts and efforts on the task at hand, the more productive we will be.  Unfortunately, today's workplace seems bent on creating more distractions than ever before and in rewarding people for responding to them.  However,  our long term success actually relies upon our ability to ignore those distractions, hone in on one thing... and get it done!  Results, in the long run, are what are going to take us from here, to there.

Most of us spend our days on sensory overload.  Our mind actively works on shutting down much of the sensory information we receive in an effort to help us to direct our attention to our more important needs. Consider the feel of the chair you're sitting on, the brush of your clothing on your skin, the weight of your glasses on your nose, the feel of the pen in your hand or the weight of your coffee cup.  These are all seemingly small sensations, but are those that we do not consciously register until or unless we formally direct our attention to them.  Our brain is constantly at work minimizing these distractions so that we can fully focus elsewhere.  The more distractions that exist around us, the more difficult a task this becomes until our brains become overwhelmed and far less effective in keeping those distractions from, well, distracting us!

Concentrate all your thoughts on the task at hand.   - Alexander Graham Bell

I remember when I was a child, the great fun we had playing with a magnifying glass.  Yes, this was before iPads and electronic devices took over.  A magnifying glass, the sun and a piece of wood and you were good to go for hours!  Harnessing the power of the sun and directing it to one focused beam of light created great power.  This is the power of learning to harness the mental ability of your brain and directing it in a single-minded fashion at a task.  It stands to reason then that the more effective we are at managing distractions, the more productive we will find ourselves to be.  Here are a couple of tips to help you get more from your day...

• Shift your mindset from multi-tasking to single-tasking.  When we think that the goal is to be better at multi-tasking we are inadvertently giving ourselves permission to jump from task to task, thought to thought.  Distractions then seem to be a built-in part of this equation.  If our intent is on single-tasking instead, we do not welcome interruptions and are more consciously aware of the desire to avoid them.Our aim is to work optimally, which requires us to work in unbroken chunks of time.  You may choose to schedule your chunks in small 10 or 15 minutes segments, or in larger 60 minute ones, depending upon your environment, tasks and needs, but start chunking your time to focus on one thing at a time and see how much further it takes you.
• Cultivate your mindfulness.  You want to be more aware of where your attention should be, and to gently nudge it back if and when you drift or begin getting pulled in another direction.  You need to retrain your brain to recognise that you actually want to remain focused and not be distracted!  Much of the way we live, allowing every electronic ping to take us off course, has told our brain that we welcome such diversion, which is why you are on hyper alert and can't help reaching for the device every time it makes a cough, burp or sputter!
• Deliberately minimize distractions.  Don't make your brain have to do all of the work to shut distractions out and down.  Actively work to minimize some.  First of all, set your devices so they do not 'ping' you every time someone sends you an email or text.  If you know that you need an hour of uninterrupted time to focus on a project, put a sign up on your office door asking not to be disturbed, book yourself a meeting room away from others to help you concentrate or set up a red light/green light system.  I have a client who introduced this within their office to help people develop their focus.  All employees were given two flip cards, one green, one red, and were instructed when to use each.  In general, green meant they weren't working on anything critical and could be interrupted if needed, while the red card (which was used judiciously) indicated they were in deep-focus time and should not be disturbed.  A novel idea! 

Focus can be developed and strengthened, but it first needs to be recognised as a desired skill.  Our distractions are increasing at an alarming rate, necessitating the development of our ability to block out the extraneous messages.  Developing and strengthening your ability to focus is likely going to prove to be a decisive factor in your continued success.

For more reading on the concept of Focus and how to cultivate it...

The Attraction of Distractions

Let's face it, even before technology came along and made it easier, we had little difficulty in allowing ourselves to become distracted from seemingly 'important' tasks.  Now the advent of the internet and the advancement of technology have allowed our distractions to become just one click away!  Enough so that I have heard productivity consultants refer to our electronic devices as 'Weapons of Mass Distraction'!

We have, in fact, become so obsessed with these devices that recent reports have found that 67% of cell phone owners checked their phone for missed calls/messages/alerts - even when they had received no notice of any being received.  Additionally, more than half reported sleeping with their phone by their bed so that they wouldn't miss any calls or messages while they were sleeping.  In becoming more 'connected' through technology we are becoming more disconnected with our work and what drives our success.

If we think of a Distraction as being anything that pulls us away from our Purpose, as opposed to simply our Task, the need to minimize and/or control our distractions becomes more important.  How then can we control our distractions to increase our productivity? The following five tips are key for controlling the siren call of your favourite distractions.

1.  Stop Multi-Tasking.  I have written before about the dangers of multi-tasking (see Multitasking - Friend or Foe).  Recent research has now found that your IQ points will drop for any day that you change tasks more than 10 times over the course of it.  5 full points for Women and 15 points for Men.  Yes, sorry guys, but research does show that you have more challenges with multitasking than women.  In essence, multitasking itself is proving to be a distraction, often negatively impacting both quality and quantity of work produced.

2.  Plan Backward.  Many of us schedule our time wrong and create To-Do lists with too many big-ticket items on it.  Merely looking at it is overwhelming.  Instead, we should start with our final objective in mind and work it backward.  Start with the goal, break it down into milestones and then individual tasks.  Put the tasks on your To-Do lists.  Looking at smaller items on your daily lists seems less-daunting and increases the likelihood of getting it done.  Additionally, the more we can break our objectives down into smaller bites the less prone we are to interrupt them with distractions.

3.  Establish Routines.  Having established routines and times set for handling mundane items (such as emails, returning calls, checking on your Facebook status) prevents you from doing so constantly.  You know you'll get to it, you know it will be waiting for you, but you will now be checking it on your time, not on someone else's posting schedule.

4.  Own your Agenda.  I love the quote... "An emergency on your part does not constitute and emergency on mine", and it is fully applicable to this point.  You need to set boundaries and guard your schedule and timelines.  Other people have their own Agendas and will be working toward fulfilling them.  Your agenda can quickly become 'busy' with simply getting things done for everyone else.  They get to check off items from their To-Do list but yours remains intact.  Ensure that you recognise that their Agenda is no more important than your own.  I'm not saying to not be responsive to others, but don't feel that you need to drop what you are doing every time that someone else has an 'emergency'.  Assess then respond.  Often 'later' still works.

5.  Work in Chunks.  Research indicates that our productivity remains highest when we work in 60 to 90 minute intervals, scheduled with short recuperative breaks in between.  This is how our body was built...  learning to work within its normal and natural rhythms helps us to maintain our productivity, focus and, most importantly, energy.  (more information on this can be found in the article...  Turning Energy into Time, or by taking a look at our ebook on the subject)

Multitasking - Friend or Foe?

Given the workplace of today, we are all guilty of trying to get too much done each day.  We over pack our schedules in an effort to 'keep up' and we use technology as a tool to help us keep track of if not complete, multiple tasks simultaneously.  Who hasn't been guilty of reading an email or text message from one person while speaking to another?  When accused of not listening or paying attention we confidently assure them we are, that we are simply multitasking and can pay equal attention to both activities simultaneously.

Our ability to multitask successfully is much lauded and sought after during recruitment.  However, as it turns out, there is a very narrow window of activities that allow us to truly multitask.  In fact, two key conditions must be met for us to multitask, to truly engage in two separate activities simultaneously...

1. one of the activities must be so ingrained, so well learned, that it is now automatic and habitual.  This means that there is no conscious thought required for you to engage in the task (think walking or eating here)
2. that the activities you are looking to engage in use completely different types of brain processing.  For example, you can read and listen to instrumental music because they involve different parts of the brain.  However, your comprehension and retention of information you're reading drops significantly if you read while listening to music with lyrics.  As soon as the lyrics are added you are asking the same part of the brain (language center) to attend to two different sources of information simultaneously... and it can't.

As soon as our multiple activities stimulate and require the same brain area or function, we are no longer Multitasking, but 'Serial' Tasking.  Our brain continually shifts from one task to the other, in very rapid succession.  As much as this might seem like a significant difference, research is now showing us that there is a high price to be paid in productivity for Serial Tasking. It seems that, despite how it feels, our brains are not able to shift smoothly and seamlessly from one task to another.  There is a lag time in which our brains detach from the current task and attach to the new task.  If we are constantly shifting from one to another, this can add a significant amount of time (up to 40%) on completion time, versus single tasking.

• in studies testing multitasking capabilities, those who rated themselves as chronic multitaskers actually made more mistakes, cold remember fewer items and took longer to complete single-focused tasks than those who rated themselves as infrequent multitaskers.
• other studies have definitively shown that children perform worse on their homework if it done while watching TV (thank god my mother never saw this but then, my children didn't appreciate the fact I had!)
• and again, research shows that employees are more productive when they don't check their email frequently

I know that when I have a new program that I am writing, I will pack up cases of my research notes, a million and one sticky notes, flipcharts and markers and head to the cottage for a couple of weeks.  Minimizing my distractions and immersing myself in the subject truly allows me to gain greater clarity, finish faster and develop a far superior product than had I stayed back at the office fielding calls and interruptions.

I know that this isn't an option available at all times though, so what are we to do when life seems to scream at us to multitask all of the time?

1. recognise that life is rarely asking us to multitask.  Instead, it is simply coming at us with simultaneous demands.  Rarely do our task have to be accomplished simultaneously, they simply have to be done by the same time.  Staging our activities in a priority order truly helps us in single tasking more efficiently.  Maintaining our focus on one activity, for a set period of time, can help us accomplish it faster.  At the end of the day we just need our list completed.  How we have managed that is less important.
2. although we can't pick up and head to the cottage to work every day, we can block out moments in our day that help us to really focus and concentrate on an important task.  Close the office door or move to a meeting room, shut off the phone, the blackberry, turn off the message received notification on your computer.  In order words... minimize all potential interruptions and distractions.
3. consider making some changes on an ongoing basis that do the same.  Turn your desk so that you do not face directly out of the door.  This prevents you from seeing movement going past your door that draws the eye and breaks focus.  Turn off the message receipt sound to your email and only answer it at scheduled points during your day. (same with other devices!) 
4. when focusing on a task schedule a set amount of time during your day for working on it.  Just the fact that you know you have 30 minutes set aside for a task allows you to feel comfortable spending the time needed on it, rather than feeling guilty about the time it takes.  This helps you to relax into the activity and not have part of your brain focused on how long it is taking and reminding you of everything else waiting for you. 

When we have so many things, and people, screaming for our attention throughout the day, we may find that the key lies not in learning to multitask better, but in simply learning to focus on one thing at a time better!  Breaking away from the myth of multitasking may prove to be the biggest productivity booster that you have implemented yet!