Day 2 of the media fast gave me no clear insights, except for one—it seems that the more productive I get on one end, the more others are trying to take it away from me on the other.
To paraphrase Al Pacino, “The more I try to get productive, the more they try to suck me back in to un-productivity.”
Since I was getting my work done so quickly, people in my office started asking me if I could “help” them (do their work for them) or “discuss a few things” (talk about nothing).
These time vampires (to borrow a term from Dan Kennedy) literally sucked all my productive time away.
Well, today I will employ a tactic my 4-year-old uses—the NO tactic.
I have written about it before, and have used it to great success. But it seems that when you start getting more productive, the time vampires smell blood. They figure that since you’re not “busy” you have time for them.
So, I will be cultivating my “busy” image even more. And when people ask me for help, I will use some phrases like:
“I’d love to, but I really have to take care of something right now.”
“I only have a minute because I’m on my way to X. Let me see what I can do now.” –Only at the end of yesterday did I employ this tactic (because it was true). But by forcing people to deal with me right then and there and putting a short time limit on it, those “emergencies” completely disappeared.
Do not and I repeat DO NOT let them say they can talk to you about it later. With the time vampires, if you leave the door open for them to “ask you later” then by gosh they sure will come by and ask you something later.
We’ll see how combining NO tactics with my media fast improves my productivity.
On the LeBron Front
It’s amazing what you can learn from headline news! I heard briefly that there was some trade to help out LeBron.
Now, I wasn’t able to read commentary telling me what to think about this trade. And I don’t even know the details. So, I can’t be so sure if this qualifies as giving LeBron respect.
I mean the media could spin the trade in so many ways so as to show utmost disrespect to LeBron. I’m sure they can. But since I’m not reading it, I don’t know.
I just have to deal with the raw facts of the matter and make up my own mind about what it means. Here goes that critical thinking again.
But with all the stories about the trade I’m sure some joker of a sportscaster will talk about how LeBron has “no more excuses” or use some other term that shows disrespect to LeBron. So, I’ll hedge my best and say they are still disrespecting him.
The protest continues…
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Posted: February 21st, 2008
Categories:
Eliminating Clutter,
Problem-solving/Critical Thinking,
Productivity,
Simplify Your Life,
Time Management
Tags:
critical thinking,
Lebron James,
productive time,
Productivity,
time limit,
Time Management,
time vampires
Comments:
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What can I say? Consider me a fan. A lot of you enjoyed “my” post on Randy Pausch’s “Last lecture.” In fact, take a gander over there at my popular posts and you’ll see that, as of this writing, Dr Pausch’s Last Lecture is “my” second-most popular post. For those of you who don’t know, Randy Pausch was diagnosed with cancer and given 3-6 months of good health left. It’s been over three months, and he still looks healthy.
Well, I found a new lecture of his on Time Management. It is excellent as well with some great info. And considering his situation, I think his insights into what to do with the time you have make the video well worth watching.
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With a simple change, I was able to run errands in less than half the time it usually took me. And the truth is I accidentally figured this one out.
You see, when I was running my own business I worked some wacky hours. I did a lot of work for companies overseas, and so sometimes I wouldn’t start working till 6:00 PM.
So, when was I supposed to shop, go to the bank, etc.? Well, one day I started grocery shopping at about 10:00 AM. And that’s when I started noticing something was amiss.
I noticed that hardly anyone was at the store. Whereas it used to take me at least an hour to get through the store, it now took me half an hour. Then I started running other errands at different times. Go to the bank at 2:00. Go out to eat at 11:00.
Heck, I was missing the lunch rush. Traffic was non-existent. It didn’t get any better.
Live Off-Peak
And that was the key right there. The key is to live your life off-peak. Do things at times other people aren’t doing things. Shopping and eating out are two things that can take up a lot of time. By doing those things off-peak you can save yourself A LOT of time.
“But I Have a Job. I have to do everything at a certain time”
Some people might be thinking this to themselves right now. And it is true. Having a job requires you to do things at certain times, like show up for work and leave at a certain time.
At the moment, I am working at a publishing company in South Korea. So, I understand this. However, I still live off-peak. How do I do it?
Here are a couple of ways you can shift your way of thnking (and that of your boss) to live more off-peak:
- Think in terms of hours worked, not a schedule
I work a set amount of hours. Why should it be 9-5? I go to the gym every day. Now, I could kill myself and fight with all the other people who go before work. But I go at 4:00 PM. NO ONE is there. My workout goes by quickly. I simply worked it out with my company that I take an hour break at 4:00 and I still work the same amount of hours. Just at different times.
This shift in thinking can also lead you to work some from home. I do that occasionally. And in that case no one can “count” your hours.
- Negotiate an off-peak schedule
Again, who said you have to work 9-5? How about 10-6? 11-7? You get my drift. Of course, the best option is to work remotely. But we all assume that we have to take the schedule we are given when the truth is many times the only thing a company cares about is that you get your work done.
These are a couple of things to think about. But if you want to increase your productivity and get your errands done in half the time, you should find more and more ways to live an off-peak lifestyle.
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Most of what I’ve ever read about time management and how to be productive deals with organizing and re-organizing. And much of that is necessary (in fact, I blog about things to eliminate things as a means of organizing all the time). The more I read about time management, however, the more it seems to focus on modern technology and information overload. For example, you might hear people tell you to throw away your blackberry (not a bad idea, but…).
That is good advice. But I have found that there is one thing that will kill your production. And it has nothing to do with modern technology. In fact, this was a problem since the dawn of mankind and doing nothing about it will stop your production dead in its tracks.
And that problem is…
(more…)
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Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve heard the same thing over and over again:
“You put everything off till the last minute.”
Of course, for years I’ve struggled with this problem. Everybody from parents, teachers, girlfriends, friends, spouse, and heck even my soon-to-be-4-year old tells me I wait too long to do things. In other words, I’m a procrastinator.
They’re mostly right. I tend to do everything at the last minute. When I was in collage. Study for a test? If I could ever be bothered to study, I did it last minute. Reports? The day before it was due. When I got a real job? The hour before it was due.
To hear everyone tell it, this must be a big problem.
To hear Wikipedia tell it (everything in Wikipedia just has to be accurate), this is either a symptom of my ADD or depression.
But there’s only one problem with the Wikipeida diagnosis.
(more…)
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So, now we’ve seen how checking e-mail frequently and chatting on instant messengers murder your productivity and efficiency. Now, we come to my personal demon. The demon that could turn a one-hour job into a 4-hour job. The demon that caused the sands of production to run right through my fingers. The demon that interrupted EVERY SINGLE PROJECT I had ever worked on.
That demon was…
(more…)
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Yesterday, you learned how checking e-mail can murder your work efficiency and production. But in our quest to be more productive, there is another activity that can derail even our best efforts at work. An activity that if left unchecked could leave you at the end of the day wondering just what the heck you were doing.
What could it be?
(more…)
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Some years ago as I sat in my office after a long 12-hour day, I sat and pondered something deeply.
How was it that I sat there at my desk all day and managed to do absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. Not one iota of work.
But I had been so busy all day. How was it that I completed nothing.
Certainly, I had done something, right? I was super-busy all day. The only problem was that all the things I was doing had nothing to do with work.
Welcome to a typical day in the life of the busy, yet unproductive. That was your glimpse into the reflections of a worker who did not exist. He was simply a figment of the imagination of the payroll department that cut checks to this “worker” who did very little, if any, work.
But it was not my fault really. The problem was that I really couldn’t figure out what I was doing with my time. I had no idea why I wasn’t getting any work done. And let me tell you when I set up my own business I had to figure it out quick or I would have gone broke in the
Does this sound familiar?
Well, in this 4-part series I will present to you the 3 things that I found had cut most deeply into my work production and how I solved all of them in one fail swoop (after a lot of trial and error). Needles to say, they all involved my computer.
The key to existing more is having more time to do the things that are important. And we can’t do that until we learn to be more productive and shed the “activities” that prevent us from using our time wisely.
Let’s start with the first of these murderers of production:
Production Murderer #1: Checking E-mail
I can hear the sound already. That Whoosh MS Outlook makes when I get a fresh, hot delivery. As I stated in an earlier post, though, it was usually from someone trying to sell me something, and in most cases that was my fault because I got on the person’s list in the first place.
Or how about that “urgent” e-mail from a friend that they so lovingly forwarded to me and 100 other people? I had better answer it right away before I forget about it.
I can tell you that at least once every 5 minutes I was checking my e-mail. And how much of it was urgent? Not a one. They all could have waited. In fact, 90% could have been deleted.
The truth is the people sending me e-mail were just as bored as I was. So, we sent each other e-mail all day going on about how bored we were when we should have been working.
But there is a quickie solution production murder by e-mail—turn it off.
Turn off your e-mail client. If you use Outlook, don’t open it. If you use web-based e-mail, don’t open your browser until your work is done. It’s that easy.
Some will say, “But Carlon I need to check my e-mail…that’s how I get clients.” That’s fine. But if you want to be productive, check your email at certain intervals in the day (like at 10:00 & 3:00, once every 2 hours, etc.). or check it after your most urgent task is completed. That way you can be sure not to miss any e-mails (trust me, most e-mails don’t need immediate replies) and still get some work done.
Tune in tomorrow, as I show you the second production murder and how under its smileyface-winking-sharing facade lies the potential to waste week after week of work with absolutely nothing to show for it.
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