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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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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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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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…

…depression.

Now, I don’t mean depression with a capital D. This is not clinical depression. Such a disorder should be treated by a trained professional.

No, what I am talking about here are all those times we get into a funk. Get the blues. Whatever you want to call it. I can honestly tell you that when I get in one of those moods, I find it almost IMPOSSIBLE to work. But that’s not all. I can’t study. I can’t concentrate on much of anything.

And let me be upfront with all of you: I am one of the most happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow people you will ever meet. But I still get down sometimes. And when I do, I can go an entire day or more doing nothing.

Compared to that, e-mail distractions are nothing.

So, what do you do when you find yourself feeling depressed?

I can’t give you any “magic pill” that will satisfy everyone, but here are a few things I do to help me crawl out of those periods of depression that kill my productivity:

1. Use the “so what” method

Usually something gets you down, or maybe you feel down and have to justify it by thinking of something that makes you feel down. For example, thoughts like “where I am going to get the money to pay for X”, “what will happen if I don’t get that job,” etc. etc.

Worries like this need to be put under the “so what” test. Ask yourself honestly, so, what if I don’t have the money to pay for X. Will the world end? Half the time the consequences we imagine are much worse than the actual consequences. Reality is a good tonic when we start getting down.

2. Sing

This is my #1 method for getting myself out of the blues. I sing. Quite loudly. And I honestly don’t care if others don’t like it. It may be annoying to some, but I when I sing the stress just melts away.

In Korea, I can go to a “singing room” (private karaoke room) and sing for hours and hours if I want. This is good for me.

3. Laugh

Learn to laugh at the things around you. You can find humor in almost anything (even in dark things…hello…”dark humor”). Watch a funny movie. Read some jokes. Read some comics. Do whatever you can to produce laughter. I was feeling down the other day and watch a few video clips of Will Ferrell doing a George W. Bush imitation and I laughed so hard that the people around me were getting a bit upset.

But I simply replied, “put on your headphones cause I’ll be doing this for at least another half hour.” That took care of that.

These are my methods for getting myself out of a funk. And it’s important that you find your own ways. And most importantly you use them when you feel depression coming on. Don’t let it get so bad that your usual methods don’t work too well.

Depression kills production and dampens your spirits. Learn to recognize it and deal with it quickly.

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“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.

I’m not particularly depressed. In fact, my easy-going, happy-go-lucky nature is annoying to many people, though in all fairness, admired by some. And I have been known to be able concentrate on things. So, in lieu of seeing a professional whose job it is to diagnose me with all sorts of problems, I am left with only one option…

Embracing my procrastination.

That’s right. I am embracing it. But there’s a reason for this.

I’ve always gotten things done. All those “time management” people tell me that I need to go through some elaborate rituals so I can do more work. But the thing is if I can get it done in an hour, why should I spend all stinkin’ day working on it?

Now, I’m not advocating waiting till the last minute and NOT getting it done. But the question here is: why is it necessarily bad to wait till the last minute to do something if you can get it done at the last minute? Most of us are told we have to do things well in advance. But I seriously question that wisdom.

And this brings me to the point of today’s blog post: Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, if you’re given 5 days to finish a project, it will take 5 days. If given 2 hours, it will take 2 hours.

I KNOW this is true. Once when I worked for a publishing company I was given 3 months to write an entire series of educational books—from conception to finished product. Well, let me be more specific, I was actually given short 72-hour deadlines to finish parts of the series. Did I finish it on time? You better believe I did. And did I work overtime to do it? You better believe I didn’t! I finished it EXACTLY when they needed it all within my shift.

And what was the result? Those books are now being used in over 250 schools in South Korea. Giving me short deadlines kicked my brain into high gear and produced some quality material that was both educational and entertaining.

One more example—this blog. Although I am a brilliant procrastinator, I write 5 days worth of material every Sunday and set it up in advance to go out each day. I give myself a set amount of time on Sunday to get it done. If I give myself 2 hours to do it, I can do it in 2 hours. If I give myself 10 hours, it will take 10 hours.

So, why not make Parkinson’s Law work for you instead of against you? Here are two ways I have found to do it:

#1 Give yourself a firm deadline.

This way I know when I have to do a project. Like this blog, I give myself a Sunday at 11:00 PM Seoul time to finish 5 blog posts/podcasts. And, yes, I do it at the last minute. But usually 2 hours takes care of it because I’ve had the ideas for the blog posts in my head for a week. But an added bonus to this is you can make any deadline you want. For this blog, my only boss is my readers who deserve their daily post. But rather than, giving myself daily deadlines (for which I have no time to do a post a day), I set my own deadline and stick to it. And speaking of time…

#2 Batch your work

I am usually busy with my personal pursuits to have to take time out every day to do routine tasks. So, typically, rather than spreading out daily tasks, I do them all at once. As I explained about this blog, I do 5 posts at a time. This way it gets done at once in a set block of time.

Mind you, this is NOT multi-tasking. This is setting aside time to do ONE thing.

Using these two methods has allowed me to embrace my procrastination and at the same time undermine any negative effects it might have on me. By setting firm deadlines and doing a set amount of work at once, I am more efficient.

So, people might still try to lecture me about procrastination. But the truth is I get things done. And if you too have a problem with procrastination, don’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars (in money or in time) on courses on time management. Simply, give yourself firm deadlines and perform a single task in a given time.

This way you don’t have to try to re-invent yourself. You can make your tendency to procrastinate work for you instead of against you utilizing Parkinson’s Law.

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That demon was…

Production Murderer #3: Reading Internet News Sites

Here was a day in the life: go to msnbc.com, then jump over to CNN, and then Yahoo News and so on and so on. And what did I read? Pretty much the same stories over and over again.

But wildfires are raging, it’s flooding, and somewhere in the world there’s a war going on…clearly all this is so important that I need to read it over and over again all on different news sites, right? And I need to read all the varying opinion of the effects of wildfires on global warming, the economy, and a far-off war. And then I need to head over to the blogosphere to hear what Jack from Canada has to say on the issue. I really really need to know what is going on in the world!

Well…not really. What I found is that most of these sites get their stories from the AP, so they all sound fairly similar. And news, for the most part, is the product of very bored people looked for something to say. If you don’t believe me, mosey on over to www.fark.com. You’ll see some of the things that pass for news these days.

So, how did I resist the temptation to go to news sites every other minute? Mind you, my job required me to know have a good knowledge of news, so I couldn’t just stop cold turkey.

So, I did 2 things that helped:

1. Deleted news sites from my favorites (and removed Yahoo from my home page to stop myself from clicking on the latest headline). You’d be surprised how having to type in a URL cuts down on your news site surfing. By not being able to see the temptation before my eyes, I went there less and less.
2. Set up a 30-minute block of time in the morning to read news. I’m a fast reader, and in 30 minutes I pretty much got most of the important things going around. This usually gave me time to scan headlines, read an expose in Newsweek or Time, and to read one of my favorite sports columns every Monday and Tuesday. Some say that 30 minutes a day is too much. But I like reading news and don’t watch any TV news whatsoever. And by giving myself a set amount of time to read news, I found over the course of a 2-week period of doing this that not much happens in the day that requires immediate attention. Everything I needed to know could wait till tomorrow. And wait it did.

So, there you have it. Three activities that murder work efficiency. In the last part of the series, I will show you a simple solution that can take care of this and pretty much any computerized distraction. In fact, when I employed it, my efficiency jumped almost 300%.

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What could it be?

It’s our smiley-faced, emoting, winking buddy…the instant messenger.

Production Murderer #2: Chatting on Instant Messengers

Whoo hoo! Now…there’s the ticket. At one time, I had not one, not two, but at least 3 instant messengers going all at the same time. (Heck, I hear now some messengers can actually combine your accounts from different instant messengers, thus giving you access to a wealth of contacts you’ve never dreamed of).

And what did these messengers do for me? Lo and behold my friends, family, and people I didn’t’ even know had unlimited access to my time. And they needed to talk to me NOW.

About what? Truthfully, I can’t remember even 1/10th of the things I chatted with people about on instant messengers. But I sure spent a lot of time on them.

So much time that one day on a lark I decided to calculate the time I spent chatting on instant messengers that day, and it ran at about 4 hours. 4 hours! If you think you don’t talk that much on a messenger, then track your time on it.

You’ll find that you spend quite a long time on an instant messenger: going through the pleasantries, small talk, and then important discussions on how bored you are and never seem to have enough time to work.

Recently, I a friend of mine was complaining how it took her all day to do her work. But when I saw all her IMs going, I advised her to stop chatting on IMs, so she could get some work done. She explained, “But Carlon I use it to talk about work.” Then I asked her, are the things you talk about so important that they can’t wait till you are finished with your main task. She didn’t answer. We both know what the answer was.

It’s probably the same answer you would give if you were asked. As with e-mail, the best way to reclaim your time from the instant messengers is to turn them off. In fact, I would uninstall them. (I heard that Windows gives you a hard time if you delete MSN messenger, so be careful).

If you absolutely must use an instant messenger, like I use Skype to communicate with friends and colleagues abroad or back in the States, the best way is to leave it turned off until you need to use it. And when you use it, you use it like a phone to talk to someone and then “hang it up.”

The more you leave an instant messenger on, the more you are inviting someone to waste your time.

Tune in for the next installment as I reveal the activity that was the #1 murderer of my work efficiency (the answer just might shock you).

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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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