Just like weeds that pop up in your driveway or on your sidewalk, productivity killers will creep up on you in your business and professional life. In my ongoing quest to be come ever more productive, I want to share 5 of the biggest productivity killers that I am going to be on the lookout for in 2008.
1. Email Madness
How many email addicts are out there? I freely admit to being a reformed email addicts. I went cold turkey a few weeks ago and I am now checking and responding to email only twice daily. I admit to having an the equivalent to an ‘intervention’ done to me by my wife in this regard. She basically shoved Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Workweek at me and told me that I absolutely HAD to read it. Right she was.
I cannot express enough how eliminating email addiction as improved my productivity. I was constantly checking and re-checking my Outlook for the latest and greatest: questions that I needed to address, people I needed to contact. I recall doing a time analysis on myself and found that I was spending about 2.5 hours per day in Outlook. In addition, this constant email checking was interrupting innumerable other tasks that I needed to get done.
The fact of the matter was, for me, that most of the email I got was not truly urgent and thus did not require my immediate attention. Once you rationalize in your mind that things are not truly urgent, it become easier to put them on the back burner and attend to other tasks without undue stress or paranoia.
2. Telephone madness
How many of you answer your cell phone within the first ring? Do you get upset that you have missed calls when you get out of a meeting? Do you feel a compulsion to check voicemail the first instant you see that blinking light? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions (please, be honest with yourself), than you might be suffering from this productivity killer.
The telephone madness productivity killer goes much along the same lines as email madness. Most people simply don’t get that many urgent phone calls that require their immediate attention. Cell phones and other telecommunications have made phone calls as easy as breathing oxygen. Just ask yourself if the call is really urgent - does it require your immediate attention? If you are honest with yourself, you may realize that more often than not the answer is ‘no’.
By now, I hope you are seeing the main theme of this post, which is to try to highlight for you that you must start thinking about structuring your day and your business life so that you aren’t always feeling like you are putting out fires and running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
3. Administrative Madness (aka the Great Paper Chase)
If you were to analyze your day, minute by minute, how much ow it would you say is spent on matters and tasks that have little or no consequence to your bottom line? Entrepreneurs are some of the absolute worst offenders when it comes to this productivity killer. The Great Paper chase takes on many forms, including (but not limited to): payroll and benefits administration, filing and organizing, bookkeeping, bill payment, scheduling, order fulfillment, etc.
It is easy to get caught up in doing these things. You figure: “I might as well do it because nobody else can do it better,” or “nobody cares enough to get this stuff done correctly and on time.” If this is the case for you, (it was for me for many years) than I want you to try and experiment. For just one week, delegate one task. It could be anything, like preparing a newsletter, updating a website or putting together a brochure. Before you delegate your chosen task, make a punch list of everything you do when you perform the task. Choose someone reasonably competent. You can find great providers on websites like Guru or Elance. The small delegation of this task should only cost you a few bucks, and it will give you tremendous insights on how you review the work you do versus the work other people do for you, in terms of quality, timing and productivity. You may think that I am making an overly simplistic experiment, but the best business practice to live by is the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid).
The only way to focus on what really matter to your bottom line is to eliminate the time you spend on that which doesn’t.
4. Internet Madness
This productivity killer was one of the most difficult (and still is) for me to manage. I am an information junkie - especially on topics such as contemporary business, politics and anything involving the Green Bay Packers. It is hard to resist the urge to read blogs like crazy, cruise Yahoo! Finance for the latest and greatest or head over to Digg to find out what’s going on. However, I have found that budgeting 45 minutes maximum out of each day for information inhalation is plenty. If you give yourself a limited time and a deadline, it will prevent you from slipping into the internet abyss.
5. Mealtime Madness
As the saying goes: “if I had a nickel for every time…”. Well, if I had a nickel for every ‘business lunch’ that I have had that turned out to be a waste of time, I would be rich. Some of you might point a finger at me and suggest that I chose my foodmates with greater care. But, let’s be honest: we all do it.
Plain and simple, you should be setting up and going to business meals for two main reasons: to gain or cultivate new clients/customers/key suppliers/financiers or to celebrate business victories. There simply is no other reason to kill 2.5 hours out of a day. I can’t count how many business people and professionals that I know that spend about 2o hours a week having meals and coffee with people and not getting much of anything out of it. Be selective and make sure you eat at places where the food is good in case the company is not!
Take some time to digest the first Top 5 of 2008 with the rest of your New Year’s feast. Make 2008 the most you can by being as productive as you can. The one thing that everyone on earth has equally is 24 hours in a day.
