Endless and long hours may be a valid short-term approach, but should never slip into the normal approach.

• The average employee is interrupted 56 times a day, and 80% of these interruptions are considered trivial.^*
• The average employee spends two hours a day recovering from interruptions!^*
• Only 60% of work time, or even less, is spent being productive.^*
• High-performing employees are known to take breaks throughout the workday. ^**
• While most think multi-tasking helps get more done, it actually drives productivity down by about 40%.^**
• 45 percent of meeting-goers have felt overwhelmed by the volume of meetings in their calendar.^*
• 73 percent of meeting-goers perform other work during meetings.^*
• On average, employees spend about 28 percent of their work week reading or responding to emails .^***
• Unnecessary meetings cost $37 billion in salaries for US businesses every year.^*
• It costs a 100-person company a yearly sum of $528,443 to correct poor communication, spending an average of 17 hours per week on the task.^****

So how do you break the cycle?

There is no “silver bullet” answer to this question, but here are a few starters:

• Acknowledge that your current approach is NOT working for you.
• Block 1 hour to make a Productivity Plan for yourself. (Repeat whenever needed to reset!)
  What is on the list and what are the protocols that work for you?
  • Reset your task list(s): Delete what you can, delegate where appropriate; and update due dates
  • Consider priorities – what is MOST important? LEAST important? Tag them for quick reference.
  • What is working well, and what is not? What can you do to gain more control?
• Whatever productivity tool(s) you use – get disciplined with it!
• Use your Productivity Plan when you plan each week:
  • To allocate time and priorities.
  • To book meetings to collaborate on your tasks.
  • To consider improvements to your approach.
• Consider Habit Changes:
  • Don’t automatically accept meeting invitations.
    Will you add or receive value from attending vs reviewing the notes later?
  • Put your phone down/away and stop multitasking! Put 100% focus on the current task.
  • Set a timer for time for a given task to avoid losing track of time on low-value work.
  • Block time to do email, and avoid it at other times.

The single best tip is simply to make the time to ask colleagues how they manage their tasks? Share tips with each other.

_______________________________________________________________________
SOURCES: ^*Atlassian ^**Qnnect ^*** Attentiv ^****Siemens

Here’s the simple provocation:
EVERYONE should start each day with planning.

I’ve been managing projects for a long time! I also coach others to leverage digital tools to collaboration and be more efficient. I’ve used many tools to be organized — always looking for the perfect digital tool. There is NO perfect tool. BUT – there is always room for improvement in how we manage our time and our work-life balance.

From Des Traynor’s Twitter:
“Thinking about productivity and its tools:
Your email is what OTHERS think you should work on.
Your todo list is what YOU think you should work on.
Your calendar is (usually) what you ACTUALLY work on. “

(And then there are project generated tasks and the need for team task transparency. We’ll cover that another day!)

We all develop habits to juggle these 3 tools and their control or impact on our time.
—Email yourself a task?
—Keep a physical ‘todo’ notebook?
—Flag emails with a due date or put in folders to categorize or prioritize?
But do these habits actually accomplish what we intended?

Whatever your current approach is, try adding these actions to increase your productivity:

1. Block 30 minutes on your calendar (you can reduce this time as you get better at it) first thing every Monday to PLAN YOUR WEEK.
   a) Consider top priorities* and block time on your calendar to work on them.
   b) Book time in your calendar to ‘work on email’.
   c) Clean up your todo list (however you track it).
2. Each morning spend 5-10 minutes reviewing and adjust as needed.
3. Block 30 minutes on your calendar at the end of the week to review how effective the plan was, and consider improvements for next week.

*TIP: When prioritizing, ALWAYS consider what NOT to do, what to delegate or put on hold.
When everything is important….. nothing is important.

Over time this can be a quick review, but don’t skip it!
Always consider adjustments to improve your own productivity and for those who are impacted by your productivity.

We all (hopefully) work at adjusting our perspectives to see the whole picture. What we often neglect is our role and approach at aiding others to gain a clear perspective. Engaging all to collaborate is not just a leadership responsibility. Ideally it is a viral habit across any organization.

Practicing and soliciting radical candor is the most effective way to drive collaboration and productive synergy in teams. It drives innovation, agility, and effective feedback for continuous improvement. Habitual radical candor across an organization is the foundation for an agile and resilient corporate culture.

Radical candor can be described as…
the perfect balance between practicing empathy AND challenging directly.

• It’s not touchy feely, but it’s not unemotional.
• It demonstrates that we are engaged to understand the scenario and find win-win solutions.
• It is truthful, authentic, and respectful in tone.
• It validates that we are engaged with the intent to fully understand and that there are shared goals.
• I can simply be asking the question no one else was brave enough to ask.
• It can be courageous! Many of us passively participate – staying in our observational comfort zone.
• It should be reciprocated horizontally and vertically. If you have a seat at the table (or virtual meeting), you have generally been invited to participate.
• It is NOT easy. Radical candor is a skill that must be practiced regularly.

Personally, I have found that when using my radical candor for the first time with a group, I actually preface it by saying, “I’m going to share some of my radical candor here…”. I get a laugh, I have the listeners’ attention and then I share my thoughts, concerns or perspective. As long as whatever you share is coming from an authentic respectful voice it will be graciously received – ultimately rewarded with respect and a new level of synergy!

TIP for job hunters:
Add the question “How is radical candor received in your organization?” to your list for any prospective employer.

Curious for more on this? Check out this resource that includes a 20 minute video on using improv to develop develop your radical candor muscle and a great 2 minute video outlining the impacts when our balance is less than perfect between practicing empathy and challenging directly. ImprovisingRadicalCandor.com