When Technology doesn’t work
I have spent the majority of my day, nearly 5 hours being focused so that I can get my BLOG listed at some directories and post an article. This was my main priority today and I planned on 1-2 hours to complete this task.
Has this ever happened to you??? You plan on something being less complicated than it becomes. It expends so much of your time and energy. You become so determined to get it done because this is what you have committed to do (I even declared it to a couple of people to help minimize interruptions!).
Personally, I find this so frustrating and a waste of time! Please share your tips for me and others to overcome this problem!
Overscheduled Kids leads to Over-Stressed Families
Teachers handed out an article last week at back-to-school night without identifying where the story came from. However, the article, “Kids call for a Time Out” stated the problems over scheduled families face and gave a tried and true solution…”Just say no”.
My children are involved in activities. Early on, my husband and I set limits on how many and how much they can be involved with at any one time with the caveat the school always comes first and any drop in grades will result in changes in their extra-curricular schedule. Admittedly, there have been times along the years that we had the same conflicts in scheduling, transportation and other conflicts that other families also face. However, my children have learned to make choices!
My 11 year old daughter was a competitive gymnast up until last year. She took up dancing to help enhance her gymnastics presentation and skills. Ultimately, she liked dancing so much that she’s elected to drop from the gymnastics team and devote more time to dancing. She originally wanted to take 5 nights of classes but in re-thinking opted for 4 nights, with usually just 1 class a night. We are involved in carpools and the dance school is conveniently located about a mile from our home. Next year, she’d like to try out for cheerleading. She wanted to try out last year but due to an already pressed schedule, chose not to.
My son is also involved in extra-curricular. During the spring he participates in a non-travel baseball team and in the fall/winter he is in a youth basketball league. We chose these because his main interest is motocross, which is usually a weekend activity. He, too, has learned to make choices based on his primary interests. The basic rule of thumb is up to 2 activities at any one time if they don’t conflict. Prior to registering, we ask allot of questions about the schedule and commitment.
A growing number of parents are avoiding over-scheduling their kids because they think the hyper-scheduling has gone too far. Now a Minnesota group has set up a website www.FamilyLife1st.org to help parents curb their children’s‘ crazy schedules. This group receives new inquiries daily as an increasing number of parents are ready to refocus their lives and the lives of their children.
How about your children…are they over-scheduled?
Communication Technology Distractions
Text messages, instant messaging and online chat (which is frequently being used in some work environments as a communication tool) are often over-used; some are in the form of pop-up boxes that immediately open when the message arrives. The Internet and the ease to search for hours on end is a frequent offender both at home and at work. The best way to manage these is to prevent them in the first place. Managing expectations in an age of instant access is a challenge but possible with clear indications of when and how these will be handled.
Telephone calls are another big distraction in our lives. When focusing on the task-at-hand, most people feel the need to pick-up the ringing phone whether it’s the cell phone or standard office line. Calls can come from coworkers, customers, patients, your boss, and family, friends and personal service providers (e.g., doctor, lawyer, accountant, auto mechanic, real estate agent). It’s easy to say “just don’t answer the phone” or “turn the ringer off” during focus times, it’s another thing to put this into practice. As long as your caller has an opportunity to leave a voice message, they will do so and you can call back at a more convenient time.
How do you protect your time and the 24/7 availability?
Taming Email
Email is the number one distraction for most people at work! People complain of burgeoning in-boxes from recipients expecting an instant response, address lists including unnecessary recipients, and large volumes of unsolicited emails. Our society in general has placed a high value and unrealistic expectations on immediate access and response. Taming e-mail means training senders to put the burden of quality back on themselves to use better judgment when sending emails, minimizing the number of words in a message, being more descriptive in the subject line to summarize the gist of the message or action needed, making action requests clear, and determining who needs to receive the message rather than copying everyone.
It wasn’t long ago that SPAM mail was the biggest email problem, however, with added filters and spam-blockers the numbers have decreased thus making it a little easier to manage. Fortunately, these messages are easy to spot and can be deleted pretty quickly! Regrettably, the number of emails received on an average day continues to increase. Better management of the inbox and improved decision-making will help. Also, putting some systems in place to help you manage your email overload will make a recognizable difference. Here are a couple of quick tips:
- Only check e-mail at defined times each day.
- Train people to be relevant so that they only send you emails when they pertain to you.
- Answer briefly while providing context upfront in your message as to the nature of your reply.
- Send out delayed responses by inserting a scheduled delay in when your typed response will actually be sent.
- Ignore it and trust that if it’s important you’ll hear about it again.
Organize your follow-up list and respond based on priority.
What are your techniques for controlling your inbox??
How to Truly Pay Attention to your Work–Before it Costs you Your Job
The four important keys for managing distractions at work so that you can increase your productivity and performance include:
1. Recognize what, when, why and how distractions occur for you. Realize they may be different for you than for others.
2. Identify everything vying for your time, attention and resources.
3. Select your top priorities.
4. Realign around your priorities and FOCUS!!
What works for you??
Staying focused
On average in our fast-paced society, we switch tasks every 3 minutes, and once distracted can take up to a half an hour to resume the original task. This pace leaves many unfocused and challenged to complete tasks. It can cause you to miss crucial information during a conversation and damage teamwork, work and personal relationships. These distractions effect teamwork, focus and productivity. It’s harder and harder to stay focused on our important tasks at work. Most people struggle throughout the day to stay focused and in the present.
Consider these tips to help stay more focused at work or home:
- Take a breather and allow yourself to zone out for a brief time
- Stretch or take a walk to help get re-focused
- Engage in eye contact when communicating face-to-face
- Turn away from the computer, window, messy desk during conversations
- Use various types of meditation to slow breathing and maintain clarity
- Turn off the electronics and communication devices
- Move to a quiet area to concentrate on a complex task free of interruptions
- Live in the moment and be fully present
- Practice re-engaging and re-focusing often; train your mind to stop drifting
Business or personal coaching can help you develop tools and strategies to gain more focus. The Distraction Diva, Natalie Gahrmann, helps busy professionals increase performance, productivity and satisfaction by decreasing distractions.
Workplace Distractions
Robin Fogel, a fellow Executive and Career Coach, recently published the following in her monthly newsletter and granted me permission to share it here. To learn more about Robin visit, http://www.coachrobinfogel.com/.
Whether it is the workplace or life in general, our modern existence seems to demand that we get more done. Yet while we are being asked to accomplish more, there are also greater distractions. Multitasking was originally praised as one solution, a way to accomplish more, a way that we could be more efficient. Recent scientific findings are now reaching the opposite conclusion; multitasking is not making us more productive, in fact it may be reducing productivity. Now, in a new book by Maggie Jackson, “Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age“, the author writes that constant interruptions have hurt workers’ ability to focus. She says that, “roughly once every three minutes, typical cubicle dwellers set aside whatever they are doing and start something else”. She writes that these constant interruptions consume as much as “28% of the average US worker’s day, including recovery time, and sap productivity to the tune of $650 billion a year“.
While the costs to businesses are enormous there are personal costs as well. A recent study found that those workers who are regularly interrupted expressed greater frustration, and felt greater pressure and stress over their inability to get their work done.
Ms. Jackson wrote that if we “jump on every e-mail or ping; we’ll have trouble pursuing our long term goals”. So, as you read this article, if you are also checking your voicemail, talking to a
co-worker or toggling between websites, remember that it is the ability to focus and complete one task at a time that will increase your productivity and have you feeling less frustrated. And remember to close your office door, if you have one, for some uninterrupted work time. Turn off the email alert beeper on your computer, and make it clear that you are not to be disturbed unless there is a true emergency.
The late Peter Drucker, author of “The Effective Executive”, once wrote, “To be effective, every knowledgeable worker, and especially every executive needs to dispose of time in fairly large chunks…to have small dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.”
Conquer Challenges of Work & Family
As life continues to speed up around you and technology provides opportunities for you to do more, many people feel further away from living a balanced life. One of the central concerns of all working professionals is to live a balanced life. Your life, however, is fluid and in constant motion, therefore the challenges you face are continually shifting and evolving. You must find the formula that works for you and avoid the should’s, could’s, and have to’s because they reflect someone else’s standards rather than your own.
You must learn to look, not for a solution, but for a process, a way of addressing your challenges and issues that you can use over and over as each issue arises. Just as you weigh the pro’s and con’s of each course of action at work, you set goals and objectives, you organize your work, you delegate, and, you communicate, you must learn to bring this level of concentration, focus and discipline to your life at home. Interestingly, the same skills that contribute to your success on the job and make you a valued, productive employee, are the skills you also need to manage your home life and to achieve a healthy balance.
Some of the common challenges facing working professionals today include: time for self, relationships and family; being able to organize at home and work; sticking to priorities; professional development and career growth; societal standards; conflicting demands; and sheer exhaustion. You can combat some of these challenges by:
- keeping a healthy perspective
- rethinking the ‘should’s, ‘could’s, ‘have to’s, ‘ought’s and ‘if only’s in your life
- acknowledging and accepting your reality and current situation
- recognizing your limitations
- having a positive attitude
- aligning your actions and handling of every day tasks and demands with what’s truly most important to you (seek the joy in life and you’ll end up feeling balanced and happy)
- committing to making changes to simplify your life and eliminate habits that no longer serve you.
The stress of balancing work and personal life can make you feel out of control. It can negatively affect your health and self-esteem. Feeling in control increases your ability to cope and feel better about yourself. The end result is that you can be a more productive worker and a more loving parent and partner.
Use driving time
Lately I’ve been attending more meetings, events, conferences and tapings than normal so I’ve been spending more time on the road commuting to and from locations than I usually do. It is a good reminder for me that this time can feel totally wasted or effectively used, depending on how you spend it. You have numerous options how to use your commuting time. Here are a couple of things that come to mind:
- Relax. Do nothing and feel good about it!
- Practice deep breathing.
- Do Kegal exercises (or other exercises or stretches you can safely perform while driving).
- Catch up on phone calls (using a headset or speakerphone, of course!)
- Listen to music—your choice, highly energizing or soft and relaxing.
- Create a to-do list.
- Sing!
- Dictate into a tape recorder.
- Observe nature, people, cars, billboards, etc. Be really present in the moment.
- Change your clothes (not highly recommended! I used to do this on my commute from the office to the college when I was working on my masters).
- Eat (be careful though, some foods adapt better to eating on the go than others!)
- Drink—non-alcoholic, of course!. (I recommend keeping a bottle of water in your car at all times. If it’s there, you’re more likely to drink it)
- Plan your meals.
- Create your shopping list.
- Put on make-up (while the car is stopped at a light or in traffic, of course!)
Spend some quality time with your children (if they’re commuting with you. Children are more likely to talk and share information when you’re not able to look them right in the eye). - Find another route. Explore other roads less traveled.
- Carpool with a friend and really get to know him/her.
Rest your eyes (not while your car is moving but when you are stopped briefly). - Do errands along the way to avoid extra trips out.
- Play a game (even if no one else is in the car with you! I’ve stopped boredom a number of times by noting license plates from other states, counting convertibles, etc.).
- Practice a conversation or speech.
- Listen to an inspirational audio.
- Take an audio class for personal or professional growth.
- Flirt!
- Wave to someone in another car.
- Plan a date.
- Phone home. Find out if anything is needed. Get a feel for everyone else’s mood so that you can adjust yours accordingly.
- Read (only if someone else is driving!)
- Knit (only if someone else is driving!)
- Clip coupons (only if someone else is driving!)
- Just look out the window.
- Have a crisis (not highly recommended! Be sure you have enough gas, oil and other fluids, the right tire pressure, working lights and windshield wipers, etc. Have some extra cash and coins on-hand. Have a snack and drink readily available. Have a first-aid kit, emergency supplies, a map, a working phone, and anything else you can think of on-hand to avoid having a crisis to or from work. Either will totally ruin your day!)
- Unwind from a stressful morning on your commute in. Be thankful that you’re away from the craziness of home!
- Unwind from a stressful day at work. Be thankful to be reuniting with your family after a busy day on-the-job.
With a list this long, I’m sure you’ll find some things to do during your commute, so, consciously choose how you want to use your commuting time. Avoid letting circumstances rule your time. Try out some of the ideas above, create some new one (and share them with me, of course!)
Basic Tips for Managing Multiple Projects
I searched the Internet last week to develop a list to present at a workshop I was preparing for a client. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the sources but I want to share the following:
Basic Tips for Managing Multiple Projects
1. Before you check your voice mail or email each morning, list what you would like to accomplish today. Be realistic about how much and what you can really accomplish in any given day. Prioritize what needs to be completed immediately and what can wait until later in the day.
2. Once you have your prioritized list, and depending on the type of work you do, either get a top priority completed (even just a major step!) or check your messages to see what’s come in since you left the office. Write down all the pertinent information (e.g., request, contact info). Determine a time in your day when you will return messages. Reply with detailed messages whenever possible to derail the telephone tag which could ensure when you and your contact keep leaving messages for each other. This saves a huge amount of time and frustration! Reprioritize your list based on the messages you received.
3. Stay organized. Being organized will diminish stress levels. Keep project or client info well organized and easy to locate. Have only one project or file on your desk at a time so that you can stay focused on the task at hand. Avoid multi-tasking because this causes you to bounce around from project to project.
4. At the end of the day, list what you didn’t accomplish. Have this list be the basis for your next day’s to-do list. When you begin this process again tomorrow, you can prioritize what’s on your list again and complete the most important activities. Get your projects under control!
