Simple Productivity: 10 Ways to Do More by Focusing on the Essentials – lifehack.org

Simple Productivity: 10 Ways to Do More by Focusing on the Essentials – lifehack.org

When NOT to measure something

We’re always talking about why it is so critical to have performance measures, what is most important to measure, how to design meaningful measures, how to measure the intangible things. But there is a lot of value to knowing when measuring something just isn’t the best idea.

Don’t measure it if you have no intention of managing it.

Is it really responsible to be measuring something you have no intention of doing anything about? If it’s because you were told to measure it, then you have at least two choices.

You can talk to whoever has demanded to measure it, and in the spirit of authentic curiosity, explore their and your points of view and negotiate a more meaningful measure, or drop it entirely if your existing measures sufficiently cover the most important results you are responsible for managing.

Or you can talk to whoever has demanded to measure it, also in the spirit of authentic curiosity, ask for their help to determine what kind of response you should be taking to the measure, it’s priority over your other measures, and the guidelines for how much of your resources to throw at it when it goes south.

Don’t measure it if the cost of measuring outweighs the value of knowing.

Many data collection systems, like surveys, cost lots of money. Especially when you have to consider factors like measuring over wide geographic areas or measuring to high levels of accuracy or measuring very rare phenomena.

Get in the habit of checking if the likely gain of using the measure (like improvement in sales or reduction of waste) has a smaller net impact on the bottom line than does the cost of measuring it. If you can’t show a decent positive return on investment for measuring something, don’t bother. How else could you have used the time and money to impact your business’ or organisation’s success?

Don’t measure it for old times’ sake.

Do you take on more new measures that you let go? Letting go of measures seems to be such a psychological battle – we hang on to them because they’re already being tracked and we might need them again someday. Fine. Keep collecting the data (if it doesn’t cost too much), but stop reporting the measure!

It’s time to test if there is something more important to put that time and resource into. Perhaps to focus on other higher priority measures, or to spend some time designing more meaningful measures for your current strategy. Unimportant measures will slow you down and waste your time and energy.

Don’t measure it if it will be a big stick.

Measures have the worst reputation of being used as big sticks to beat people’s performance into shape (or to at least attempt this). Measures can be very indispensable in managing people’s performance, but the big stick approach means using measures to point blame or CYA.

You’ll see a ripple of fear and defensiveness in every direction around the one who yields such a measure, and it will build into a wave of destruction. If you don’t have a performance improvement culture, if there is a real risk that the measure will be used as a big stick, then avoid measuring it. Put the time and effort into some open and candid dialogue to explore the results that matter and how to improve them.

Don’t measure it if you’re already measuring too much.

Drowning in measures? Do you have more measures than you have time and resources to review and improve? Then don’t take on any more! Too many measures is often worse than not enough measures. Overwhelm is so much more debilitating than scarcity when it comes to measures. At least with scarcity you have the time and energy to move in the direction of a concise set of meaningful measures. But with overwhelm, you usually feel stuck and unable to move in any direction at all.

Instead of working on more measures, take stock of the measures you have already, cull those that really aren’t that important, and put your focus on just 3 or 4 measures at a time, improving performance in all results systematically.

How to cope with interruptions at work

You need to get that report finished today and a colleague comes over to the desk to talk about another project. Then you have a shedload of emails to read. A salesperson rings to tell you about a conference that has not sold enough places. By the end of the day the report is still unfinished and you stay late to finish it whilst everyone else goes home or to the pub. What to do?

Emails and phone are easy to deal with. You can switch them off. This rarely works with people. Consider whether an interruption is useful or a distraction. Often the unscheduled chat is very useful and more time-efficient and timely than a formal meeting scheduled for two weeks time. Things get done. Therefore try to schedule periods when you are available to talk.

When you want to shut out the world put on earphones. Even if you are not listening to anything most people understand the clear signal that you are unavailable.

Failing that a Do Not Disturb sign can work. Just don’t expect the boss to pay any attention to it!

Convince Your Boss to Let you Work from Home

According to the 2003 Census report, the average commute time is 38 minutes each way for some parts of the country. That is 76 minutes each day, over 6 hours per week or 41 work days each year. If you live somewhere that has a long commute time, it is easy to see how much time is just spent driving back and forth.If you were able to eliminate the commute even one day per week, you would save over 65 hours per year. That is over 8 work days of time or equivalent to an extra 1.5 weeks of vacation.

There are three basic ways to eliminate or shorten your commute:

1. Start your own business.
2. Telecommute and work for your current employer from home.
3. Switch to a shorter work week.

Switching to a shorter work week is a nice possibility, but for this article, lets assume that working from home is technically possible and concentrate on a strategy to get your boss to say “yes”. There is no magic formula, but if you follow these five steps, it will go a long ways toward increasing your odds for success.

Double Your Reading Rate

Reading is an incredibly important skill to have. Just about any form of education will involve reading, sometimes almost exclusively. You can often make yourself an expert on an intellectual subject just by reading enough in that area. But despite the incredible importance of reading, most people are wildly inefficient at it. Like a child that never goes beyond a crawl, most people have enough reading skills to move around, but they are far from running.

Over a year ago I picked up the book, Breakthrough Rapid Reading by Peter Kump, an expert in the area of speed-reading. From that purchase I took the time and energy to study other ways to improve my reading skill. I recently got a chance to finish Eckhart Tolle’s, The Power of Now, and I read the last half of the book in under forty minutes.

When I did the initial test at the start of the book, I could read at 450 words per minute. A little above the average of around 300, but nothing spectacular. By using the techniques I’ll describe in this article I was able to increase that rate to around 900 words per minute in average situations, at least doubling of my reading rate.

I believe there are six major keys to improving your reading skill. Like all skills, success only comes through practice, so just reading this article won’t be enough. But if you are interested in how you might be able to make dramatic improvements in both speed and comprehension, I’ve found these six points to be the best start.

Decision quality

Decision making is one of the defining characteristics of leadership. It’s core to the job description. Making decisions is what managers and leaders are paid to do. Yet, there isn’t a day that goes by that you don’t read something in the news or the business press that makes you wonder, “What were they thinking?” or “Who actually made that decision?” That’s probably always been the case, but it seems exponentially more so in the vanguard of the new millennium where everything seems marked with, “too big, too fast, too much, and too soon.”

The reality seems to be that most organizations aren’t overrun by good decision makers, yet alone great ones. It’s not that people don’t have it in them. Decision making is a distinctly human activity. We all make decisions all the time. But the fact that we’re hard-wired to make decisions doesn’t by itself make us good decision makers. That takes discipline: discipline to do four things all the time and well.