12 worst time killers
1) Emails
33% spend between
1 and 2 hours per day attending to the Emails
22% spend more
than 2 hours per day checking their emails.
Amid spam,
forwards, mass mailings and other non-essential emails, critical messages end
up lost or deferred – creating a serious bottleneck in workflow.
Don’t open your email until you’ve completed the
most important task of the day!
2) Internet surfing
27% spend between
1 and 2 hours per day surfing the net.
8 in 10 people
spend more than 2 hours per day.
3) Watching TV
26% spend between
1 and 2 hours per day watching the boob tube.
16% watch more
than 2 hours a day of TV.
4) Procrastination
19% spend between
1 and 2 hours per day putting things off.
1 in 10 people
don’t procrastinate; they’re super productive.
5) Meetings
18% spend between
1 and 2 hours a day in meetings.
7 in 10 people
spend up to 2 hours per day in meetings.
Make sure
meetings are essential and only the people that need to attend are invited. Set
a time limit, outline an agenda (preferably before the meeting so attendees
come prepared) and have an outcome. Time is your most valuable resource, so
don’t throw it away. Avoid setting meetings for Mondays and during the morning.
These high-productivity times are too important to waste in meetings! And try
not to schedule creative meetings or discussions when no one is at their peak
productivity times. You want to get the most out of people working with you, so
it’s all about being aware of their working habits.
6) Non-business related conversations
16% spend between
1 and 2 hours per day in non-business-related conversations.
3% don’t spend
any time involved in idle “water cooler” conversations.
9 in 10 spend up
to 2 hours a day chatting.
7) Travel time / commuting
13% spend between
1 and 2 hours a day travelling.
31% say they
spend no time at all travelling. Possibly they work from home.
8) Social networking
11% spend between
1 and 2 hours a day on social networks.
75% spend up to 2
hours a day on Twitter, Facebook or other social network sites.
9) cell phone / texting
10% spend between
1 and 2 hours a day on their cell phone or texting. This is often done while
driving!!
1 in 10 also
spends more than 2 hours a day with their phone.
10) Poor delegation
There will be a
point where doing it all yourself is no longer feasible. This is great news as
it means your business is growing and it’s time to get some extra hands on
board to take pressure off yourself.
Whether it’s
hiring new people or giving existing staff extra responsibilities, delegating
is an important part of the productivity process.
While it might
seem easier to just do it yourself, think about whether there is someone else
who can be given the necessary information, if the task will recur in the
future, and if it will help develop them professionally. It’s also important to
invest time to delegate and train someone, so ensure it’s not a rushed process.
11) THE GREAT SCAVENGER hunt
- Employees spend 25% of their time just searching
for information.
- Employees spend 20 minutes per day recreating
information that already exists.
- 2% of employees accidentally use the wrong
information at least once per week.
Information is growing over 66% each year and is constantly changing.
The bad news is we’re inundated with information
– some of it valuable, much of it noise. Where do you store and organize the
relevant product information? Do you have the right intelligence captured to
make the right decisions and take the right actions?
It’s estimated that employees at U.S. companies
waste over 5 billion unproductive hours annually just looking for information.
At $35 per hour for an average knowledge worker,
that’s a $175 billion problem in the U.S. alone. You could reasonably triple
that to estimate the worldwide impact of $500 billion this issue has on the
global economy each year. As an executive friend used to say, “That’s no pocket
change, that’s adult money.”
Does Your Team
Suffer from the Silo Effect?
Take the Test...
The silo effect is a disease that plagues companies worldwide. Use the quiz
below to determine whether your
organization is at risk.
Yes or No?
Qualifying
Questions
Do you have
duplicated sources of data and multiple versions of requirements spreading
across your organization like the Swine flu?
Do you have
departments that are as disconnected and unaware of what the other is doing? Is
the right hand talking to the left hand? Be honest.
Do you operate in
an industry with compliance standards, where detailed version history and
specific requirements documentation are required for approvals?
Do you spend more
than 20% of your time hunting around for the latest product information and requirements?
Is visibility
into the product development process limited currently? Hint: If you’ve heard
the term “black hole” in a meeting recently, then mark ‘yes.’
Do you have
communication gaps or blind spots related to customer commitments, product specifications or
other insights into what your customers expect?
If you answer
“yes” to two or more of the first six questions, then it’s probably time to evaluate a
solution to help you eliminate the silos and bring it all together.
12) Interruptions
If we are going
to be honest about the time we expend on behalf of our
employers/clients/customers, we have to be cognizant of those daily
interruptions that rob us of our valuable time.
Phone calls,
emails, social networking, chatty colleagues and well-meaning clients and
friends who stop by every now and then - - the list of daily interruptions
is almost endless. And once interrupted, it is very difficult to get back
on task. So, a better strategy is to avoid the interruptions as much as
possible during the workday.
Dr.
Gloria Mark, associate professor at the Donald Bren School of Information
and Computer Sciences at the University of California, found that average
information workers are interrupted every three minutes – nearly twenty times
per hour! The bad news is, when you're interrupted, you don't immediately go
back to the task you were doing before you were interrupted. There are about
two intervening tasks before you go back to your original task, so it takes
more effort to reorient back to the original task. Also, interruptions change
the physical environment. For example, someone has asked you for information
and you have opened new windows on your desktop, or people have given you
papers that are now arranged on your desk. So often the physical layout of your
environment has changed, and it's harder to reconstruct where you were. So
there's a cognitive cost to an interruption.
And it’s not
enough to block out the externally imposed interruptions. You also have to
guard against self-inflicted interruptions. These are sneakier, more prevalent,
and more damaging than you think. It may be (relatively) easy to tell your
colleagues or clients that you only check email three times per day, but it’s
not so simple to tell your brain to stop remembering stuff to do. Or to turn
off your curiosity. Without realizing it, you’re your own worst enemy.
Keep a pad of
paper next to your computer as you’re working. When you think of something that
you have to do (make a phone call, send an email, get some information on a
prospect, etc.), scribble a note to yourself on the pad and KEEP WORKING. Don’t
break your momentum. When you’re done with that task or project, then you can
follow up on the items on your note pad.
Here are a few
suggestions for keeping your workday working:
Arrive at the
office earlier than everyone else. Try to arrive an hour before others in
your office start to trickle in. Use that hour to answer emails that need
attended to and check your phone messages. Then when you are ready to
start your work, you will not have the task of getting to those things
throughout the day.
Set one or two
times a day to deal with your emails and phone messages and stick to them.
Don't constantly check your emails or answer each message as it comes in.
This will distract you from achieving your daily work goals.
...and, speaking
of "daily work goals," at the end of each day, set out (on paper or
in the computer) those things that you want to get done the next day. In
that way, you will be able to get a "jump start" when you arrive at
your office the next day.
Go through your
"in-box" and take care of everything you possibly can as you come to
it - - admittedly, difficult to do. But, try not to lay too much aside
for later, which usually just creates piles of things that you might be tempted
to procrastinate taking care of.
Be friendly with
others in your office, but don't start conversations that are likely to linger.
Stay focused and get on with your work. Learn how to end conversations,
by saying things like, "OK, nice talking with you. I better get back
to what I was doing or I won't finish what I'm working on before lunch,"
and such.
Avoid drop-in “meetings”
- Reschedule spontaneous meetings
- Stand-up to speak with interrupters-Body language
- Take control of the moment
- finish the task at-hand first! “I’ll come by your desk in a few minutes to discuss this”
- Close your door and/or make a sign (No one WANTS to cause inconvenience.)
- BE HONEST! COMMUNICATE
What is the most valuable use of your time right now?
- Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
- What impact will your use of time have right now?
- Don't confuse activity with goals. Keep your eye on the goal.
- Happiness is not pleasure, it is achivement.
- Working very hard on relevant task will give you pleasure.
