Posts filed under 'Time Management'
I’ve always been a fan of naps. They make you feel great (if you don’t sleep to long) and they’re easy to do almost anywhere you can get quiet for a short period of time (on your lunch break, etc.).
I’ve also been intrigued by self-hypnosis as a tool to enhance personal development. I dabbled in it years ago and was able to get to the point where I could - through relaxation and meditation - get myself into a light suggestive state. I never had any major break-through with self-hypnosis though, and because of that I let my interest in its possibilities wane.
I just discovered an interesting piece of software that promises to blend power-napping with subconscious suggestion and NLP to provide the refreshing power of a nap with the benefits of developing and improving yourself.
Is it a bunch of hooey? I don’t know…yet.
My plan is to use this system for a month and see if I notice any significant changes in my behavior, attitude, personal development, or just in how I feel.
The software is called Pzizz (download their free trial to check it out yourself). I don’t have any affiliation with this company, I found them while out surfing the Internet and their software piqued my interest.
I would be interested in hearing from any of you if you’ve used their software before and what experience you had with it. Please post a comment or use the contact form to get in touch with me.
Happy napping!
February 7th, 2006
What do you do that earns you money? If you’re a salesperson, the answer is probably pretty easy to come up with. But what if you’re not part of the revenue-chain in your position; how do you earn your keep?
Top performing salespeople are mindful of their pay-time and their no-pay-time and they work to keep the balance heavily in favor of pay-time. At my company, our top performing sales people don’t enter their own orders into our ordering system, they don’t send faxes with quotes for prospects, they don’t sit and polish their staplers…they get appointments and they get in front of prospects and customers.
That’s their pay-time. If they’re not booking an appointment or spending time in front of a prospect, they’re not actually providing value to the company.
But what if the value you provide isn’t so clearly defined? How do you know if you’re working in pay-time-mode or no-pay-time-mode, and how can you switch gears and spend more time in pay-time?
When I get to work, the first thing I do is check my email messages. I usually justify this to myself by noting that it’s possible someone will have contacted me with a major problem that needs resolving. In reality if any problem that major came up while I was out of the office my cell phone would be lit up like a Christmas tree.
For me, 90% of the time I spend dealing with my email is no-pay-time. Any sufficiently critical problem that arises that would put me into pay-time (i.e. earning my keep through crisis mitigation) will result in my phone ringing or someone appearing at my office door.
So I try to be mindful of this and limit the time I really spend in email. Sure, I still check it first thing in the morning, right after lunch and then in mid-afternoon (and there are some days with a few more checks thrown in) but I’m aware that the time I spend with my nose in Outlook is most definitely no-pay-time for me!
That’s the first trick; Be mindful of the tasks you’re working on.
When you’re mindful of what you’re working on, you can ask questions like, “Is this the best use of my time right now?” If the answer is “no” then it’s time to work on something else.
In my position - technology director - I don’t contribute directly to the bottom line. Usually information technology budgets are seen only as cost centers in companies; a necessary evil to business in the 21st century. Where my key contributions fall is keeping critical systems on-line and functioning smoothly and actively researching new ways to use technology to improve processes.
When our systems are running smoothly, our sales assistants can more easily enter the orders our sales people are generating, our receivables people can get customer statements easily printed, our accounts payable people can get our vendors and suppliers paid. In general, smooth running technology systems enable everyone else to do their job which does contribute to the bottom line.
Likewise, when I am working on improving business processes (with or without technology) those improvements are to enhance the business and save it money or allow people to get more done in less time. Business process enhancement does - for me - directly contribute to the bottom line.
This is the second trick; Know how you contribute to the bottom line.
When you know how you directly contribute to the bottom line, you’ll know what it is that you do that keeps you employed and brings the value of your paycheck to your company.
Being the technology director of a company means I’m flooded with requests as wide and varied as, “We need a proposal for a wireless warehouse implementation.” to “The printer is jammed and I don’t know how to fix it.” I am fortunate to have a great staff that can deflect a lot of the smaller issues so I can work on proposals for wireless warehouse implementations.
I’ve always been a “if-you-want-it-done-right-do-it-yourself” kind of guy. In this position I quickly found myself buried under a to-do list a mile long. Sure, I might know I’ll do it right, but if I never have time to get it done that’s usually worse! So I lean on my staff…a lot.
All of the small issues that I know are not what I do to bring value to the bottom line I try to delegate down to free me up to work on the projects that keep me in my pay-time.
This is the third trick; Delegate as many no-pay-time tasks as possible.
When you get unnecessary and low-value tasks off your to-do list you’ll feel much better because you won’t be worried about dropping a ball you have in the air by taking on too many tasks yourself.
Since I do have so many people come to me on a daily basis with requests for help, or requests for time on their pet project - whatever it may be - I have to pick and choose what I actually have the time to accomplish and what my staff has the time and resources to accomplish.
This means that some people have to hear the dreaded, “no.”
And this is tough for me - I’m not good at telling people no. It’s one area that I have to constantly remind myself I need to work and improve. I just don’t like to turn people down - maybe it’s a bit of my own “head trash” and inner fear of rejection. Whatever the case, something I have to constantly remind myself is, “It’s okay to say no!”
This is the fourth trick; When asked to take on more tasks that are no-pay-time tasks, just say “no.”
When I keep all four tricks in mind, I find that I spend consistently and considerably more of my time in the pay-time category; and this should be the goal of every high-achieving, goal-setting, self-improving person out there…I mean you!
Plus you can make a competition with yourself by charting your pay-time versus no-pay-time on a day-by-day basis. Your goal should be to improve the ratio a little every day.
In summary, keep these four tricks in mind to improve your pay-time vs. no-pay-time ratio:
1) Be mindful of the tasks you’re working on.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure; so start measuring!
2) Know how you contribute to the bottom line.
Be crystal clear on how your unique talent bring value to the bottom line. Know this whether you are on front-line sales or back-office support.
3) Delegate as many no-pay-time tasks as possible.
Your no-pay-time tasks are very likely someone else’s pay-time tasks.
4) When asked to take on more tasks that are no-pay-time tasks, just say “no.”
No one likes to hear “no”, but taking on too many tasks and getting nothing done is even worse! Plus many of these tasks are no-pay-time tasks.
Finally, keep in mind that if you start to weed out the no-pay-time tasks you’re regularly working on you may feel like you’re weeding out important tasks. Not every no-pay-time task is unimportant and not every pay-time task is important. The trick is knowing which are which, and minimizing your no-pay-time to (ideally) dealing only with the important no-pay-time tasks.
You’ll never get to the point where you spend 100% of your time in pay-time, but the closer you get the more productive and valuable you’ll be!
February 6th, 2006
Sure, you’re one bad, goal-setting, success-wielding, achievement-oriented mutha’ - but after you’ve conquered a goal and basked in the glow of success what do you do?
Do you keep an achievement cheat-sheet? Do you keep your “success resume” up to date on a regular basis? If you’re like most people, I’m willing to wager that answer will be, “no.”
It’s easy to get into the habit of setting and achieving goals - that’s the first part of the recipe of success. Accurately recording your achievements when they’re fresh in your mind is the second part of the recipe of success.
It’s easy to let your accomplishments slip by after you’ve enjoyed that “I did it!” moment; when asked what you accomplished last year or the year before you have to spend precious time creating your list, remembering the details, the impact and the results. This isn’t an efficient way to spend your time!
I admit I used to be this way. I’ve been “into” goal setting and personal achievement for a long time, but I never kept my success resume up to date. When I owned my own company, a resume and corporate overview was often one of the first things clients would ask for as we started a relationship.
Every time a client asked for this I had to dust off my last copy, review it, add to it any personal or business accomplishments and then present it to my client. Depending on how long it had been since I last used my success resume, it could take a not insignificant amount of time to get it up to date.
When I sold my business I kicked around as a “consultant” for a while before finally deciding I should get a “real job.” I was in for a shock; I hadn’t bothered to update my resume in a long time - about two years - and pulling it together turned into an all day affair! After this, I decided I needed to keep a current accomplishment cheat-sheet and keep my resume updated much more frequently.
Here’s the process I used to get everything under control:
1) Choose your tools
You will need either a nice notebook or journal that you can dedicate to recording your achievements, or a computer with a word processing application. I prefer the computer for this because I can generally type much faster than I can write.
2) Layout the document
Create a document and name it something creative like “2006 Accomplishments”. Then add four pages and at the top of each page write, Q1 2006, Q2 2006, Q3 2006, Q4 2006. You’re going to track your accomplishments by quarter.
3) Play catch up
If you’re just starting this process the chances are good you’ve not started a new year fresh and ready to go (unless you’re reading this article in January, and then you are starting a new year fresh and ready to go). Spend time outlining all of your major accomplishments for the year so far. At this point just a sentence is good, but get them all captured and try to allocate them to the quarter in which they were accomplished.
4) Stay current
Once you’ve started your accomplishment list you have to stay current; review it and update it (if needed) at least monthly. The entire point is to capture your accomplishments in only a few minutes, while the details are still fresh in your mind. If you stay on top of recording your accomplishments as they happen it will only take you moments to record them. This will save you much time compared to an end-of-year review, plus you’ll be able to capture much more detail and specific fact and figures without having to dig back through your records come December (or worse, the next year!).
5) Update your resume quarterly
You have a list of accomplishments and you’re staying current and keeping your list updated. Now you need to sit down at the beginning of each quarter and translate your accomplishments into your resume. Make sure that the responsibilities you have listed on your resume match your responsibilities on your achievement cheat-sheet. Drop from your resume projects with less impressive outcomes for projects with more impressive outcomes. This is your chance to really make yourself shine.
Once I followed the five steps above I realized that I spent less overall time tending my resume, and I didn’t have that “panicky” feeling of knowing it wasn’t in tip-top shape when asked for it. I knew it was no more than three months out of date, and it had been recently updated with my most impressive and high-impact accomplishments.
You don’ t need to write pages and pages for each accomplishment; you simply need to distill the major elements from the accomplishment down into a sentence or two, with pertinent facts and figures. You want to create expanded bullet points which will eventually make it to your resume or your annual review if you work for a company.
Here is a sample from my 2005 major accomplishment file:
1) Negotiated the purchase of a 16kVA APC Symmetra LX UPS (extended run version) for $10,450 (down from $15,700).
2) Designed company ID badge & created specification for the data and format of company’s ID program to be C-TPAT compliant. Resulting badges & ideas were adopted by US Customs & Border Patrol as recommended guidelines for small businesses looking to certify & comply with C-TPAT requirements.
3) Worked with web design and e-commerce company to implement a new e-commerce engine for company’s online sales. The company’s online sales (Jan – July) were $#.# million and the new e-commerce enabled site was negotiated for $#,### including custom pricing functionality to handle unique per-customer, per-product pricing requirements. R.O.I. on project was calculated at 4.2 weeks based on the company’s YTD (Jan – July) online sales.
4) Read 28 books in 2005 including 16 directly related to self improvement, success or development (goal was 3 books on development per quarter). Books were: January: Split Second, Leadership 101, Attitude 101, As a Man Thinketh, The Doomsday Conspiracy. February: Steal This Book, Babylon Rising, Goal Setting 101. March: Man’s Search for Meaning, Made in America, My Story. April: The Fountainhead. May: The Taking. June: How to Become CEO, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be, The Fred Factor, Getting Things Done. July: Speaker For The Dead, Xenocide. August: Shadow of the Giant, 1776, Children of the Mind, The Time Trap, Managing for Dummies, How to Talk to Anyone (92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships). November: Rich Dad’s Before You Quit Your Job. December: 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions, 301 Management Ideas, Ready for Anything.
I have also found that keeping a written record of accomplishments is an excellent tool to justify requests for raises or bonus programs if you work for an employer. In our modern society we’re only usually as good as our last project - the “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?” factor. It’s easy for employers to conveniently “forget” about important achievements and contributions, but it’s very difficult to argue with facts and figures.
If you keep your achievement cheat-sheet up to date, you’ll be armed when you ask for a raise or a bonus. You can layout exactly what your accomplishments have been, and you’ll have ammunition that your employer likely will not.
If you’ve also kept your resume up to date you’ll be ready to move on if your requests for a deserved raise fall on deaf ears time and time again.
If you’re self-employed, keeping an achievement cheat-sheet and keeping your professional or company resume up to date is vital too. These days clients are asking to see more and more detailed information from the vendors they use. If you have a professional resume ready-to-go it will give you a definite advantage over your competitors in your market-space.
I urge you to start today; spend the time to get your achievement cheat-sheet caught up and then spend the (minimal) on-going time to keep it current. The rewards will be well worth it!
January 29th, 2006
Take a look at your desk; is your inbox piled with paper and your desk covered with clutter? I know personally keeping on top of the ever accumulating stack of papers being delivered to my inbox, and keeping my desk clear is a constant struggle.
In our new modern world we’re deluged with email (I average 80 actionable email messages per day at work) as well as being bombarded by an unending stream of paper too.
The promise of the 21st century was a paperless work place, but most people still have to process as much paper as ever plus electronic communications to boot!
It’s extremely easy to get behind in the sorting, processing and handling of this flood of information. Once you’re a little behind the gap between where you are and being “caught up” gets a little wider every day. Pretty soon the gap is a chasm and you don’t see any way to build a bridge and get back to being “caught up.”
What you need is a fresh start, but how do you get a fresh start when you’re buried and the backlog keeps getting bigger every day?
The first thing to do is realize that there are tools out there to help out. If you’ve not picked up and read Getting Things Done by David Allen, I recommend you start with it. One of the best ideas I took away from Getting Things Done (GTD for those “in the know”) was the process to work through your backlog and get caught up.
David recommends you do this for every aspect of your life; gather up all of your loose ends and then process them to completion. This is a big challenge. If you’re already overwhelmed and buried, trying to get your entire life’s loose ends gathered and in one spot for processing will just overwhelm you more.
I recommend you segment your life into chunks, triage the areas that are the worst or that you’ll see the biggest benefit from fixing, and then working only on one single area until you’re caught up.
The first step is to get a fresh start. Once you’re behind this is critical because if you don’t draw a line in the sand, you’ll never be back on top.
Here’s what to do:
1) Get a big inbox that’s empty; I use a legal-size beast that’s 6″ deep).
2) Put every single paper on your desk in it! No cheating, gather them all up and put them in your empty inbox. Your desk should be squeaky clean when you’re finished.
3) Once your desk is clear, turn the inbox upside down on your desk and work through the stack one time only! You want to use the three “Ds” when you work through; Delegate it, Defer it, or Delete it.
4) Delegate whatever you can to others. Put these papers aside so you can go hand them out when you’re finished.
5) Defer anything that requires action on your part. These papers go back into the inbox.
6) Delete as much as possible; send it to the “round file.” If you’re like me, you probably get a large amount in your inbox (email too) that just doesn’t need your action or delegation to staff. Throw it away! Make your motto, “When in doubt, throw it out!”
7) Put your deferred items (which should be only a fraction of the original total) aside, stick them in a drawer, just get them out of the way for a moment. You are trying to get a fresh start.
Congratulations, you should now be the proud owner of a clean desk and an empty inbox; the challenge is now to keep it that way! Now you have to commit to staying on top of your inbox; process it at the end of each day before you leave. Your goal should be to go home with an empty inbox on your desk.
Now you have a fresh start, but what do you do with the “deferred” pile of papers? You need to create a separate plan to handle them. Handling your backlog is now a project, and you schedule it and assign resources just like you would any other project you have to accomplish.
For this project you need to set a time-line to finish handling all of your deferred paper. You need to plan and schedule time to work on chipping away at your backlog. You need to manage yourself just like you would for any other project on your plate.
You will find that your backlog will start to dwindle even more, and if you’re keeping on top of your inbox on a daily basis you’ll stay “caught up.”
To speed things up even more you should figure out whether you’re “a filer or a piler”. I am most definitely a piler; spending all my time organizing papers into files sends shivers up my spine. I’ll do it when I have to, but for most of my needs a “piling system” suits me just fine.
You can now pause and enjoy being on top of at least one area of your life. To truly achieve balance you should repeat this process for your home office or anywhere else you’re buried in clutter and information. Once you get “caught up” you should enjoy the feeling, but you can’t rest because once you do things will start piling up around you again.
Don’t let the backlog “gap” come back!
January 13th, 2006
How often to you batch your tasks for greater productivity? Do you cluster tasks that require similar energy and do them all at once to get better performance? You should think about your day and your tasks with a batch-oriented mentality to achieve more in less time.
My employer uses a sophisticated software package to run its business. This software operates on the principal of batch processing. A lot of our users initially try to fight this principal of operation their productivity suffers and they complain they can’t use the system to get their work finished. They’re not used to thinking in batches.
When they finally embrace a batch-process work-flow a change happens. They can get more done, in less time than they thought was possible. Suddenly it’s not a problem to process 2500 invoices. Suddenly it’s not such a burden to print 800 checks. They get to a point where a minimum input on their end produces a maximum output by the system.
Applying this type of thinking to all aspects of your life can transform your productivity too.
Anywhere you can compile like tasks, and save your effort to finish those tasks until you can do them all at once, you can save time. If you pack a lunch to eat at work are you packing a lunch each night?
How long does it take to get the bread, get some lunch meat, make a sandwich, get some fruit, pack a bag of chips and put it all in a bag for the next day? What part of the process is setup and what part of the process is production? Now multiply the setup time by five days. If the setup time runs even 3 minutes per lunch that’s fifteen minutes per week spent just getting ready to make lunch!
How much more efficient could you be if you spent your three minutes setting up for lunch on Sunday night and then made five sandwiches, packed five pieces of fruit and five bags of chips? All you would have to do is grab a bag from the fridge each morning on your way out the door. If nothing else, you saved twelve minutes per week just on setup time.
Twelve minutes per week saved adds up to ten hours per year. That’s time you used to spend just preparing to make a lunch. Think about what your time is worth and then figure out what your “cost” savings is; it will surprise you.
This is a very simple example to be sure, but the idea scales to other areas of life too. You can also batch your tasks for times when you feel at your peak.
For example, I am not a writer by nature. I enjoy writing, but it doesn’t come naturally to me - I have to work at it. There are times however when I feel like I can’t stop writing. Those are my peak writing times.
When I experience a peak writing moment I take advantage of it. I keep a notebook with ideas for articles and essays and when I’m in a writing mood, I write! I cross out the ideas as I’ve executed them, and if they’re articles for my web site I schedule them in advance to appear automatically at a future date.
For this web site I will typically have three to five articles in the queue, ready for publication and usually at least one article “in process” that I keep working on until I’m happy with it.
I’m able to take advantage of my peak times, and by batching my tasks I end up getting a lot more done in less time than if I sat down every other day and forced myself to write an article. I wouldn’t necessarily be in a peak state, and I wouldn’t be using my time efficiently.
It can be tricky to get used to thinking like this if you’ve never thought in a batch-oriented mentality before. We are so used to real-time processing that it’s our default habit.
To get used to the switch, we have to think about efficiency and optimization. When faced with a task - especially a repetitive task - you have to constantly ask yourself, “How could I handle this in a more efficient manner?” Your goal should be to turn yourself into a factory - streamlining operations and steps as much as possible to achieve greater output.
* Try to setup your environment so when you tackle tasks you can do multiple steps at once and use the results at a later time (minimize input, maximize output).
* Work to recognize and mentally flag those times you notice you’re in a peak state for any given activity.
* When you feel that peak state “click” in the future, try to maximize the energy and results you can get out of it (you’ll get more done and it will likely be better quality than “normal”).
* Think in terms of long-term time savings (months or a year) and challenge yourself to find ways to save time in the long run - you’ll find something else much more enjoyable to fill that time.
* Realize that effort and output don’t have to be directly linked. It’s easy to feel some guilt when you realize that you’re getting tremendous output with less input than you’re used to. It may take a little time for you to adjust and be comfortable when your productivity goes up. We get stuck in a feeling of “I should be doing more right now” mentality and we rush to fill it with “something” - even if that “something” isn’t a great use of our time!
Once you get used to batching your tasks you’ll wonder why you didn’t start doing it sooner. When you can work on tasks in a peak mental state you’ll be amazed at how much you can get accomplished with seemingly no effort (or minimal effort) on your part.
When you learn to think and work in a batch-process mentality, the time will fly by, your production will be up, and your quality will be great. That sounds like a pretty good reason to think in a batch-oriented mindset to me!
January 11th, 2006
Want a secret that will make you more productive in an extremely short period of time? Keep a time log on yourself for a week.
Now I didn’t say it was a secret that would shake you to your foundations, but it is something that most people have never done. It’s also extremely powerful to see your entire day, laid before you, in black and white. When you have a concrete log of how you spent your time (the only limited resource there really is) you’ll start to see how those extra trips to the coffee machine and those interruptions from co-workers really eat away at your day.
And how do you keep a time log? Great question, here’s how:
Get a piece of paper and write the time you start and stop doing any activity. It’s really that simple! If you’re like me though, you want to keep better track of your time to really get a good idea of where you’re spending it.
I found a form in the book “The Time Trap” by R. Alec MacKenzie that works perfectly for me, and I’ve created a PDF in the spirit of that form, which you can download for yourself:
Here is what a time log looks like when filled out.
Using the time log is extremely easy, but here are some helpful tips to get you off and running more quickly.
1. Write down the time anytime you change what you’re working on. This is the whole key to making a time log work for you. Be brutally honest with yourself, you’re the only person who will see this, so no fibbing.
Why write down the times as you change tasks or are interrupted? If you go back and try to summarize at the end of the day you will forget a substantial amount of what you did and the times will become fuzzy. Trust me on this from my own personal experience. I have at least two time logs I never finished because I stopped tracking the time and I could not remember enough detail to make it worthwhile.
2. Use abbreviations where possible. Alec recommends, and I use, the following: An arrow pointing in is incoming (you receive), an arrow pointing out is outgoing (you initiate). A capital “I” is interruption, “C” is call, “E” is email.
Using this system an incoming call looks like this: “->C Joe Smith, RE: New client” An outgoing call looks like this: “C-> Bob RE: Meeting plans”.
If a person walks up and starts talking to me I would write down “I, Sally RE: Her weekend”
3. Rate the use of your time. I like the 1-4 scale where 1=critical, 2=important 3=routine, and 4=waste of time. Most tasks are 2 or 3; the major item I want to accomplish in a day would rate a 1 and I try to weed out all of the 4s as much as possible.
4. Keep your time log for a minimum of a week. Plan on keeping a time log for a week at least twice a year. This will give you a good snapshot of your time over more than one day. This helps smooth out those really low or really high productivity days and gives you a more accurate picture.
Coming back to your time log twice a year (or even better, quarterly) helps keep you on your toes so you don’t fall back into your old, less productive habits.
How will keeping a time log send your productivity through the roof? Once I had kept a really honest time log on myself for about two weeks I noticed a few things; first, I spent way more time checking and replying to email than I thought I did - upwards of two hours a day! Second, I allowed myself to get interrupted by calls and visitors far more than I thought. Something like 60% of my interruptions were from people wanting to discuss non-business topics and about 80% of my phone calls were sales solicitations from companies offering services I had no intention of using.
I immediately changed my email habits. I now check my email when I get to work, after lunch and before I leave. I might check it one or two more times depending on how many meetings I’ve been in during the day. I also started paying a lot more attention to how much time I was spending in personal conversations. I didn’t want to cut them out and isolate myself from others, but now I make sure I have an exit planned so I can gracefully step out of a conversation after a few minutes.
I also stopped answering my phone unless expecting a call (thank goodness for caller ID!). Since I don’t have a secretary to handle my calls (and in our modern business society many people don’t), I let my voice mail screen my calls. Now instead of reaching for the phone every time it rings I let it go. I check my messages before I leave work and make notes of people I need to call back in the morning.
Just making these three minor changes in how I spend my day made a very noticeable change in my level of productivity.
I’m also a lot more careful about how I spend my time. I try to keep in mind that it’s the only resource that’s really limited and I pay careful attention to what I’m working on and to whom I’m giving time for interruptions and projects.
In the weeks since keeping a daily time log these longer-term changes have really boosted my productivity. One of the biggest gains is that I usually and ready to leave - with major tasks completed - at 5:30pm every day, it’s very seldom I need to stay late; this has the added benefit of making my wife much happier too!
December 12th, 2005
Email is the killer application of the Internet; it allows near-instant communication, it allows easy group collaboration, and it’s an efficient way for the top brass of a company to keep their ear turned towards the entire enterprise.
Email is also not as distracting as a ringing phone. When someone calls you, it’s interrupting what you’re doing. When an email arrives you can usually continue working and check the message when it’s convenient for you. That’s why so many people love email, and that’s one of its greatest powers.
And Microsoft is trying to screw everything up!
A few months back our office upgraded to Outlook 2003 to go along with an Exchange upgrade. I must admit I enjoy some of the changes in Outlook 2003, but it has a new feature that really drives me crazy.
When you get an email message Outlook 2003 pops up a semi-transparent window in the lower right-hand corner of your desktop for about 7 seconds. This window contains the name of the message sender and the subject line of the message. If you put your mouse over the window it turns fully opaque and if you click on the window you’re whisked away from whatever you were doing to read the message.
If you’re like me, and that pop-up is from your boss or maybe someone with a question about an urgent project, it’s very tempting to let yourself get distracted, click the message, and jump to another task. And that makes it very tough to get productive and stay productive.
What’s the easy solution? Many productiviy gurus recommend only launching your email program once or twice a day and only checking your messages during these times. This may be the best way to make sure that you’re in control of your email and not vice-versa, but I don’t have the luxury of checking and responding to my email only once or twice a day. I don’t have to be on top of it minute-by-minute, but I need to be responsive at least hourly. And I’m willing to guess than unless you’re in a pretty high position within your company, you’re in a similar situation too.
So how do you take back some control over your email? Turn off all the distractions! Though the pop-ups and new message sounds are enabled by default, you can turn them off. Here’s how:
- In Outlook 2003 click the menu
"Tools"
- Choose the menu option
"Options".
- Click on the button
"E-mail Options".
- Click on the button
"Advanced E-mail Options"
- Un-check the options
"Play a sound", "Briefly change the mouse cursor", and "Display a New Mail Desktop Alert...".
I like to leave the option "Show an envelope icon in the notification area" option turned on. That way I can glance down and see if new email awaits. It also serves as a reminder for me to check my messages about once an hour, but die-hard productivity fans may want to turn the envelope icon off too.
While I was typing this article I received 5 email messages. Fortunately I didn’t notice because I had these notifications turned off. Instead of being tempted to jump away from writing this article, I was able to finish and then check my messages.
Changing these settings allows me go about my work without being interrupted by “dings” and pop-up windows, and it lets me take some control back over how I let (or in this case, don’t let) others interrupt me via email.
December 5th, 2005
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