Hiatus: Will Be Back in May

To all our readers and followers – despite a recent absence, the 4 Hour Workweek Project continues and we will be back in May with new posts and discussions. We are currently on a hiatus for our wedding and taking a short break for our weekly posts. Please check back in May where we will continue talking about how to change our lives, create a Dreamline and institute more ideas and perspectives of the 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris.

See you soon…..

The 3rd Type of Interruptions: Empowerment Failures

Today’s blog is going to deal with the final type of interruption, empowerment failures. These are nasty interruptions that need our attention and will not go away until we deal with them because empowerment failures require our ‘approval’ on some aspect of our business. For example, another colleague or co-worker must communicate with us because they are unable to approve the re-shipment of a product, even if the whole process is relatively inexpensive because they are not authorized to make a financial decision. Of course, this makes perfect sense for sensitive issues or large expenditures. However, if our focus, concentration and precious work time is interrupted because some one needs us to approve items that are otherwise quite minor yet, take away our productivity, we could be paying a very high price in other ways in having to deal with these types of issues. In addition, the last blog pointed out the time it takes to re-focus and get back on track after any type of interruption and if you remember for many of us this can be up to 45 minutes!

If this happens to be your first visit to my blog, get caught up on how interruptions affect our productivity, creativity and the impact interruptions affect our work-day ( http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/more-on-time-wasters-and-sticking-to-the-low-information-diet/ and  ). By specifically understanding and addressing the interruptions we all have, we are able to both eliminate and reduce the number of interruptions thus, working more effectively and creating time to spend however we choose.

Review of the Types of Interruptions

3 Types

1. Time Wasters: These are the things that interrupt our work day and when they are ignored there is very little or no consequence such as meetings, chats, phone calls, web-surfing and of course Email. The common characteristics is that they are often unimportant http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/more-on-interruptions-the-type-and-what-to-do-about-time-wasters/

2. Time Consumers: Think of these as the repetitive tasks and/or requests that must be completed but really do interrupt high-level work. Things like reading, responding and following-up to Email, making and follow-up on telephone calls, customer service tasks, financial to-do’s such as sales tasks, personal errands and all the bits that requires our attention over and over again but is a real red flag in terms of interruptions. http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/a-second-type-of-interruption-time-consumers/

3. Empowerment Failures: Ferris clearly explains this category of interruptions as “instances where someone needs approval to make something small happen” and uses the examples primarily from customer services situations to illustrate the point such as dealing with a lost or damaged shipment and importantly cash expenditure approvals. For Ferris, he quickly eliminated a lot of the very small issues in this area by making every decision for $300 or less at the discretion of his staff; therefore, he did not need interrupted for the smallest amounts.

Empowerment Failures

Ferris importantly reminds us that this is a ‘team’ issue and addressing this particular type of interruption is really about empowering those who work with us. We must give the people we work with both information and the authority to make decisions. Wow, this can be a huge issue for some as it really means we must hand over some control. Often, we have very competent people around us, who really understand the issue at hand and know exactly how to deal with certain situations, but they are unable to show initiative because they need approval before executing what they already know how to do. This falls into micromanaging and is one of the areas where a lot of people feel they are undervalued and under-appreciated for what they do. Furthermore, the amount of time we spend micromanaging other people is mind-boggling. The real question is why?

Have a good look at where people need to come to you for approval. Are there areas where you could give up some control and make policy for those around you to execute their own decision making ability to address concerns without having to come to you for approval, signatures or other types of communication? If this seems too scary to implement then set up a trial basis. Talk to your team, assistant and other employees and get their feedback. After all, if they need to repeatedly come to you for approval, they may have some great ideas of where the bottle-neck is and what to do about it. Set up a new policy, track it for a couple of weeks and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised about how certain decisions, likely those that constantly interrupt you are modifiable. For example, Ferris found out that his team was asking for approval on issues that were often less than $300.00. He changed how things worked and gave all his team the ability to approve issues under this amount without his constant input. Work began to flow more freely, in less time and nothing catastrophic happened.

If you have a very small team and it’s simply not possible to hand over the decision making then at least set up a time where you can ‘batch’ the communication or discussion around the list of items for approval thus, saving the number of times you are interrupted in a week for all the issues that need your attention.http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/a-second-type-of-interruption-time-consumers/ . You may need to really examine how this issues is wrapped up in your sense of control and micromanaging. We surely do not want to have things happening at work that create more problems but quite often we make our work-days worse by micromanaging those around us. Sure, some one else will do things a bit differently than we would – this is not an issue unless it leads to a negative outcome. We must all check ourselves to ensure that it is mandatory that we look after things ourselves because a bottom line is at stake versus we just need to control the situation and would prefer things are done our own way. By simply needing it to be our way, we add to the job dissatisfaction of those around us who are otherwise very competent and productive individuals, after all we either hired them for the position in the first place or at some point we felt our team members were right for the job. If the status has changed, then there is a larger human resource issue to deal with and trying to control everything that happens is not the answer. We become too bogged down with tasks which will ultimately affect how we perform ourselves.

And don’t forget, there is also a psychological aspect of constantly being interrupted. Each time we are interrupted, it can take up to 45 minutes to re-focus on a priority task and ‘get back to work’ (Basex, 2005). Given estimates are that the average person has 28% of their time interrupted during the course of a typical 9-5 work-day in conjunction with it taking up to 45 minutes each time to get back on track, it is no wonder we are often stressed, frazzled and feeling unproductive!

It is a rare event that we obtain success by working in isolation so learn to depend on those around you to help realize larger and important goals. Re-examine your lifestyle design and see where you can also improve the experience of those around you who will enjoy their roles much more if they feel you have confidence in their ability and take the necessary steps to work more like a well functioning team. Communication is key here. Talk to yourself about where you may be micromanaging and communicate with your team about where they feel they could provide a necessary and important role in helping get things done and keeping the work-day flowing.

Resources

Spira, J.B. and J.B. Feintuch. 2005. The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity. NY, New York.

Back to work every one and I’ll see you in a couple of days!

A Second Type of Interruption: Time Consumers

As of late, the blog has really focused on interruptions and what they do to our productivity, creativity and the impact interruptions have our work-day ( http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/more-on-time-wasters-and-sticking-to-the-low-information-diet ). In the larger context we are really always discussing some aspect of making lasting change in order to create a new lifestyle design http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/first-30-day-assessment-of-the-4-hour-workweek-project/ ). By specifically understanding and addressing the interruptions we all have, we are able to both eliminate and reduce the number of interruptions thus, working more effectively and creating time to spend however we choose. At this point in the 4 Hour Workweek Project, I must confess I am using the time I am able to create to simply work more hours right now. I knew this would happen as our new site is live just this week so obviously there are additional work demands; however, I know that I must also use some of this time in the very near future for things other than work such as relaxation, rejuvenation and social time.

Review of the Types of Interruptions

3 Types

1. Time Wasters: These are the things that interrupt our work day and when they are ignored there is very little or no consequence such as meetings, chats, phone calls, web-surfing and of course Email. The common characteristics is that they are often unimportant http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/more-on-interruptions-the-type-and-what-to-do-about-time-wasters/

2. Time Consumers: Think of these as the repetitive tasks and/or requests that must be completed but really do interrupt high-level work. Things like reading, responding and following-up to Email, making and follow-up on telephone calls, customer service tasks, financial to-do’s such as sales tasks, personal errands and all the bits that requires our attention over and over again but is a real red flag in terns of interruptions.

3. Empowerment Failures: Ferris clearly explains this category of interruptions as “instances where someone needs approval to make something small happen” and uses the examples primarily from customer services situations to illustrate the point such as dealing with a lost or damaged shipment and importantly cash expenditure approvals. For Ferris, he quickly eliminated a lot of the very small issues in this area by making every decision for $300 or less at the discretion of his staff; therefore, he did not need interrupted for the smallest amounts.

The first type of interruption, Time Wasters was discussed in the last posting http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/interruptions/  We will carry on from there and look at interruptions known as Time Consumers.

Time Consumers

According to Ferris, “batching” is the strategy to apply to interruptions known as time consumers. Remember, time consumers are repetitive tasks that cause interruption over and over again when we are working on more important and often critical tasks. Regardless of what type of repetitive interruption we have, whether they are administrative tasks at the office or paying our household bills at home, all time consumers have a preparation time or as Ferris calls it “setup” time. The goal is to wait until you have a larger ‘order’ or batch of recurring tasks and do them all at once. For example, if you pay your bills using online banking, to pay one bill you must gather your paperwork, log-in online, select your payments and complete the transaction. If you have 5 bills to pay you must do all the same steps for each bill unless you ‘batch’. This may appear over simplified but I strongly encourage you to think about this in the course of your day. By eliminating the setup time to do this over and over again, you not only saved additional time in the week, you also changed from having to actually go through the whole process more than once. I feel that the relief from the monotony of doing the same things over and over is just as valuable as freeing up time. Reducing repeating tasks from our schedules we are able to add to the quality of our lives.

Concerning time consumers, there is also a psychological aspect. Each time we are interrupted, it can take up to 45 minutes to re-focus on a priority task and ‘get back to work’ (Basex, 2005). Given estimates are that the average person has 28% of their time interrupted during the course of a typical 9-5 work-day in conjunction with it taking up to 45 minutes each time to get back on track, it is no wonder we are often stressed, frazzled and feeling unproductive!

Start by first trying to identify the types of interruptions you experience and figure out if they are time wasters or time consumers. If they are time wasters great, eliminate them. Next, look at your time consumers and watch for the repeating nature of these types of interruptions and batch as many of them together as you can. I have used my Toodledo software to tag tasks that are Time Consumers, when I sort by just this tag I get a list of tasks and can easily see groupings where I can batch certain things. For example, when I enter ‘status update’ as a task in my to-do list for my clients or research team , I also tag them as a ‘Time Consumer’. Then I am able to see the list of all status updates, I put them together and complete them as a bigger task. Therefore, I get them all completed at once thus creating a period of time I have no status updates due to any one for the immediate future. Since I need the same templates and other information and must be in my email to send all the updates, it’s productive to complete all updates at the same time. Also, they are concise, factual statements and items noteworthy about projects to communicate in an update, which is very different from the type of writing I do when creating a formal report or even this blog. I spend a ‘batch’ of time in the same writing ‘head’ space and this reduces the number of times I have to switch gears in a day because I spend a few hours working on like tasks rather than jumping around on different tasks.

Finally, an excellent outcome of this aspect of the project for me is the amount of block time I am finally beginning to create to work on larger project pieces. I am really hoping this will add to the results I am already able to see in working more effectively. I will try and remember to provide an update in a future blog of whether or not I am successful. As I said in the last post, be patient with this process, it can take time to turn the tides on long-standing processes and change they way you’ve done things over time but it is worth the effort, I can see that already.

Next blog, we’ll wrap up the 3 types of interruptions by discussing empowerment failures, this one may require a leap of faith and seriously letting go of some issues!

Have a great weekend everybody…..

MORE ON INTERRUPTIONS: The Type and What To Do About Time Wasters

Last week we began discussing interruptions and the big question is “Did you attempt to reduce or eliminate interruptions by gaining control over your Email?” That’s the first place to start and if you do this it will definitely help ( http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/interruptions/ and http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/first-30-day-assessment-of-the-4-hour-workweek-project/ ).

Overall, Ferris points out there are 3 major culprits in the area of interruptions:

1. Time Wasters: These are the things that interrupt our work day and when they are ignored there is very little or no consequence such as meetings, chats, phone calls, web-surfing and of course flipping through Email. The common characteristics is that they are often unimportant.

2. Time Consumers: Think of time consumers as the repetitive tasks and/or requests that must be completed but really do interrupt high-level work. Things like doing aspect, the reading, responding and following-up to Email, making and follow-up on telephone calls, customer service tasks, financial and sales tasks, personal errands and all the bits that require our attention but is a real red flag in terns of interruptions.

3. Empowerment Failures: Ferris clearly explains the last category of interruptions, empowerment failures as “instances where someone needs approval to make something small happen” and uses the examples primarily from customer services situations such as dealing with a lost or damaged shipment and importantly cash expenditure approvals. For Ferrris, he quickly eliminated a lot of the very small issues in this area by making every decision for $300 or less at the discretion of his staff therefore, he did not need interrupted for the smallest amounts.

I am going to go through all 3 of these interruptions in the blog and today we’ll just start with the time wasters – luckily time wasters are the best one to tackle first as they are the easiest to get rid of in our day. The goal for all the time wasters is to direct each type of time waster interruption whether it be inter-office phone calls or cross nation Emails to a direct action.

I must stipulate the Email directions one more time and then I will always refer back to this posting. I emphasized last week that if you have not already addressed your Email you must in order to free up more time and specifically reduce your time wasters so once again, if you have not this is the MISSION CRITICAL TASK FOR TODAY! RIGHT NOW, NOT TOMORROW……

1. Turn off any alert system associated with your Email, whether that is an audible reminder or an on-screen prompt.

2. Turn off the automatic send/receive feature

3. Starting tomorrow, check your email at Noon and 4pm – This is very important, never ever check your Email first thing in the morning (or whenever your work-day begins). From now on start your work-day by completing the one thing you must get done on that day

4. It is advisable to create an email autoresponse that clearly states due to an increased work-load you will be checking Email twice per day (and indicate the time), give people your phone number (not your cell phone, more on this later) to get in touch if they must and close with something like “thank you for your understanding”

The goal is to get to the point where you check your Email once per day. I went through 2 phases in addressing this issue. First off I did great, followed the list of 1-4 above and WOW, what a difference in both the amount of time I spent in my Email reading and responding to items along with how much ‘mental’ energy I saved not having to focus on topics and requests from my Inbox over and over again throughout the day. Then I fell right off the wagon. After a couple of weeks of this new approach, I was out of my routine for a couple of days. I was away from my office and somehow I decided that I should check my Email more often, this threw me back into the old routine. Thankfully, I was able to turn that around again and I am now back on track.

The other important piece of information that Ferris states is using two telephone numbers, one being a cell phone. Direct people to call your office/work regular number if they need to and in case of urgent or emergency situations to call you on your cell phone number. When people need you immediately they will always get you ‘live’ on the phone, which can reduce your stress in thinking that you’ll miss something that really needs attention. Also, when someone knows they are going to get you on the phone and you’ve requested they use your cell phone they will think twice about calling and interrupting. Ferris points out that the greeting is key. Once you’ve answered it’s important to say “oh hello John, I’m right in the middle of something but I take it you need to speak with me, how can I help you?” This discourages idle chat and has them take ownership in the first minute of the call as to why it was so important to call you directly. The good thing is you will likely be able to resolve the issue immediately as an action item or give your approval as to how to proceed without multiple Emails going back and forth and causing numerous delays in sorting out whatever is urgent. I found that clients did one of two things, they really did need me, used my cell and we rectified issues quite quickly. The other thing I noticed was that clients began to preface all interruptions, even by Email. Correspondence would start something like “I didn’t want to disturb you today so when you get this message……”. This happened without me saying anything beyond my autoresponder message. Since moving to this new program, I have had 3 cell phone calls and each lasted less than 5 minutes. Guaranteed the Email response would have lasted a couple of days and required a few messages back and forth to accomplish the same thing. (If you are interested in reading more detail about this process refer to the book starting on page 94).

In terms of meetings, always ask for an agenda so you’ll know exactly what the meeting is for, try whenever possible to have meeting by teleconference and make absolutely sure before the meeting even starts that there is a definite end time. Most meetings need to take no longer than 30 minutes. The trick to this is having the agenda and only having a meeting to decide on action items for a particular task or problem and not to meet in order to decide what the issue is – meetings need to revolve around action not to sort out what problems are in the first place. This is challenging as many people use meetings inappropriately. Ask for the agenda under the guise that it will help you prepare appropriately and the agenda will necessitate every one comes prepared to talk about a defined issue with specific action items on the table for discussion.

Be patient with this process, after all people treat us as we allow and it can take time to turn the tides on long-standing processes. However, if your attempt is to become more productive and you can deliver the results to a supervisor or co-workers, over time you’re likely to rub off on others that would appreciate having less time taken up by interruptions themselves even if they have not thought about this before.

Next blog, we’ll delve into the next category of interruptions, the time consumers.

INTERRUPTIONS

At first, the title: ‘Interruptions’ seemed far to simple, so simple in fact that the emphasis in this blog on the enormous impact interruptions have on our day is lost in such a simple title, but after considering other creative introductions for today’s blog, I chose to leave it. Why? Because in the end, all I am going to talk about today are interruptions: what affect they have on working effectively, how they prevent us from staying focused and how they impede us reducing the amount of time we spend completing various tasks. I want to share with you some recent research about the impact interruptions have on our day.

A new book, recently published called Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath illustrates clearly that when we change our environments to reduce and prevent interruptions dramatic change takes place in the ‘way’ we do things and the end result is not only the ability to complete tasks but also to accomplish enormous output. For example, the Heaths’ explain how research done regarding the impact interruptions have in every type of work environment from busy hospitals to the average business office allowed teams and organizations to better understand the significant impact interruptions were having. Workers, clinical teams even large corporations realized goals and saw change in their productivity in a way many involved were stunned to see. Results included hospitals reducing the number of medication errors drastically and an IT Team completing a time sensitive goal in much less time than they had first anticipated. By taking steps to reduce the type and frequency of interruptions things improved tremendously.

Of course there are various types of interruptions in our environment among them email, telephone calls, other people just needing a minute, our own personal reminder devices and a whole host of other things we are interrupted by throughout our day. Research is showing us how the lost productivity for some is resulting in weekend trips to the office in order to get something done while it is quiet (Heaths’; 2010). Furthermore, when we are constantly off task, feeling frazzled or not accomplishing what we must, it makes most of us stressed, irritable and very tired.

What Can We Do About All the Interruptions

This blog is constantly addressing the Email issue. If you regularly follow the blog and you have not made any alterations to the way you handle your email or taken steps to reduce the amount of time you read, review and respond to Email do it now! It is one of the single most important steps I have taken in the first 100 days of this project and one that is directly related to reduced work time. In fact, I just spent a weekend away from work and did not check Email one time over the course of 3 days. For some that may not sound like a significant difference but I can tell you it is a huge difference compared to how I did things just 3 short months ago.

Email cannot take all the blame. For the first time in our working lives, the idea of texting, Facebooking, Twittering and other social networking activities along with your standard type Smartphones and Blackberries going off has created a culture of individuals working through a long and constant string of interruptions all day. It should come as no surprise we take longer to accomplish the ‘have-to’s’. I am not suggesting we give up or wean ourselves off the technology we have all come to depend on, even enjoy. The answer is in creating an environment where we can get the minimum amount time, without interruptions to accomplish our critical 1 or 2 tasks for the day. As I have stated many times before, it is important to look back on the end of the day and know you got the one or two things done that were necessary, likely an important responsibility and hopeful things that led in the direction of a significant goal (  http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/an-insight-into-balancing-the-have-tos-of-life-with-also-doing-the-tasks-related-to-our-goals-in-order-to-make-real-effective-change/ ). I began setting the office phone to go to immediate voice-mail, turning off my cell phone, shutting all Internet access (where possible or at least only having the window open I needed versus various tabs) and wearing either a headset or earphones for 3 hours per day. In that 3 hours, I always accomplish the main critical task or get a good chunk of work done on it and on a good day get through both my critical tasks. The best part of taking control of my environment is that my main tasks of the day usually take a lot less time than I originally think they will and I am convinced that because I have learned to adapt so well to constant interruptions, I just assume things will take longer.

Of course, interruptions go way beyond the beeping, alerts and reminders going off around us all day, there are the people who also interrupt. If you work in an office surrounded by other people all day one of the best tactics is to wear headphones, even if you don’t have music playing (which can also help concentration is some circumstances). Studies have shown that when we look busy our co-workers tend to think twice about interrupting and even more so when they have to interject to move us off a task (listening to music) to get our attention. I know a co-worker who brought in a cheap telephone headset for the office and wore it while she was at her desk. The funny part was it did not even plug-in properly to our office phone system, yet she was rarely interrupted while she wore it day after day.

Own Your Own Part

Time for a little self-reflection and honesty. While doing your best to make changes to what you can control regarding interruptions, I feel it is also very important for each of us to ‘own’ where we waste our own time and also when we are the culprits and interrupting those around us. Before you stroll off to your co-workers office down the hall to ask them “if they have a minute?”, ask yourself if you’re interrupting their work flow. While, at the same time be honest about whether or not you really need to read that latest headline or talk to your nearest neighbour at work or are you in fact procrastinating? These are always good self-checks to make sure we are addressing the issue from all sides.

What Have I Done With The Time?

This is a good question. If I am freeing up some time what am I doing with it? I can tell you for sure what I would have done with it before I started this project, I would have filled it up with more work. I admit I still do that sometimes and with our website going live in the next 2 weeks after a major over-haul there is good reason to put in more hours right now. However, I am also really trying to balance my life out more and use some of the time I am able to reduce in my work day for other things. Today, I took the time to have a neighbor over for coffee and for 4 weeks now I have created a minimum of 2 hours per week for exercise, sometimes more. I would have professed before Christmas that there was no dam way I could do this, I did not have time to work out nor could I socialize in the middle of the day even if it was a half hour coffee. Today I actually did both. But I was right in a way – I could not have had 2 or 3 hours to play with in my week if I had kept doing things the way I was before Christmas and in the same environment. The changes are small but I am seeing progress  (http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/first-30-day-assessment-of-the-4-hour-workweek-project/ )

The next blog is Monday and I strongly encourage you to address just one thing in your environment that will reduce or prevent an interruption and see if you too can take 30 minutes between now and then to do something outside work you really enjoy.

MORE ON TIME WASTERS AND STICKING TO THE LOW INFORMATION DIET

Last week, I was suggesting that establishing a low-information diet was one thing to do in an attempt to address time wasters http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/time-wasters-and-the-low-information-diet/ . If you remember, going on the one-week media fast was a first step. I turned off my news channel notifications (including the weather channel) and used Google Fast Flip for my 5-15 minute fix each day. This was particularly useful as I could both look at headlines (which weren’t all that interesting except some Olympic updates) and search any particular topic I was looking for to get some information about all in one window. I did not at any point ‘surf’ to find out some newsworthy story, which definitely saved me some wasted time.

Beyond the media fast, Ferris discusses 2 more important pieces to really addressing time wasters and remaining on the low information diet. 1) Work on establishing a new habit, before you delve into looking up Internet information, reading through texts, manuals and reports ask yourself if what you are looking for’ will definitely be of use right now for what I need to get done on an immediate task and is it truly needed right now’. Double check that it is also important. Ferris makes an excellent point that information all by itself is quite useless unless it is applied to something that is immediate and important. Preparing to far in advance just for the sake of being ready is a scenario that Ferris covers in the book and that I must admit I am quite guilt of. I have such a need to prepare and have everything in order to far ahead of events, project meetings or project work, I will review client documents and project information, only to have to re-read again at a later date closer to when I actually need the information.

The good news

Since I am able to identify a time waster that I do and it is also something I repeat fairly often, I am excited about making the change so that I do not spent time on things too far in advance thus, having to repeat later. This should make a fairly significant impact for me over time.

The second point is also very important and is call the ‘Art of Nonfinishing’

This has come up for me specifically when reading a fiction book or watching a movie, the story or presentation is just awful to me but I feel compelled to finish reading the book or watching the movie simply because I started it. This is likely related to hearing once too often as a child that I never finished anything, my attention was too short and although I started things with such great enthusiasm, I wouldn’t necessarily complete them. Now as an adult, I often feel it’s wrong not to finish something I started. However, if you are reading a novel, an article or watching something on television that isn’t good just stop. I think learning the Art of Nonfinishing is especially important for cutting down on wasting work time but even more precious are when it happens during sparse down-time. If you’ve finally wrapped up work for the day, feel good about what you’ve got accomplished and can put the work day behind you, do not spend the free time on anything that doesn’t bring you some relaxation, enjoyment or entertainment.

Boring and Unproductive

To do anything other than learn and practice the art of non-finishing will necessitate you spend time on things that are either boring, unproductive and perhaps both. This is surely not the path to freedom, abundance and peace, so the take home message today is cut down on Internet surfing, searching and absorbing too much information that is not necessary and important right now along with learning how to stop spending time on something unproductive or unpleasant just because you’ve started it.

Next blog we are going to talk about interruptions….

An Insight Into Balancing the Have-To’s Of Life With Also Doing the Tasks Related to Our Goals in Order to Make Real Effective Change

I am really switching up the style and content of the blog today. So far, the posts are quite specific on approaches or particular techniques and resources Ferris’ offers to accomplish the 4 Hour-Workweek. Today it’s all different and for any new readers this post is likely out of context so you might want to catch up a bit in the archives section and then come back here. I want to share an insider look if you will on my thoughts about balancing life and some of the things I’ve considered recently about why it is often quite difficult to make change. Of course I know in many cases our own level of discipline and motivation for change can wane and certainly change over time. When we face our greatest challenges to change, it may appear at times as if we’ll never win the battle to change our unhealthy, unproductive or simply down-right irritating habits and behaviours. However, there are times when we have great enthusiasm, commitment and drive to make change, and we are very committed. Yet despite our resolve, there appears barriers to our change or at least circumstances that appear outside our locus of control. In the last while, I have tried to more fully understand these forces, our own ability and willingness to make change versus our apparent barriers, things we must do or things outside of our control impeding our progress. This idea is particularly at the forefront of my thoughts when I am attempting to stay on track in how I spend my time, on what I decide is important and how badly I really want to make some specific changes in my life, primarily in my professional life. Although the same thoughts are not lost of some other personal issues such as healthy living, eating right and exercising regularly.

Making and Adhering to a Clear Intention

In the spirit of working less and doing more or having more free time, our conversation recently has focused on establishing concrete time allotments that we are committing to work each day and in my case, the number of hours per week that are ‘allowed’ for work. If you recall, I made a statement of 45 hours per week – no more and never on Sundays (especially during the NFL season). Additionally, we’ve talked about examining whether or not the tasks we are prioritizing and spending time on each day are directly related to specific goals. Ideally, such goals are facilitating the manifestation of important, profound and life-fulfilling events, things or people in our lives. When focused attention is placed on specific tasks, given allotted time and also have  an impact in helping shape and create our goals, we are all capable of spectacular manifesting in our lives.

But What About

No doubt some of you are sternly interjecting into the conversation that the amount of work time each week along with what you must spend time doing in the whole of your life does not facilitate particular goals. Rather, many tasks and priorities are simply have-to’s, without any attachment to the grandeur of your life-goals but nevertheless absolutely necessary. For example, our roles as a parent, care-taker or provider often requires a great deal of time, sometimes presents an overwhelming number of things to do; however they are part of our responsibilities regardless of whether or not they are related to any goals. Certainly for many of us, how well we fulfill our roles and the job we do as s parent, son, daughter, friend, co-worker and/or employee, to name just a few is very important to us and we are always striving to do better. Therefore, reducing the amount of time we work in our lives occurs within the larger context of the time our roles and responsibilities also take up. It is very difficult for a mother with young dependent children to ‘shorten’ the work day when she already works a flexible schedule so she may drop her children off at daycare or school and then be available to pick them up at the end of the school-day or at least with minimal after-school care. She already works a shorten day thus, must work each day of the week to put in a full-time number of hours. Also challenging is that scenario for a single-parent attempting the same schedule or the number of parents having to accomplish full-time hours by putting 2 jobs together – and the list goes on. These are real-life situations, choices, barriers depending on each individual but no matter what the situation looks like today, we must turn our attention back to what we can do and not create a mental road-block in moving forward. Change can and will happen over time.

Regardless of How it Appears

Right now I struggle to learn and implement new ideas and strategies regarding how I work, establish new habits to become more effective and continue to see change in the areas where I either wasted time or lost potential time where I could have really got more accomplished and specifically in areas related to a goal on my Dreamline worksheet. I too struggle with balancing my down-time, family and social time with all there is to do; however, I am slowly establishing the habit that each day for at least 30 minutes of doing a task that relates to a Dreamline goal. Sometimes life necessitates I tend to all the other have-to’s but in a way it can draw the parallel between what I am doing and dieting. Just because I have one brownie at the meeting does not mean I blow off the whole day of eating well. Similarly, when I have a lot of have to’s, I let it go, focus on why the have to or how I choose to spend certain time, perhaps the family time bonds me with my child and I am grateful for that. I  remain diligent in concentrating  some time dedicated to a Dreamline goal within the next 72 hours when things get to hectic and seemingly off course. That way, in the grand scheme of things, I may not always progress at the pace I would like but I do continue to move forward over time. What I am beginning to see is that over time a new way of doing things is emerging and the new or altered approach is establishing habits priorities and a process that is truly creating effective change (even when it seems painstakingly slow).

Thanks for reading a different type of posting today and I hope there is a nugget in there somewhere for you….

TIME WASTERS AND THE LOW INFORMATION DIET

Today’s blog is really straight forward and dedicated to establishing a ‘Low Information Diet’ or as Ferris states “Cultivating Selective Ignorance”. We all have our own time wasters based on our lifestyles, habits and how we choose to use our time. Reducing time wasters is a topic we all know about, yet seem to all struggle with at least from time to time.

What Is A Low Information Diet?

Basically, the idea is to cut down of doing some basic everyday things we all do that waste time. By becoming more selectively ignorant, we are able to productively take some time we have each day and transfer it from doing one of many common things that waste time and turning that time spent into a more productive thus effective task. Ferris reminds us that a great deal of the information we seek, absorb and think about everyday is actually a total waste of our precious time. More importantly, a lot of the information we process is also quite negative in nature (the majority of main-stream media news), completely irrelevant to our personal goals and quite often way outside our area of influence. A great exercise is to spend two-five days really becoming conscious of what we have either read or watched and honestly answer how much of it was: 1) Very negative 2) Unrelated to a goal we have and 3) Outside of our personal influence. If in fact, what we have either watched or read falls into 2 or more of these categories it is a prime candidate for eliminating all together or at least dedicating a very limited amount of time to each day.

But, How Will I Know if Something Important Happens?

This one is too easy. If there are local, regional or world events that are this important, you will ‘hear’ about it by communicating with other people or find out for yourself even if you only give 15 minutes per day.

What If I Need Important Information?

Sometimes we ourselves want to know about something important. This can fall into a ‘how-to’ category, a headline level news story and many others. Ferris’ example of looking through reader reviews on the topic of how-to is excellent advice. For example, only read accounts of people who have already DONE the task you’re interested in. Search how I did (past tense) a particular tasks versus reading reviews that are either speculation or from people who are in the process of figuring out how to do what you are interested in (other than this blog of course!). That way you’ll get a good perspective from someone who knows how to accomplish a particular task versus those who are simply trying. The other strategy is to only go through large articles, books or reviews for the exact matches to the topic you are looking for rather than reading everything.The other thing to do is to ask people you see throughout the day “So, anything happening in the world today”. No doubt, if something you need to know about is happening other people will tell you.

The Challenge

Here is the challenge to gain perspective on how too much information may in fact be wasting your time. I have done this now for over a week and it is working. Here’s what to do.Begin your one-week media fast.

A. No newspapers, magazines, talk radio etc (music is always OK unless it distracts you e.g., you spend time looking up in iTunes how to purchase the great song you’re listening to)

B. No news websites or surfing for headlines

C. No television except for a very limited amount of pleasure viewing. I choose to use my time to watch the Olympics! Any yes, I did watch the Canada-US hockey game which went over the 1 hour allotment Ferris suggested but come on, it’s the Olympics and it was Sunday

D. No web surfing at your desk unless it relates specifically to a critical task for the day.

Here’s the Good News

You can indulge for 5 minutes a day scanning headlines just in case you really need a media fix. I suggest Google’s Fast Flip, you can see a number of headlines all at once from various sources or you can search a specific topic and see what is being reported in the news. Once you’re done for the day though you must stop and not get bogged down. Close the media sources and go back to your task. Remember to ask yourself what you really wanted to get accomplished today and when you do will you feel satisfied with the work you’ve done http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/part-2-parkinson%E2%80%99s-law-imminent-deadlines-gain-control-of-ballooning-tasks/

Really think about this over the next few days and see if there are times you are spending too much time reading and viewing information that does not produce anything valuable to you yet uses up an enormous amount of your daily time.

The next blog is going to discuss more on this topic but it’s important to have some self perception first if you’re really interested in gaining more time each day through the low information diet.

PART 2: PARKINSON’S LAW: IMMINENT DEADLINES-GAIN CONTROL OF BALLOONING TASKS

This is Part 2 of my blog that focuses specifically on Questions that Ferris reviews on page 80 of the Chapter titled: The End of Time Management. We are reminded that the in order to create more time we must figure out how to do less. If you would like to read Part 1, follow the link http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/parkinsons-law-imminent-deadlines-gain-control-of-ballooning-tasks/

There are two key things to do when creating more time 1) Make a To-Do list and importantly 2) Make another list of things NOT TO DO! To make these 2 lists, answer A and B below.

A) ‘What 20% of your sources are causing 80% of your problems and/or unhappiness’
B) ‘What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of your desired outcomes and happiness’?

Then, there are 9 specific questions to really contemplate and provide honest answers to before finalizing a plan. In this blog, I will comment on 2 of the 9 questions (although I would love to write more but I’m afraid it’s just too long for my followers!)

1. If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do?

For me considering the answer to this question was a real sobering experience . You see, just about a year and a half ago, my partner was off to see the doctor one Monday afternoon. We knew he had not been feeling great but certainly was not sick, in fact he had not taken any time off work and was going about his usual routine. In fact, he had just returned from a training week where he was out of town (and the reason he had not gone to the doctor before this point). He called me from the doctor’s office, he was being admitted to hospital. Over the next 10-14 days, he had triple by-pass surgery and we were feeling very blessed that his diagnosis, surgery and recovery was going so quickly and more significantly so well. During the initial weeks of his recovery, we often spoke about how we were very happy we had kept our time together a priority and we were grateful for the new lease on his life and our time together during his upcoming retirement.

At first glance, this question seemed too easy given that experience. I knew this one right? Wrong. I had to admit that we had both slipped back into a pattern where we were working too hard, lots of hours and neglecting our down-time. We had already put life on hold for 6 months during his surgery and recovery and at that time I had made work much less of a priority because his recovery depended upon that. We already knew how to do this. I really thought about how crazy things were now compared to just over a year ago. We discussed the whole issue over the weekend and it was very obvious that this particular question was really telling us that a boundary was needed and a clear goal to keep the whole issue of projects and tasks just ballooning out of control, yet again.

And the Action Was….

So, I am making a firm commitment to myself, my partner, my family and all my readers that I am going to spend a maximum amount of time on work each week and the week cannot include Sundays. It may include some time on Saturdays, but only if time during that same week time is spent on some relaxing activities and that includes rest. The good news is, we started this right away. We’ve just finished a long weekend and there was no work all weekend, we relaxed, socialized and watched the Olympics (Go Canada!!!)  for 3 days. It was wonderful. And, beginning today, the workweek cannot exceed 45 hours. That is until the new version of our site goes live before the end of the month as 45 hours is still way more than we want to work. Once were finished this project, I will begin to shave off more time at regular intervals. My short-term goal is to get the weekly work hours to under 30 by the end of this project and over the long-term, the goal is to reduce the work week down to 15 hours per week in 2 years. The downside of making all these decisions right now is that this blog is a day and half late getting posted!!!! Now Question 2.

2. Learn to ask, “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?”

It was so tough to pick just one more question to comment on. I feel that many other questions Ferris poses are also about very important things such as ‘Don’t multitask’  and more specifically, how to use Parkinson’s Law but I could not finish this post without writing a bit about accomplishment. I think there are two very important parts of the question above. One is that each and everyday we must feel as if we have accomplished something (unless of course the whole point of the day is to do nothing on non-work days). In our work, many of us have a great need to know we are doing our jobs well, we are serving our clients, managing projects and taking care of our staff and co-workers in the context of our roles and performance, which gives us a sense of job satisfaction and success. In addition, given the time we commit to our working lives and often sacrifice other areas of our life, it is important we feel as if we have done something both productive and effective. Heck, for some even our self-identities hinge upon feeling satisfied.

The other side of this questions is the practical nature. There are days when I cannot get everything accomplished that is on my to-do list. Often because of my own choices and other times due to decisions and circumstances well beyond my control. If I have spent the whole day working and I want to both learn and make sure I am moving past simply working efficiently and more toward working effectively, I have to accomplished one thing well http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/figuring-out-how-to-get-to-my-goals-effective-versus-efficient-work/ . To do this, I must prioritize the one thing that I know for sure will leave me satisfied with my work day given the time and resources I have spent. If you remember, I wrote about making my tasks based on my goals (Dreamline worksheet) and linked those tasks to specific goals, if I accomplish one thing in the day that I am both satisfied with and that leads to an important goal I will make progress day after day. More on goals http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/goals-and-the-8020-principle-finding-the-route/

Take the time to do what is suggested in this post along with the other questions and I am confident you will figure out for yourself how to free up some time. I would highly recommend doing this both on your own and as an open, interactive exercise with partners and as teams-whatever fits your current working configuration.

Future Blogs: We are moving in the book to the next section “Low-Information Diet”.

PART 1 PARKINSON’S LAW: IMMINENT DEADLINES-GAIN CONTROL OF BALLOONING TASKS

Part 1

This blog is presented in 2 parts. Part one discusses Parkinson’s Law. Part 2 uses Parkison’s Law along with other things and looks at some specific questions that are very important in leaving time management behind along with eliminating less effective inputs. Getting control of the areas within our work where we spend time that does not lead to a productive or effective outcome is replaced with focused priorities and time spend on effective outcomes.

Parkinson’s Law

Before we can truly delve into Ferris’ questions from Step II: E is for Elimination, it is important to understand what is known as Parkinson’s Law and I will quote Ferris…”Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline” (Ferris: 2009 p.g. 77). This is crucial to understand as I am certain this issue is at the heart of becoming more productive, taking the time we already have dedicated to work and make it count.

Gaining Control

I have decided that I need to dedicate the next two weeks to examining this Law and getting it under control. I have chosen to break this down into sub-goals. First, I am going to examine where I ‘balloon’ tasks into much larger time commitments than I really need. Initially, I am trying to take the amount of time allotted for work and become more productive (which I have said before I can already see happening http://4hrwwproject.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/time-management-the-decent-into-elimination/ ).

Now, the next step is to apply the principle of Parkinson’s Law to everything I do. I already know this is going to be a much larger issue in my consulting work. Quite often, I know for sure a client task should take a certain amount of time and frequently it end’s up spilling into the next work session or having more time given to the same task the next day. In my own defence, this is not all bad. I have a very high standard for myself in the work that I do, often I am finished client work long before deliverable deadlines and I end up using the additional time (with no additional billing) to polish, re-edit or over-deliver on final tasks. This certainly produces exemplary work; however, it completely destroys any chance of creating more free time. It is as if I just use up all available time until the deadline regardless of whether or not more time spent produces any additional effective outcome with respect to the deliverable. I know this must stop and I am feeling as if I have hit a real challenge.

The second part of gaining control of my time will involve setting an absolute maximum number of work hours each week and when I have hit that final hour, I must pack up my work put it away and not give it any more time until the next week begins. I feel as if I must purposely set the number of hours so that I feel somewhat stressed about it in order to set up the situation where I can enact the ‘imminent deadline’. A word of caution here, the stress is not real so it will take focus and discipline to not become truly stressed by a shorter work week. The only way I am going to create lasting change is to delve right in, so if I want to work less hours in the week, yet accomplish all that I want and must do then the only solution is to become more productive. There is never a good time to do this so I might as well just do it! I will state my commitment in the next blog.

Given I am my own worst enemy in allowing tasks to take too much time simply because I have more time, I must attack this behavior full on. After all, in the end it really is only a choice to work this way and since I make the choice to do it almost every day without even thinking then I also have full power to become more conscious of the choice and make a different choice today. I realize it does put me under a bit more pressure and I will have to face the discomfort of working in a new way, letting things go and not allowing tasks to balloon just because they can. Admittedly, this satisfies some internal need to over-achieve. For the next two weeks (maybe longer!) I will have to face becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable. I know this will take discipline and focus on my part. If I can keep the end goal of creating more free time away from work and projects I will be more successful in not falling for the ‘temporary’ stress during the transition time.

I am excited about becoming brutally honest about how Parkinson’s Law is affecting my day as I feel there is another nugget here for me – this could prove to be a profound area of change.

Part II will take this concept along with the other important elements from Ferris’ discussion of elimination and look at the section’s questions – the answers are not as simply as you may think on the first pass.