Archive for time management
Leading difficult people: Disorganized Debbie
Posted by: | CommentsDo you know anyone who’s always busy but never seems to get anything done? Maybe this person works for you. How do you lead someone who’s motivated and a doer, but still doesn’t contribute any meaningful results?
Meet Disorganized Debbie. She works hard and wants to succeed. Unfortunately, she looks like a rocking horse: always in motion, but never moving forward. Debbie can’t or won’t organize her work, which means she can’t achieve what she needs to for your organization.
We’ve been spending the past few weeks talking about leading difficult people. You can click the names to read about Fearful Fred, Slumped Susan, and Excited Eddie. Now let’s discuss how to understand, listen to, and lead Disorganized Debbie.
Understanding Disorganized Debbie:
- Behavior: Unfocused
- Motivated by: Direction
- Strength: Relational Connection
- Weakness: Disorganization
Listening to Disorganized Debbie:
- Privately sit down and discuss Debbie’s disorganization.
- Listen to her frustrations.
- Examine her mess.
- Determine whether she wants to get organized.
Leading Disorganized Debbie:
- Give her a lot of personal attention.
- Ask her to show you her to-do list.
- Help her organize tasks by priorities.
- Teach her time management.
- Monitor her progress often.
- Leave no room for options or uncertainty.
Growth Plan:
Help her establish a planning system (eg: Franklin Planner, DayTimer or to-do list app)
Do you lead a Disorganized Debbie? Or do you struggle with priorities and organization yourself? Debbie can only change if she wants to, but if she learns how to prioritize and keep up with all of her tasks, she can become an extremely energetic and effective employee.
Don’t lose your marbles!
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend Dwight Bain sent me a story of a ham radio operator who overheard an older gentleman giving advice to a younger man.
“It’s a shame you have to be away from home and family so much,” he said. “Let me tell you something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities. You see, one day I sat down and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in his lifetime.
“It took me until I was 55 years old to think about this in any detail,” he continued, “and by that time I had lived through over 2,800 Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.”
He went on to explain that he bought 1,000 marbles and put them in a clear plastic container in his favorite work area at home. “Every Saturday since then,” he said, “I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There’s nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”
Then the older gentleman finished, “Now let me tell you one last thought before I sign off and take my lovely wife out to breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time.”
We can’t choose whether we will get any more time, but we can choose what we do with it.
From The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player
Image courtesy of photobucket
The joy of not knowing…
Posted by: | CommentsSome people believe that great leaders have all the answers. Not true. Successful leaders don’t know everything. But they know people who do. If you ask me a question related to one of my organizations and I don’t know the answer, I know which person in the organization does. If you ask about my profession, I may not know the answer, but with a phone call or two, I can talk to someone who can answer the question. And if you ask about the details of my life and schedule and I don’t know the answer, I guarantee you there’s someone who does – my assistant.
For leaders, it’s okay not to know everything.
The most important decision I ever made to keep me focused and to simplify my life was to hire a top-notch assistant. For twenty-seven of the last thirty years of my life, I have been served by two wonderful assistants: Linda Eggers, and, before her, Barbara Brumagin. Their value to me has been enormous.
My assistant is the primary hub of information for my life. Everything flows to and through her. I trust Linda Eggers to know everything so that I don’t have to. More importantly, she has learned to sift information and grasp the most important details. When we communicate, Linda gives me the main thing, which enables me to see what to do next, helps me to know why it is important, and empowers me to bring the appropriate resources to bear on the need at hand.
Because Linda is the center of information for my life, she knows the good, the bad, and the ugly. That works because I trust her completely. And when she tells me bad news, I am careful not to “shoot the messenger.” Taking out your frustrations on the people who bring you bad news quickly stops the flow of communication.
For leaders, it’s okay not to be the first to know.
Most people have a strong natural desire to be “in the know.” That’s why gossip magazines and tabloid newspapers sell so well. Leaders also have a strong desire to be “in the know” when it comes to their organizations. No leader likes to be blindsided. However, good leaders can’t afford to be caught up in every little detail of the organization. If they do, they lose their perspective and their ability to lead.
In any organization, problems should always be solved at the lowest level possible. If every problem must be shared with leaders first, then solutions take forever. Besides, the people on the front lines are usually the ones who provide the best solutions, whether it’s on the production line, the battle line, or the breadline.
Taking myself out of the middle of everything lessens my personal importance to many people in my organizations, but it allows me to do that which is personally important to me. It also means that assignments are not always done “my way.” But I have discovered that most things can be accomplished effectively in many ways.
What about you? Are you determined to know everything that goes on in your organization or department? Do you get a thrill from being the first to know? Do you live by the motto, “If you want something done right, do it yourself”? If so, you are complicating your life and risking burnout. This only limits you as a leader. Begin relying on other people and cultivating trust in them. Only then can you be free to focus on the most important things.
Adapted from Leadership Gold: Lessons I’ve Learned
from a Lifetime of Leading
Don’t manage your time; manage your life!
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Here’s an important announcement: There is no such thing as time management.
Think about it; the term is an oxymoron. Time cannot be managed. It cannot be controlled in any way. Everyone gets the same number of hours and minutes every day. Nobody—no matter how shrewd—can save minutes from one day to spend on another. No scientist—no matter how smart—is capable of creating new minutes. Even with all his wealth, someone like Bill Gates can’t buy additional hours for his day. And even though people talk about trying to “find time,” they need to quit looking. There isn’t any extra lying around. Twenty-four hours is the best any of us is going to get.
You can’t manage your time. So what can you do? Manage yourself! Nothing separates successful people from unsuccessful people more than how they use their time. Successful people understand that time is the most precious commodity on earth. And that we all have an equal amount, packed into identical suitcases. So even though everyone’s suitcase is the same size, they get a higher return on the contents of theirs. Why? They know what to pack.
Essayist Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It is not enough to be busy. The question is, ‘What are we busy about?’” How do you judge whether something is worthy of your time and attention? For years I used this formula to help me know the importance of a task so that I can manage myself effectively. It’s a three step process:
1. Rate the task in terms of Importance.
- Critical = 5 points
- Necessary = 4 points
- Important = 3 points
- Helpful = 2 points
- Marginal = 1 point
2. Determine the task’s urgency.
- This month = 5 points
- Next month = 4 points
- This quarter = 3 points
- Next quarter = 2 points
- End of year = 1 point
3. Multiply the rate of importance times the rate of urgency.
- Example: 5 (critical) x 4 (next month) = 20.
After assigning each task a new number, make a new to-do list. This time list everything from highest to lowest task management score. THAT’S how you plan your day.
How you spend your time is an important question not only for you but for your team. People tend to take their cues from the leader when it comes to time management—so make sure there’s a match between your actions, your business priorities, and your team’s activities.
The 3 R’s of Decision-making
Posted by: | CommentsThis past week on Twitter, I’ve been sharing some of my favorite quotes on priorities and time management. Important topics for every generation, priorities and time management seem to become more and more crucial every decade.
Today, in the age of the smartphone and social media, even technology has joined the fight for our most precious commodity: TIME.
A few decades ago, I came up with three critical questions on priorities. They still serve me well today, and I hope they’re valuable to you.
Before any decision on where to invest my time, this is what I ask myself:
- What is REQUIRED of me? Any realistic assessment of priorities in any area of life must start with a realistic assessment of what you must do. For you to be a good spouse or parent, what is required of you? To satisfy your employer, what must you do? If you lead others, then what must you personally do that cannot be delegated to anyone else?
- What gives me the greatest RETURN? As you progress in your career, you begin to discover that some activities yield a much higher return for the effort than others. After determining requirements, focus on choices with a high return on investment (ROI).
- What gives me the greatest REWARD? If you do only what you must, along with what is effective, then you will probably be highly productive. But you may not be content. I think it’s also important to consider what gives you personal satisfaction.
Note: These questions are meant to be asked IN ORDER. Many of us would love to skip down to #3 and focus on the most rewarding/fun/exciting activities. But no one can be successful who doesn’t possess the discipline to take care of the first two areas before adding the third.
The time that you have on this earth is precious – every minute of it. As Ralph Waldo Emerson advised, “Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
~Adapted from Today Matters
