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Interruptions seem a fact of life in today’s world. Email, phone, cell phone, the people around us, everything conspires to make it difficult for us to stay on task and stay focused. Yet, it is more important than ever that we do stay on task and focused, since the world has accelerated, and results are expected faster than ever.
Many think that this is not an issue, because we can multitask, or interruptions, while time-consuming, are just changes in the way we work: we just need to stop often what we are doing, and take it back afterward.
Interruptions however come at a very high cost in terms of time and quality of work, cost that most are not aware of. Indeed, our brains are vastly different from computers, even if we often make the comparison. In particular, computers, when you look at their core, are doing a very limited number of things, namely simple operations on 1′s and 0′s, no matter what you see on your screen. This makes it very easy for a computer to seamlessly jump from task to task as needed. On the other hand, our brains need to essentially re-wire themselves each time we switch tasks. They also need to work with a very limited working memory, which makes switching tasks even more challenging. Finally, our brains, contrary to computers, do not engage the totality of their capacity from the first second of work. Focus comes progressively to us, after some time of sustained attention to a given task.
Here are a few numbers to put things in perspective and illustrate what it means in practice:
- The average desk worker in America experiences 8-11 interruptions every hour. Assuming interruptions are no longer than 1 minute on average (a very optimistic estimate), it’s almost an hour and a half every day that is spent on other purposes than the ones you wanted. Also, about 80% of interruptions are unnecessary.
- Recovering from an interruption and regain the focus you had before the interruption is not instantaneous. It takes anywhere between 5 and 25 minutes to recover. In the most optimistic scenario, that means that you spend a minimum of 40 minutes out of every hour in focus recovery mode (i.e. not very productive), which leaves only 20 minutes for productive work – including the time spent on the interruptions themselves.
- A task that takes an hour to complete without interruptions takes between three and five hours to complete when interrupted – and that does not include the time spent in said interruptions.
As you can see, managing your interruptions is an absolutely crucial component of your ability to get things done in a Daily Mastery way, i.e. productively, as quickly and effectively as possible. So…
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Your turn: |
Make a list of your most common interruptions.
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What can you do to eliminate them?For instance, can you have your assistant filter your phone calls for you? Can you train your staff to come ask you questions only at certain times of day, rather than whenever they feel like it? |
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If you can’t eliminate them, how can you minimize them? For instance: How can you limit the number of emails that come into your mailbox? What can you do to encourage the people who come with questions to be brief and to the point? |
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How can you create interruption-free moments during the day so you can completely focus on your work? For instance, can you close the door to your office, or go to a conference room for a while? Or maybe you can come early in the morning, before the phone starts to ring and people are in the office. |
The possibilities are endless, and the answers to those questions can yield spectacular results: After applying the actions we determined after a single session on interruptions, one of my individual clients was able to accomplish twice as much in a day than he had before – without adding a single minute to his time in the office. However, while sometimes those answers are obvious, sometimes they are difficult to ferret out. In the latter case, as you saw from the example of my client, it’s well worth it to brainstorm them with a skilled professional, and it will be my pleasure to help you get the same results. Simply reply to this email and let me know what your challenge is, we’ll set up a time to discuss what’s going on more in detail and decide on an action plan.
A couple of years ago, I signed up to be an exhibitor in a trade show. It was the first time I did it, so I wasn’t quite sure of how to negotiate with the organizers and prepare for it, but I expected it to be a success, based on their say-so. In reality, the attendance to the show was much lower than I had been led to expect, and I was placed in a way that made it even more difficult to get people to stop at my table. To top it off, the table ended up being much larger than I had been told. I didn’t get many contacts, and I didn’t get any business, as a result of this show – it was $250 thrown out the window.
Once back in my office and over my disappointment, I asked myself the golden question: How can I make sure that this never happens again? – “this” being finding myself spending money for a trade show that didn’t work for me. I came up with a series of questions to ask to make sure that the trade show would be a good fit, that it would be well attended, and things to negotiate to get the best placement possible. I also came up with a checklist of things to have for the tradeshow (such as never rely on the table covers the organizers provide, even if they tell you it’s included!) Since then, I haven’t had one single trade show cost me more than I got in return.
This question, how can I make sure that this never happens again, is a powerful tool in the Daily Mastery arsenal. It’s useful when setting a goal, and having a setback. It’s useful when having experiences like mine. It’s also useful, in the slightly modified form of “how can I make sure this doesn’t happen?”, to avoid them in the first place. As you know if you have been following me for a while, being able to avoid problems or repeating mistakes saves you time, money and energy.
This little question is one that has been of tremendous help to my clients as well:
- For one mother, it resulted in a complete list of backup babysitting solutions, so she would always have an option no matter what – and she never again had to skip an important appointment because one of her children had fallen sick overnight.
- For a client burnt by a project with someone else, a series of questions to ask any prospective collaborator, and a standard agreement with clauses in cases one of the people doesn’t do what they have committed to – and she never again had partnership issues.
It is really worth its weight in gold, even though we too often forget to ask it. Make sure that you ask it of yourself on a regular basis…
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Your turn: |
Choose a mistake your made, or a situation you found of could find yourself into, and that you want to avoid (again)? Once you’ve chosen it, do the following:
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Take a piece of paper, write on the top the situation or mistake you want to avoid, and ask yourself “How can I make sure that this doesn’t happen (again)? Write down everything that comes to your mind in relationship to this question. Don’t edit, don’t censor, just write. |
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Once you have written everything you could think of, cull your list. In everything you wrote, there may be some things that you can’t do, or that are out of your control. Eliminate those. |
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Now, organize the rest. Sometimes, your list will be a series of steps that you all have to take in order to prevent something from happening again, such as in the case of my experience with the trade show. Other times, it may be a list of different options, and you can choose the one that seems to be the most effective one, as was the case for me when my weight loss stalled – the most effective solution that came up for me was eliminating sugar from my diet, not something that filled me with enthusiasm, but effective indeed. |
Do the actions that you have settled on, and you’ll never again be in that same situation, make this same mistake.
You may sometimes find yourself with no forthcoming answer to your question. If this is your case, send me an email or give me a call, and we’ll answer it together, or at the very least I can point you to someone who can help you answer it.
I was sharing with a partner some of my experience around losing weight when I suddenly realized why so many people tend to regain the weight they’ve lost – and by extension why so many people revert to old habits after making lifestyle or “workstyle” changes:
I tried to lose weight several times in the past, losing up to 10 lbs, then proceeding to regain it fairly quickly. This time, though, it’s different, and the conversation I had with my partner illuminated why: in the past, my goal was to lose weight, to get to a certain number. Once this is done, there is nothing to keep me on the path to maintaining it. On the other hand, this time, my goal is to be as healthy and fit as (or healthier and fitter than) one of my parents when I reach their age, and avoid the fate of the other, who has constant and numerous health issues. Since I know both of them and their parents, I also happen to know that 90% of the difference between the two is lifestyle, not genes. And this motivation gives me a powerful incentive to a) go the whole way to my fit weight, and b) maintain it for at least the next 30 years, by which time it will be so deeply embedded in my habits and psyche that it won’t matter anymore.
In other words, the difference between my past attempts and this one is that now I have a powerful, long-term goal, that puts weight loss as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, and that requires maintenance as well as weight loss. Also, since my goal is long-term, it doesn’t matter much if I lose 10 lbs in 10 weeks or in 20 weeks, what’s important is that the extra weight goes away. As a result, I’m much less likely to consider it failure if my weight stays flat for a couple of weeks, or even goes up a pound or two, as long as I do what’s needed to re-start the weight loss. I am also much less likely to take shortcuts (i.e. crash diets) to get to my result, since I know I’m making life-long changes rather than short-term ones.
And this applies to any area where lifestyle or workstyle changes are necessary, not just health and fitness.
For instance: Most of my clients maintain the daily habits we created for years after we’re done working together. The difference between before and after is so striking that they never want to go back to their old habits.
But a small group reverts back to their habits in spite of this difference. I could not figure out why until this conversation, but the answer is simple: they had no long-term reason for maintaining their time management and productivity habits. It’s so clear that I’ve now included in the work I do with my clients the creation, if necessary, of a long-term motivation for them to keep the habits they created with me, and we can all create truly supportive goals for ourselves.
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Your turn: |
Choose a goal or resolution you have that requires you to make lifestyle or workstyle changes and/or create new habits.
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Is your goal a short-term one (such as losing X pounds), or is it a long-term one that implies maintenance (such as my being at least as healthy as my healthier parent when I’m their age)? |
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If your goal is a short-term one, how can you transform it into a motivating long-term one? Make sure it is truly motivating on top of being long-term, or you won’t stick to it… My personal motivation is to see the difference in quality of life between my two parents, and it’s quite strong. |
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Now that you have a truly supportive goal, start creating the lifestyle or workstyle changes that will make it happen, using the techniques I introduced in the past few weeks (see my blog for a quick reference). |
It can sometimes be difficult to find, on our own, such a long-term motivation. If this is your case, just give me a call, and in a couple of sessions we should be able to have you either come up with a motivation that will carry you through the full process, or be in peace with the fact that you don’t really want to do the particular change you thought you wanted (it’s ok either way, the important part is to know).
Sharing your goal with others is a great way to make it happen, so please share yours with me by commenting below or letting me know on Facebook.
Recently, a client called me for a session because he had trouble sticking to his goals. We talked about creating habits rather than goals. We talked about making the process itself enjoyable. We talked about motivation, and about keeping a symbol or picture of his goal in front of him at all times, to remind him of the why of his goal. He implemented all this, but it still wasn’t enough. It was hard for him to resist, on a day-to-day basis, the temptations of immediate gratification (or apparent gratification). It also was very easy to give in to the discouragement he felt when he apparently wasn’t making any headway, or had slipped up in his daily actions.
After some brainstorming, we found the problem: he was missing what I call the “success habit”. He was so focused on what he hadn’t yet done and where he had failed, that he wasn’t able to see his progress, which demotivated him.
This, by the way, is a tendency that most of us have – I know I did (and am still working at eliminating). We are trained, from a very young age, to focus on our mistakes – to correct them; on our weaknesses – to strengthen them; on our failures – to avoid them. It is perfectly appropriate to look at what we did or missed and draw the lessons from our experience, but the relentless focus that tends to be brought to our failings when we’re children often ends up becoming a pattern of focusing mainly, or even only, on what’s not working, which prevents us from seeing our progress and successes.
Thankfully, this habit is easy to break (even if it can take a little while), by creating a “success habit”. All it takes is a notebook, and a few minutes at the end of every day, to create a success journal. So go ahead, and create your own:
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Your turn: |
There are several versions to make a success journal. The one below is one that is inspired by the method proposed by Craig Ballentyne, of Early To Rise, with a couple of my own twists added in.
Take a notebook, and at the end of every day, write the following:
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Write down 3-5 things you have accomplished today: a project you completed or brought to a milestone, or the 5-minute walk to took today, as per your program to build a habit of fitness in your life. {link to relevant post from earlier this month} |
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Write 3-5 things you are grateful for today. It can be as simple as a sunny day when you had to walk to an appointment, or as significant as the birth of your first-born child. |
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Write down 1-5 opportunities that came your way today. It could be a referral that came in, a project you were offered, the suggestion that you should become a PTA officer. |
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Finally, write down 1-5 people you appreciate today. It can be the person who held the door for you when you were rushing in the building under the rain, the barista who welcomed you with a smile when you ordered your coffee, or the person who gave you that referral. |
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Do this every day, and you will start to notice more and more the good things that happen in your daily life, changing your focus from the negative to the positive, from your failures to your successes. Like my client, you’ll find that this change of focus makes it easier to stick to your goals and your routines, and achieve what you really want.
Recently, I set out to change some of my habits, and create new ones…
Ok, I’ll be fully honest and admit publicly: I’ve decided that I want to be back to my fit weight. This requires some changes in my diet, among which tracking my food intake and doing some exercise every day. I set out, in accordance with the method I outlined for you on how to create new habits and change old ones, to make very simple changes to my routine to get started on that road. In my case, I started with tracking my food intake (no judgment, just tracking), and power-walking at least 15 minutes a day. I started to do this, and faithfully did it for a week or so. Then a day came when I didn’t do one of those simple things. Then another day, a few days later. It wasn’t so important, I was still doing my habits most of the time.
After a little while, I realized that putting in practice my small daily habits “most of the time” had come to mean “half of the time”. I tended to remember the days I had tracked my food and done my walk, and forget the ones when I hadn’t, which skewed my memories. This is very common, by the way: we tend to remember only what we focus on, good or bad, and forget the rest, which can give us a very skewed memory of our actual accomplishments.
So to counter-act this I set up a very simple table, which I call my accountability table. Below is a sample of it:
| Mon | Tues | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
| Walked 15+ mins | Y | Y | N | Y | Y | N | Y |
| Tracked all food | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | Y |
Simple, isn’t it? On the left are my daily activities, on the top the days of the week, and then Y is for “yes, I did it”, N is for “no, I didn’t do it today”. My daily activities are phrased so there is no gray area: either I have power-walked for at least 15 minutes, or I haven’t. Thirteen minutes is a No, because it’s less than 15 minutes (I let you guess how many times I stopped at 13 minutes). Either I have tracked all the food I ate (great way to curb unnecessary eating, by the way), or I haven’t.
Something very interesting happened once I started using this table: Not only did I do what I set out to do much more regularly – and I got results from it – but filling this table with Y’s became an end in itself. I wanted to get those things done so that I could see a column of Y for the day in question. Some days when I really didn’t want to do anything, this table is actually what gets me going: no matter how sick or tired or fed up I am, there is always at least one thing I have enough energy for, and once that is done there is enough energy for another, and another, and before I know it I am having a perfectly normal day.
Once I started introducing this tool to my clients, they all got the same results. It’s to the point that it’s now becoming one of my standard tools when working on habits and goals with clients.
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Your turn: |
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What are the daily habits that you want to introduce, change or solidify? It can be as simple as checking your account balances daily, reaching out to at least 5 contacts, or one habit on the way to a number of other habits, like my “track all food”. I went from it to “tracked all food” and “stayed within my calorie goal for the day”, then added “no sugar today”, etc., all with the ultimate goal of getting back to my fit weight. |
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Write those daily activities in Yes/No terms, with no possibility for fudging. For instance, when I chose daily power-walking, I didn’t just put power-walking, I wrote power-walking for 15 minutes. This way, either I’ve done my 15 minutes, or I haven’t. |
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Track daily. When you find that you don’t do what you said you were going to, don’t judge or blame yourself. That’s not what it’s about. Instead, ask yourself if you really want to do it; if you really want to get the end result, but this might not be the best way for you to get there; or if there might not be a simpler, shorter action you can start with, and work your way up to the action you’re not taking right now. Change your list accordingly. |
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Review your accountability table on a regular basis. Once a habit is fully set in, and/or you’re graduating to the next level of your habit, update your table |
I just came across this text in David Allen’s newsletter. It’s such a great way to put a final period mark on 2011 and open 2012 that I had to share it with you. (For those who don’t know who David Allen is, he’s a time management guru, creator of the Getting Things Done (R) system.)
QUESTIONS FOR COMPLETING AND BEGINNING THE YEAR
What have you actually finished, completed, and accomplished? If you haven’t made a list in the last year, I would highly recommend that you give yourself a treat and review the year that just passed and look forward to the year ahead.
When I go through these kinds of questions I like to consider my answers in several areas:
Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Financial
Family
Community Service
Fun / creativity / recreation
Completing and remembering last year
• Review the list of all completed projects.
• What was your biggest triumph in 2011?
• What was the smartest decision you made in 2011?
• What one word best sums up and describes your 2011 experience?
• What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2011?
• What was the most loving service you performed in 2011?
• What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2011?
• What are you most happy about completing in 2011?
• Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2011?
• What was the biggest risk you took in 2011?
• What was the biggest surprise in 2011?
• What important relationship improved the most in 2011?
• What compliment would you like to have received in 2011?
• What compliment would you like to have given in 2011?
• What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2011?
Creating the new year
• What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2012?
• What advice would you like to give yourself in 2012?
• What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2012?
• What would you be most happy about completing in 2012?
• What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2012?
• What would you most like to change about yourself in 2012?
• What are you looking forward to learning in 2012?
• What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2012?
• What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2012?
• What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2012?
• What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2012?
• Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2012?
• What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2012?
My cat, Cookie, is a wonderful teacher of all things Daily Mastery (that’s her on the picture). She knows how to expand energy, but also how to relax. She knows how to not get stressed out about things. And recently, she showed us how to reach a goal, no matter how far-fetched it seems.
Cookie was an indoor cat until we moved to our current home, but she was attracted to the outdoors. So, since we now have a fenced-in patio, we let her out there as much as she wanted. She clearly was interested in what was beyond the fence. In particular, some squirrels and chipmunks were taunting her from the safety of the other side of the barrier. So she tried to scale the fence, but without success. She was too out of shape for it. And this is where she taught us her first lesson: when you can’t get what you want (going outdoors), don’t keep trying what doesn’t work (scaling the fence), but don’t give up!
Instead of being upset by the fact that she couldn’t go to the other side, she tried whenever there was an opportunity (like when we opened the patio gate), and had fun within her confined environment. She ran after insects, falling leaves, birds flying over, even a particularly daring chipmunk who liked to take a shortcut through the patio, cat or no cat. She slowly got fitter and fitter. And that was her second lesson: do what you can today that will get you where you want to go, while having fun in the process.
Then one day, she jumped after a bird that had the temerity to land on her fence, and she found herself holding on to the top of it! Within days, she was walking on top of the fence. The next day, she was jumping down on the other side, and there was no more holding her back from the great outdoors. Third lesson: through having fun and continuously trying for her goal and doing things that would help her get there, she did it! Without worrying about where or how.
She knew instinctively how to go about reaching a goal she had set for herself, and we should all follow her example (with a couple of allowances for the fact that we tend to be thinking machines):
- Choose the right goal (hers was be able to explore the great outdoors – jumping the fence was just one way of getting there)
- Try for it the first chance you get (i.e. try to jump the fence)
- When it doesn’t work, go for something that will help you get to your goal (i.e. run around and become fitter)
- Still try for the main goal whenever you get a chance (i.e. try her best to sneak out through the open gate)
- Keep at it (she never stopped running around and playing, or trying to get out) until you reach your goal.
- Most importantly, enjoy yourself through the whole process (as she did. Otherwise, it’s easy to give up)
How many times do we NOT follow this process, always trying for the final goal instead of taking intermediary steps, then quickly giving it up as unreachable? Or keep going, but with anger and resentment for not having reached the goal already? So now it’s
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Your turn: |
Think about a goal you want to accomplish – or really wanted, but have given up on.
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What is your goal? Your real goal? For Cookie, it wasn’t jumping over the fence. What she wanted was really to be able to explore the outdoors. Jumping the fence was just one way to get there. |
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What ways can you see to reach your goal? For Cookie there were really only two – jump the fence or sneak out when we open a door – but there may be multiple ways for you. |
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If any of those ways is unattainable right now, what can you do NOW that gets you one step closer? For Cookie, it was exploring the patio and running after the animals and objects that strayed there. For you, if you want to be fit, it could be starting to walk for just 15 minutes a day; if you want to have your own retreat in the woods of by the beach, it could be creating a small, tranquil space in your home. |
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How can you make the journey enjoyable, i.e. every step of the way something that brings you joy, peace, happiness – at least most of the time? No need to figure out every single step between the present and your ultimate goal. The immediate next step is enough, and the step after that will reveal itself in time. |
Once you have answered those questions, follow Cookie’s way, and have fun. Like her, you’ll be almost surprised when you get to your ultimate goal, and how easy it was to get there.
Hi everyone!
I was interviewed yesterday for a podcast by Time To Play founder Doreen Guma. It was lots of fun, and she coaxed me in revealing three highly valuable 5-minute ways to reclaim time and control. The podcast is available to everyone at this link.
Enjoy!
Karin
A client of mine, an accomplished professional who was working with me to get to the next level, in the course of a conversation, complained to me that resolutions, especially New Year’s resolutions, never work. Every year she was making new (or often the same) resolutions, start the year with a bang, but come February, she would usually have abandoned them. So she had come to the conclusion that they don’t work, and it’s better not to make any.
She was right. It is true that the vast majority of New Year’s Resolutions fail. Not because the people who make them are not motivated or smart enough – my client was abundantly blessed with both – but because resolutions don’t work. They don’t work because:
- You are making unrealistic resolutions or goals. Losing 100 lbs in 3 months is usually not realistic.
- You are relying on willpower alone to make it happen, but willpower is in limited supply. It will fail you, and if you rely on it exclusively, so will your resolutions.
- You are making too big a leap from your present situation to your ideal situation for it to stick. For instance, if you decide to get fit, going from no exercise at all to an hour 5 days a week is too much of a leap for you to be able to do it successfully. It is much better to work your way up to it.
- You are making – or working on – too many of them.
So instead of making resolutions, change or create habits, one at a time. Start small, build from there and enjoy the process. You will see your goals become reality without ever making a resolution, and much more easily than if you went the resolution route.
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Your turn: |
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Choose a habit you want to create, or one you want to change. It can be the habit of fitness, or the habit of healthy eating, or the habit of lving your day purposefully and intentionally. |
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Write your desired habit down, and share it with others. The simple act of writing it make it twice as likely to happen, even if you never look at the paper again. Sharing it with others further increases your chances, since no one likes to have to tell a friend that they failed. |
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Decide exactly how and when you will make this habit happen. For instance, decide that you will exercise Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, going to X gym, taking Y class. Procrastinators made to write down exactly how and when they would do something were 8 times more likely to do it than fellow procrastinators who didn’t take the time to plan the how and the when. |
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Start small – really small -, and grow to your goal. For instance, if you want to get into the habit of fitness, don’t start going to the gym for an hour 6 days a week. You’ll most likely give up quickly. Instead, start with 5 or 15 minutes a day, then work your way up. This will make it much easier to stick with it. |
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Give yourself rewards along the way. We are creatures of immediate gratification (a result of our past as hunter-gatherers, where eating any time we found food was a good thing, compounded by the culture of immediate gratification we live in today), so we need small, regular rewards to help us keep going. |
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Plan for the fact that willpower will fail you at some point. It’s ok, it’s normal. Don’t decide that you will never get the into your habit because you failed one day. And decide on ways to make your habit happen even on days you don’t want to, and/or how to react to the moments when you don’t want to do it. |
And last but not least: change or create a habit one at a time. You exponentially increase your chances of failure otherwise.
Close to the end of the year as we are, you are probably working very hard at getting all your projects finished before the 31st. Here is a 30-second time management method that will give you a boost of productivity, while requiring almost no set up, and that works whether you are a busy executive or a busy stay-at-home mom. No long explanation this week, so let’s dive immediately into it:
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Every morning (or the evening before), create your to-do list as outlined in my article two weeks ago. Make sure that you keep it to your top priorities only. |
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Then take a timer – a kitchen timer, the timer on your phone, an online timer, anything that counts down the minutes and rings when it gets to zero is perfect. |
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Set it to 25 minutes. |
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Start working on your first priority of the day, in a focused manner, without allowing any interruption to intrude. |
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When the timer rings, take a 5-minute break. If possible, take a full break from work (i.e. no work-related task: stretch, do a five-minute game of Angry Birds, a mini-meditation). At minimum shift task completely to do something that is quick and easy, such as a quick email check, filing some papers, etc. |
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Repeat the timer steps as often as you can during the day until it’s time to go home. |
This very simple method works because it is designed according to how our brain is wired, in particular as it relates to focus: Our brains are able to sustain complete focus for only 20 minutes or so. Working in a focused manner without break for much longer over-tires the brain, which leaves it less able to solve problems, be creative and work fast. High-quality breaks, on the other hand, allow our brains to relax, recharge and refocus. Put short bursts of very intensely focused work with short, recharging breaks and you have a powerful method to manage your energy and your focus.
Do this for the next two weeks, and you’ll be amazed how much you have accomplished!
PS: A variation on this method is one of the many elements you will put in action when you get the 5-Minute Time Management Solution.