Swamped by last minute tax filings, Intuit's Turbo Tax e-filing system crashed yesterday. That's bad news for people filing, who had to deal with delays and uncertainty.
This snafu reminds me of a client whose employer required him to take an HR training program on the company's intranet. He put it off for days, then weeks, until the task disappeared from visibility: the email reminders were buried in the thousands of emails sitting in his inbox.
Eventually, he HAD to do the training. . . along with the all the other procrastinators. But the server couldn't handle the load, and as a result it took him four hours to complete the program, instead of the normal 30 minutes.
How do you handle the tidal wave of incoming stuff that lands on your desk? How do you surf it, instead of getting crushed by it?
Rigorous application of the "4Ds" is the key.
When "stuff" comes at you -- mail, email, phone calls, text messages, a knock on the door from your coworker -- consider that you have four -- and only four -- courses of action.
You can Do it. If it takes two minutes or less, just take care of the task there and then.
You can Delegate it. If you're not the best person to handle something, or if you don't have the most current information, or if you just can't get to the task for three weeks, pass it to someone else. This may be a coworker, or it may be a supervisor. The point is that you need to move this item forward, on the next step towards completion.
Some quick math for you: You've got about 12.5 square feet of desktop. Total.
Now, take off space for your computer, phone, office supplies, picture of the dog, cup of stale coffee, Jerry Seinfeld bobblehead doll -- and you're probably down to about four square feet of space to work.
Oh, wait. If you're like most people, you've got at least one, and probably three, piles of paper just sitting on your desk. You know, the stuff that you're planning on getting to, but just haven't found the time. That's another two square feet gone.
Now you have two square feet in which to work. To think. To plan. To figure out how to get from here to there. Or, if you’re like the partner at a large accounting firm I once worked with, your desk is nothing but piles of paper, and there’s NO room to actually work. (He spent all his time in a conference room.)
Feeling claustrophobic yet? You should. You’re penned in like a rat in a maze, trying to find the physical and psychological space to do your work. And it's not there.
In the beginning, there was the manila folder. And it was good. All your information fit into one compact place. So you put more info into it. And more. And more.
And then it stopped working. Folders bulged like Vegas-era Elvis in a three-piece rhinestone suit. Stuff spilled out. You couldn't find what you were looking for. You bought Pendaflex pocket folders to handle the spillover, but that only posponed the inevitable. Eventually, you were back in the same boat.
It's not just kids with the obesity problem. It's your filing system. It doesn't work.
Here's what to do: separate your working files (the active stuff that you touch daily, or several times a week) from the reference files (the stuff you only look at occasionally).
So you'll make two fiiles for Spacely Sprockets: a working file and a reference file. the working file is in your desk and has only the current contract and papers relating to a recent order. It's easy to access the six pieces of paper (or email or Word docs) that are an issue today.
Repeat after me: multi-tasking doesn't work.
Saturday's New York Times ran an article on the perils of multi-tasking. According to the article, David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, reports that
Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes. Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.
And if you still believe that you're different, that you really can talk on the phone to a customer while writing an email, this is what René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University has to say:
A core limitation [of the human brain] is an inability to concentrate on two things at once.
Cogitus Interruptus is the disease of the modern workplace. Its symptoms are familiar to any executive: the inability to complete a thought or a task without losing focus under the onslaught of relentless interruptions. It results in a lack of efficiency, a loss of time to solve problems, to think strategically, to plan, to dream – to get your organization from here to there.
The 2005 McKinsey Global Survey of Business Executives revealed that a staggering amount of time is wasted on emails, voice mails, and meetings with no value. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bubkes. Take a look at their numbers:
Staggering, aren't they? 55% of respondents are losing between 1/2 and 2 1/2 days per week to stuff that's just not helping them professionally or personally. No wonder they're stressed. And you're probably in the same boat.
So what can you do?
You need to filter out this stuff before it ever hits your inbox, your desk, your calendar. You don' t even want to waste time processing this low-value (or no-value) information before tossing it.
We've all experienced the dreaded cogitus interruptus: you're in the middle of a complicated spreadsheet or a delicately worded proposal or just plain thinking (in the words of Jack Handy) deep thoughts. Just when you're about to have your Eureka! moment, someone taps you on the shoulder or sticks his head into your office and says, "Dan, got a sec? Just a quck question. . . " (which, of course, never is). And just like that, you've lost your train of thought, and with it, the cure for cancer, the recipe for transmuting lead into gold, or the angle for getting the company to pay for your boondoggle of a trip to Paris.
In today's open offices -- and with the near-universal belief in an open door policy -- it's getting increasingly difficult to find time to work without interruptions. What can you do?
Our friend over at Evolving Excellence, Kevin Meyer, brings to our attention a serious problem for consultants: big brain syndrome. Check it out here: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll forward it. Promise.
WorkLean has nothing to do with Jenny Craig.
Lean is a manufacturing ideaology invented -- and best exemplified -- by Toyota. (Which is on its way to eclipsing GM as the world's largest car maker. And long ago eclipsed GM as the world's most profitable car maker.)
Lean is an all-encompassing way of running a company. I use "way" in the sense of "the way of the warrior" or the "way of the Camaroon pygmies." lt's a comprehensive philosophy that guides a company.
The aspect of Lean most important to me, right now, is the emphasis on eliminating waste. "Waste," in this case, is defined as anything the customer doesn't want to pay for. So the time you spend surfing the web is waste from the customer's perspective. (They don't want to pay for your entertainment. They want to buy your product or service at the lowest possible cost.)
Welcome.
To paraphrase the band Cracker, what the world needs now is another blog, like you need a hole in your head.
So why do it? Well, I'm hoping to disintermediate brick-and-mortar and virtual booksellers and provide value-added content that synergistically reinforces my client coaching. It will create a virtuous circle that allows clients and readers to leverage my insights for paradigm-shifting workplace performance.
Oh, wait. That's so Web 1.0. Never mind.
Let's try that again.
What I'd like to do is provide ideas to readers interested in becoming a little more productive. A little more efficient. A little more protected from the avalance of work that threatens to bury them each day.
Of course, there are other people out there addressing the same issues. Some of them are quite good. I hope to earn your attention through the quality of my ideas and the clarity of my presentation. And maybe along the way I'll make you laugh. That would be nice, too.
“Innovate or die.” That’s the mandate of the global economy these days. And though you’ve been trying to create a culture of innovation at your firm, you’ve had little success. Why do some companies seem to be breeding grounds of innovation, while yours is, at best, a breeding ground for mosquitoes?
The new book, "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder", is creating waves for its unorthodox acceptance -- even approval -- of mess at home and at the office.
But is messiness really beneficial?
I think the authors make an unfair distinction. On the one hand, you have order for order's sake. The authors argue that all those poor fools who arrange their pencils by hardness of lead are in love with order for no valid reason other than aesthetics. Or they're neurotic.
On the other hand, you have chaos in the service of creativity. The authors suggest that messiness enables people to get on with the really important things in their lives, rather than having their sock drawer arranged just right. And the time freed up by embracing chaos allows people to do wonderful things, like connecting two pieces of paper on their desks, and winning a Nobel Prize.
Ever been in a 60 minute meeting that ended up lasting longer than a Robert Byrd fillibuster? Don't despair; there's hope for keeping meetings short enough to get out in time for lunch.
When you’re dealing with knowledge workers in an office, critical process inefficiencies aren’t as visible as they are in a factory. Value stream mapping is only part of the answer. You also need to see and eliminate the waste inherent in how people work. Here’s a guide to some of the questions you should be asking.
Imagine running a production line without knowing each day what to make and in what quantities. The lack of that critical information guarantees uneven production, overburdened workers, and waste -- a disaster in the world of Lean. Yet this is precisely the situation for most knowledge workers, even those in lean organizations.
If you're a neat freak like me, you want to toss all your old papers. Immediately. If you're a pack rat, you've got so much stuff piled up in your office that you're now using tax returns from last decade as a coffee table. So how long should you keep that stuff?
If the first thing you do upon sitting down at your desk is read email, don't! You'll be a whole lot more productive if you do the most unpleasant task of the day first. Get yourself a cup of coffee and read on....
An organization that only creates a lean business process without creating lean work habits is like a sprinter with a track spike on one foot and an army boot on the other -- and that's a sure way to lose the race to satisfy the customer.
Put down your Blackberries and pay attention -- really pay attention -- when you read this: multi-tasking doesn't work.
