Thank you, everyone, for making today possible. I'm humbled and excited that over 50 took advantage of this day-long opportunity to look at how you work, not only at what you do during a day.
What is productivity?
The experience of super-using your 4 limited resources. Now, it's time to implement...
Looking forward, how will you maximize your (1) time, (2) energy, (3) focus, and (4) systems and tools?
1. Time: As you remember, there are 1,440 minutes in a day. That works out to 96 fifteen-minute blocks. For most people, 15 minutes is about an "eternity" in terms of office-focus time. Here's a challenge: Buy a kitchen timer and bring it to work. Sit down, at your desk, and set the timer for 15 minutes, and try to focus on one thing. When our clients do this, the first thing they notice is that their office, their team, their WORLD is built with an "interrupt-okay" mindset. Really, how long CAN you work, before someone asks you for "just a minute."
So, the fact remains, it's not TIME that we're managing, instead it's what we DO in time. One of my mentors long ago said the ultimate in productivity is what's called "Self Management." For those of us who seem to always have an idea or two floating around, this means that we have to consciously de-cide what to (and what NOT to) give our attention to. So, the natural question is, what do we do to manage what we do with time? Easy, we have to watch how we use our...
2. ...Energy: Are you a morning person, or an afternoon person? Do you get energized by the sheer volume of what there is to do? Or, is "too much" constantly weighing down your ability to get the right things done and still have energy at the end of the day. Sure, there are things you can do to change your energy from down to up, but are they sustainable?
Have you tried:
- getting more sleep at night?
- completing more tasks during the day?
- letting someone know they did a good job?
- expressing gratitude to someone for helping you?
- writing a list of things that could boost your energy...and doing one of them?
There are, as you remember from today's workshop, two kinds of energy: Mental Energy and Physical Energy. Mental Energy affects how deeply you think, how long you can dive in to that thought, and the power of connections you make as you continue thinking, planning, developing and innovating that idea. Physical energy, that's the one that connects to how wide you can keep your eyes open! By now, you're remembering that...
3. ...Focus is really the arbiter of moving our energy up or/and down. Right? How is it that you can see someone's name in your email Inbox and feel stress? How can you see a caller ID on your phone and get a big smile on your face. Why is it that you can think of something in one room, get up to get it from another room, get there and have forgotten why you're there in the first place? It's because of FOCUS. Perhaps one of the MOST LIMITED resources of all. If your focus goes, your energy is sure to follow. Don't believe me on this...
Open a desk drawer, or go to your email Inbox. Commit to ONLY organize, purge and file the items in that drawer (or in your inbox) for a certain period of time. (Try 10 minutes to start.) Now, if you're like most people, you'll focus on this task until you see the "next shiny thing." That is, once you come across a supply in your drawer that you need to return to the supply cabinet, or an email that you know needs a reply yesterday (!!!), you have a very important choice to make: "Should I stay, or should I go...???
Are you working with a BlackBerry? If so, take it out and put it "face up" on your desk. Is the red light blinking? If so, that...
4. ...System/Tool/Piece of gear you rely on every day has a piece of you! That's right, when you're sitting there, you can look over and see that the red light is blinking, saying, "Check me...check me!" How about in your email, do you have a lot of read, unread, color red, flagged red emails in your Inbox? Those emails are yelling, "Look at me...look at me!" Do you have a notebook or random scraps of paper around your desk, home desk, office desk at home, purse, backpack or carry-on suitcase? If so, there's probably a "low-hummm" of activity.
Now, the good news is, for most of you things are fine. No, really, they are! Right? Today's class was not an intervention, not a compliance requirement, not anything you had to do (in the definition of the word.) Sure there have been one who "invited" or even "encouraged" you to attend, but throughout the course you had chance and chance again to see how to make your best...a little better.
Which leads me to some of the resources you saw today. As far as books, I strongly suggest getting a couple and adding them to your "learning library." A great place to start is with this site: www.BooksWeRecommend.com. When you go over there, you'll see a LOT of books that I talked about and more. I'm happy to chat about any of those, should you need to get some more ideas, just let me know!
I shared with you a few clips from Marcus Buckingham's step-by-step workshop and use his lessons to change your life. To watch this workshop on your iPod, simply subscribe to the podcast in iTunes and download each session automatically.
Here's the link: http://www.oprah.com/money/Marcus-Buckinghams-Career-Intervention#ixzz1U19eO1d2
Here's another PodCast (FREE) that might be worth subscribing to (I'm having a GREAT TIME building it for you!)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/your-best-just-got-better/id427693120
What did YOU do after the course? I invite you to add your comment below. If 20 of you leave a comment, I will choose ONE person at random to send a "Productivity Pack" to for FREE! That's right: A copy of my book, a DVD and an Audio CD. How do you win? Write a paragraph or two about what you DID after the seminar, and ask a colleague to do the same. When 20 (or more) of you comment, I'll go in and pick one lucky person (at random!) to send a package two next week...
Now, getting your arms wrapped around those tools, the notebooks, sticky-pad notes, BlackBerry® and Microsoft® Outlook® takes quite a bit of time. For starters, remember that there isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to use your tools. There is a "BEST" way, and that's the way that you will use, consistently, to achieve YOUR definition of productivity. That is, what IS a productive day to YOU? Here's my encouragement: Review pages 3 and 7 of your workbook. For the next 5 days, become a scientist of you, your habits, and what you tolerate. Remember, practice doesn't make "perfect," but it sure makes comfortable.
Ok, I'm sure there's more, so leave your comments AND your questions in the box below. I can't wait to hear from you!
PS: Copy and paste these links to continue the process...
http://www.oprah.com/money/Marcus-Buckinghams-Career-Intervention
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/your-best-just-got-better/id427693120
http://www.bookswerecommend.com
http://www.youtube.com/jasonwomack
http://youtu.be/2dYZk7P_n8s
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