Avi Marcus

In Part 1: Eliminating Activities, I suggested that you should make sure the work you are doing is what YOU should be doing. If something isn’t “worth” your time, then find the appropriate co-worker to do it, delegate it, or hire it out. Another reason to delegate is to have a more experience person doing the work.

These tips are about how to get other people motivated and get their creative juices flowing. The more positivity and creativity, the better!

Have Your Secretary Help
If you have a secretary, ask them to write a suggestion of how to handle each item before they put it in your inbox. With some training, you may find that they can handle most things themselves, or with only minor corrections. Make sure to give feedback on the suggestions, *especially* the good ones. This can save you lots of time. You may even be surprised by some creative ideas.

Get Them Involved
People work best when excited or personally invested in a project. See how the project may appeal to them. Find the benefits for them. Pitch it to them!
If someone comes to you with an idea, try to get them MORE personally invested in it. People love their OWN ideas, and will work with enthusiasm on them. Stop yourself from taking over and saying anything that will make the idea yours - encourage them, and help them become more enthusiastic about their idea.

Get Them To Problem Solve
When people come to you for help, does it ever seem they don’t really know what the problem is, or that they really could figure out the answer themselves?
To help them become more independent, ask (or demand) everyone to follow these three steps before they come to you:

1. State the problem in 30 seconds or less (15 might be enough!)
2. Think of 3 possible solutions
3. Choose which one you like best, and why

(Step one forces them to focus on what the problem really is. Step two makes them really look for solutions, with the assumption that many solutions exist. Step three gets them to make decisions.)

If you can install this habit in the people around you, the few questions you will be asked will be much more focused, and already have possible solutions!

Make Sure YOU Are The One Delegating!
In Time Power, Brian Tracy says one of the worst management issues is reverse-delegation. This happens when the person you delegated to asks you a question or needs a piece of information. They now must wait until YOU get the answer - after all, you are the boss so you have more experience. However, once they come to you, they have become the boss and are delegating to you! Get them to problem solve themselves (previous section) and suggest where they could look, rather than offering to do it yourself.

Don’t be a Bottleneck!
If your staff needs your approval on everything, that means that they are limited to YOUR speed - and they need to keep interrupting you!
When you delegate, make sure they know exactly what you want, and perhaps even why. Have them repeat it to you, so you know they understand. If they are clear with the goal, they can ask you less. Tell them that you would rather they decide minor things themselves than constantly ask you questions. When people are forced to think for themselves, they often come up with good ideas!

To really take advantage of all of these, you must learn to be more flexible. People will keep asking you to make decisions if you scold them for the decisions they make themselves!

Most things we do involve making many decisions. We often fear making a mistake or giving up an opportunity. When we need to make decisions, even small ones, we may get an urge to stop and walk away. Often, we just don’t want to deal with it.

However, you probably won’t want to sit back down to your work until you decide. You won’t want to spend the time getting back into the background info and all the options, weighing them all - again - in your head. The longer you push it off, the less certain you will feel - which will further prevent you from making a decision.

Here are some ideas that may help you decide:

Deciding To Walk Away Is A Decision!
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a decision!”

Sometimes, It’s Not A Big Deal
How much difference is there between the options you are considering? We don’t get stuck considering a bad option vs a good option. We only get stuck if the options are both good! If the difference isn’t that big, just choose one and move on. It’s not worth your energy to worry about it.

Delaying Can Hurt
Often, if we can’t decide, the whole project needs to be put on hold. Is this decision large enough to warrant putting everything on hold? If not, just choose one and move on. Don’t let it break the momentum.

Get More Information
Call someone for some advice. Search online for how other people handled a similar thing. Write out the pros and cons of each option.

If you make it a habit to decide right away, you will save yourself lots of time and energy!

Note: For large decisions, you may legitimately want to sleep on it. But make sure to actually decide the next day, otherwise you will just be using this as an excuse to push off deciding!

(This is another reason to immerse yourself into tasks.)

If you don’t stick with the task until you finish, then you will end up wasting lots of time.
I vividly recall trying to complete a list of things for some software I was writing. Since I had so little time, if I got stuck on one, I moved on to the next. What soon happened was that I had spent some time on each - but got stuck on them all! I spent lots of time, but didn’t finish ANYTHING.

When you get stuck, don’t put it away and move on to the next thing. You won’t want to start on it again because you don’t know what to do next. You will lose your grip on the problem and it will take you lots of time to just get back to where you were - for you to get stuck again! Talk about frustrating!

Instead, just stick it out a little. You only need to think for a few moments - maybe a few minutes. Pause. Take a deep breath. What is the real problem? What can you do to work around it? It doesn’t need to be a perfect solution. As you implement a partial solution, you may realize the rest of the solution. The longer you spend on it, the better you will understand the problem. Knowing the problem is half the solution. You can also try looking around online - someone else probably has had the same issue.

When you do find a solution, take a moment to appreciate it!

If after 5-10 minutes, you can’t get it, then resolve to come back to it as soon as possible. The more it bothers you, the more your subconscious will work at trying to figure out answers. Expect possible solutions to pop into your head, and they will!

Hello everyone. I wanted to release some sort of podcast, but I wasn’t sure what would fit the podcast medium. It seemed too cheesy to just release all my posts as a podcast also.

I started drafting something about being pro-active (1st habit), but it soon turned into a piece about getting started. At first, I thought I could go for a ra-ra motivational piece, but that’s not really what I came up with.

I have two versions of the podcast. While its a good script, I didn’t get the emotion across. The unscripted one got more across, but well, I stumbled over the words. Enjoy either or both!

(If you are interested, I used audacity to record this. I had to use noise removal to get rid of the hum from the cheap microphone.)

 

 #001 - Getting Started [1:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7)

 

 #001 - Getting Started - UNSCRIPTED [2:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3)

Drop the Unimportant
Are you spending time on things you shouldn’t?
What YOU should spend your time on are things that only YOU can do. The parts of your business that you are good at, know very well, are well connected, etc. If you get paid $50/hr, don’t spend your time on a $10/hr task.
You probably know certain parts of your work simply aren’t things that you should spend your time doing.
Before you do any activity, ask yourself - is this a good use of my time? Is this something that generates results? Am I the best person to do this job? If it’s not, figure out how to cut it out of your schedule. Find who you can delegate it to, who you can hire to do it, or how to just stop doing it.

Saying “No”
I am not encouraging you to be mean or selfish. Rather, I am encouraging you to be realistic and honest about your commitments. Is this really something you can commit to doing? Do you actually have time for it?
A polite refusal would be “I am sorry, but I have already committed my time and attention to other projects. I wouldn’t be able to do this justice.”
Keep in mind that every “yes” is also a “no”. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. If a new project will interfere with family time or one you already committed to, saying “yes” is probably irresponsible, rather than nice.
Don’t say yes just to be agreeable, because it will end up causing both people much distress. They will be expecting you to follow through, while you would rather not.

Meetings!
Lets face it - how productive are your meetings? Many people dread them or are just completely bored by them.
In general, meetings lack focus. To provide focus, you should have a rigidly planned meeting with short segments, and a defined end time. The shorter each speaker is, the more prepared they need to be - and the quicker they need to get to their main point. With a defined end time, people won’t get as antsy. Often, once people figure out exactly what the focus is, they realize they don’t really want a big group meeting.
If you are asked to attend a meeting, ask them: “Please send me the agenda so I can prepare. Thanks in advance!” When faced with a meeting I didn’t want, I asked for the agenda. That forced them to actually think about why they wanted the meeting. I followed up on each item by email, and we never had the meeting.
If you feel that you are at the mercy of meeting run by other people, tell your boss that you have a lot of work to do, “can I please, just this once, not come to the meeting? I won’t be able to concentrate well, I have a lot to do! I will find out what happened from someone there.” Make sure to appear more productive than the people in the meeting. Keep up the “just this once” act until its normal for you not to be there. If you have to give a presentation, ask the person who runs the meeting if you can go first because you have other pressing work.

Less Is More
If you keep dropping activities and turning down projects, in the end, you may not have very much left - but less is more! The fewer things you concentrate on, the more time and effort you can put into each one, and the better you will get at them.
On the flip side, the more things you are involved in, the more you have to deal with, the more things you are constantly worrying about that will interfere with all the others.
Spend your time on the few important things!

Often, we fall into a pattern of reacting to emails, phone calls, and mail and have no time for anything else. That’s fine if they are opportunities to learn, grow, and live life. However, they are overwhelmingly problems we have to handle.
This makes us feel victimized - we are at the mercy of our environment. All the pressure usually causes lots of stress and we can’t pursue what we think is important or what we want to do. For some life events - such as a new baby, this may not be a cause for alarm, however it is very easy to settle into this mindset. Then, the very thought of having time for the important or what we want is absurd to consider. In that mindset, you may even feel it is irresponsible to put your time into something that only has long term payoffs.

Being reactive in the morning can take over your whole day. Once you start checking phone calls and emails, things will just keep jumping out at you to handle. You will end up at the end of another day, exhausted, upset that you didn’t accomplish much of value, and ask “where has the day gone?” If you try to stop reacting to things so you can sit down to long term things, inevitably more urgent things will come up.

Instead, at the beginning of each day review (or write!) your long term goals & projects and put some good time into them - BEFORE you check your email or messages. At first, you may feel uncomfortable not checking your email right away, expecting things to blow up. If you implemented the auto responders mentioned in Limiting Distractions, 101 you will already know about the truly urgent things - meaning everything else can wait! Alternatively, if you already try to “get ahead” by starting before normal working hours, then start on the really important work early - the ones with long term gains. Don’t make the mistake of “just taking a peak at your email” - what good will it do? It can only distract you from the work you are sitting down to do.

One of the best things to invest your time in would be how to clear more time. The coming posts will help with that.

Its all too common, and easy, to get caught up in what goes on, but we can start the day off with things that will help us long term!

Are you really focused on the work in front of you?
If you leave your phone on, have alerts from your email popping up, are signed into instant messenger, or have your office door open: you are showing yourself and everyone else that any interruptions are more important than your work. If you are going to work seriously, then act like it. Remove all possible communication distractions. Clean off your desk. The mere act of setting up your environment will help you to focus and start your work.

Each channel of communication has its own methods for limiting the interruptions:

Email: Close outlook or whatever you use to check your mail. Email is NOT instant messenger - you aren’t expected to respond instantly! Just to make sure everyone else knows, set up an auto-responder that says “In an effort to help you better, I check my email twice a day at 12pm and 4pm. If something is urgent (and please make sure it really is!), please call my cell phone at …”.
If you are thinking “oh no, my boss won’t go for that” - just TRY it. I have heard from people who thought their boss would yell at them, but instead the boss forwarded the message to everyone in the company and said “I wish you all would do this - that’s proper time management!’

Phone: treat your phone the same as email. Let it go straight to voicemail with a message like: “In an effort to help you better, I check my voicemail twice a day at 12pm and 4pm. Please leave your email address so I can respond to you faster. If something is urgent (and please make sure it really is!), please call my cell phone at …”.
If you have a secretary, or are willing to pay for PhoneTag, have all your voicemails transcribed and emailed/put into your inbox like everything else. This gives you one less box to check and saves you the time and effort of listening and taking notes. The simpler, the better.

Open cubicle / office: If you have your own office, close your door  - with a do not disturb sign - when you are busy.
If someone comes to your office or cubicle, stand up right away. In an office, this stops them from sitting down and getting comfortable. It also gives the (correct) impression that you aren’t going to sit around and chit-chat. You can even walk them out.
If a visitor comes over - especially if they ask if you are busy or if you have a minute - answer them properly! “Sorry, I am in the middle of something right now. How can I help you?” If they can’t seem to get the words out, tell them to send you an email. Don’t let them chit chat, get them to tell you what they want. The phrase “Sorry, I have to get back to work” can do wonders.
If you are working in a cubicle, wearing ear plugs or headphones will help send the message that you are busy.

Instant messenger: If you can, close it. If you need it open, set yourself to “away” or “do not disturb”. Treat it like someone coming to your cubicle/office - get the interaction over with as quickly as possible.

Cell phone: This should only be receiving emergency calls. If calls come in that aren’t, you can politely ask them to only call you on your cell for emergencies. Again, treat it like a visitor.

Lastly, handle everything that comes up AFTER you finish the work in front of you! Write it down so you don’t have to worry about forgetting it.

When you have a creative project, such as writing an article or drafting a plan, try to group as much of the writing and planning as possible. This way, you can really immerse yourself into the project. Often, you will have many different pieces of information, resources, intended outcomes, and situations that all influence your writing or plans. If you don’t immerse yourself - rather you keep putting the project aside - all of this information goes out of your head. It can take up to 45 minutes just to get back to where you left off!
If you do have to put a project on hold, then take notes on what you have to do next, and get back to it ASAP! If you don’t take notes, you won’t WANT to sit down to the project again because you first have to figure out what to do next! That makes procrastination a much more tempting option. Also, the quicker you get back to the project (measured in hours, or maybe even minutes) the quicker and easier it will be to immerse yourself into it again.
Set up long periods of time for your projects, and keep working until you finish!

A main component of the Getting Things Done system by David Allen is asking yourself "What is the next action?" regarding any "stuff" that comes your way. He says the question forces clarity - it makes you decide RIGHT NOW what the very next physical action is, as opposed to leaving you ambiguous about how to move forward. If you have many projects ongoing, even if they have several "waiting on" items, ask yourself "what is the next action?" and see if you come up with a way to move your project forward!

Besides for the added clarity, the question empowers you, and according to The Now Habit by Neil Fiore it also addresses many causes of procrastination:

• According to NLP, our speech is a indication of how we think. If you ask this question, you are presupposing that there IS a next action that you can take. YOU can do something about it! How empowering!
• Procrastinators usually have lots of negative (and unhelpful) self talk - who is to blame, etc. This question immediately focuses you on the future instead of the past.
• If you focus on the end, you get discouraged because you have no roadmap on how to get there. This question forces you to figure out the next step.
• It stops you from panicking about how big and overwhelming the project is by making you focus on individual actions.

Ask away - "What’s the next action?" - how are you going to implement this question in your life?

Today, when I realized I had 10 minutes left to finish writing a post, I lost focus on writing - instead I kept worrying about the time. It so disrupted my concentration that I had to start writing this instead!

When doing a creative task, such as writing this article, it is downright harmful to have a limited amount of time to work. The human brain is hardwired to want to finish things - so if you have a time limit, you will end up scrambling to finish before time is up. That just makes you more tense, when you really need to relax! When you relax and let the right brain get involved, it triggers a more creative and holistic approach - you come up with more and better ideas. When you are relaxed, it’s easier to "hear" the inspiration inside you.

When you have a creative task, schedule a large chunk of time. You may not use it all, but you will do much better knowing that you can relax and immerse yourself into the task, without concern about stopping. (Warning: Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fit the time allotted. You may end up spending the whole time effortlessly and produce some amazing work!)