By now the initial survey of your days and week has given you a perspective of where you spend the majority of your time. I’m curious- did you discover how much of it was by choice vs by chance?
Let’s work together to move more time back into your control by starting with your meeting plan.
Meetings are generally created for two reasons: strategic discussions and updates or check-ins. The rest of the time, they present opportunities for noise. In my experience, recurring meetings should be limited as they tend to become a graveyard for real ideation.
- Zoom meetings have replaced our office engagement opportunities. In 2020, Zoom surpassed 300 million daily Zoom meeting participants. For comparison, in December 2019, Zoom reported 10 million meeting participants.
The convenience of online meetings is helpful to see people who are no longer in office, however, I have discovered they also create mental stress and emotional fatigue. Think of it like this: if you had to be on a stage all day with a spotlight in your face talking to a crowd of people, how would you feel? That’s similar to the toll of constant Zoom meetings on our eyes and minds.
When you assess your current meeting schedule, how frequently are you leaving with anything material to your business? Most folks leave a meeting without new information and have become so dependent on the calendar activity, they have lost sight of the outcome or need for the meeting in the first place. In the case of recurring meetings, it is always smart to create a simple agenda to stay on track.
Here is the outline I use to guide meetings:
- Start with the WINS.
- What do we need to know/discuss?
- What can you or I do?
- What should come next?
- Reminder: Capture bubble thoughts as they arise but are not critical to the conversation. Remember to label the bubble thought by using who it was meant for and what it related to. Just those two things will provide recall.
This framework helps my team and me to pace our time and always walk away with the critical items we need to advance our goals.
Now, let’s look at what’s in between your meetings. For many leaders, this is another strategy to take back more of their time.
Do you “park time” after a meeting to process your next steps or rush right into the next one? When you “park time” you “protect the borders”.
Take five minutes and establish a 15-30 minute rule between each meeting on your calendar. It’s a simple step to help you stay present and finish your thoughts before moving into the next meeting. This is also called “white space”, referred to by Productivity Consultant Juliet Funt as the bewitching time to get the best snapshot for the next steps. Without white space, your brain cannot move into another activity and close the feedback loop from the last meeting.
- With more productivity in your meetings, let’s look at your email plan. Tell the truth here – is your phone the first thing you grab in the morning before your feet have touched the floor? (we’re all guilty on this one!)
You may not have realized it, but when you reach over and pick up your phone, you are triggering your nervous system and putting your senses into reactive mode. Triggered by reactive responses, your mind is no longer leveraging the critical thinking part of your brain. You are subconsciously in flight, fright, or freeze mode.
- The first step to rewiring your brain is to schedule a time for email sprints. These are basically intervals throughout your day where you will go to your emails and delete, delegate or deliver. Let your team know you will be moving to a system to be more effective, not efficient. The key here is that you choose the moment before it chooses you.
I start by setting up a few rules in my email account. It’s simple to do and saves me hours of unnecessary wasted time and focus. Using the rules in your email account, you can automatically let your technology filter the noise.
- Now let’s talk subject lines and how they impact the workflow you want to accomplish. Emails were meant to be short and directive.
My favorite acronym is WAIT; whose action is this? Every time you send out an email, make sure to clarify your recipient list and use the right tone. When you take this deliberate step, it sets an expectation for your team to follow suit. A respectful, effective approach to email saves hours of time volleying back-and-forth or dealing with drama in the workplace.
- Here are a few of my favorite shortcuts to help your team manage their workflow. We use these to ensure our communication is clear and save unnecessary time volleying back and forth.
- EOD-End of Day
- NNTR- No need to respond
- CRITICAL- Time-sensitive by typically more than 4 hours
- URGENT- Time Sensitive, usually 2 hours or less
- Silent Tuesday- No emails unless they fall into Critical or Urgent
- GSD TIME- Block it
The most important next step here is to share the shorthand with your team and get their feedback. Once you all agree on the acronyms you will use, you can start to include them in the subject lines so employees can moderate their workload. It is also imperative that you establish the CC rules. Implementing a NO reply all policy will cut down a minimum of 20% of the email waste your own teams are generating.
- Finally, challenge yourself to ask and answer one question at the onset of every week. This is designed to train your brain to edit your week’s activities and meetings, so you can protect your priorities.
Here it is: if you could get just one thing “done” this week what would it be? Now put that into your calendar at the top across all five days, as a placeholder to remind you to lead your focus.
This has been a power-packed conversation on productivity. We discussed the following areas that impact your daily focus and weekly productivity:
- Meetings
- Emails
- Task Management
I encourage you to set aside a time block and assess what systems would be most beneficial to you and your team. Then determine what tactics to implement.
Think of it as cleaning out a messy closet. By taking small steps to quiet the noise, your brain will begin to settle and see what is really worth keeping and what has outlived its usefulness. This is how you rewire your productivity, so you can lead more effectively.