How To Banish Calendar Chaos And Invent More Hours

If you could magically insert nine extra hours into your week, would you want to know how? Whenever I work with an executive, I say, "Show me your calendar,” and what I'm looking for is open space. But inevitably what I see is a really bad game of Tetris gone wrong: meeting after meeting after meeting, double and triple booked. It’s a mess, and it exhausts me just to look at it! Sound familiar?

With a few simple steps, you can gain control over the calendar chaos, and emerge with time to use productively. Here’s how:

1. Action, not words. I was working with an executive team and we had just uncovered how the whole executive team could get back an extra nine hours each and every week when I noticed there was a beautifully framed set of guidelines for running effective meetings up on the conference room wall. When I pointed it out, the divisional president said: “Oh yes, they have been there for years, but our meetings are still ridiculously inefficient.” We solved that in one discussion with the executive team. Use theThoughtfully Ruthless Meaningful Meeting Guide.

2. Start with business results. Ask yourself if each day your time and energy is spent driving profit, revenue, and customer satisfaction goals or are you actually spending your time differently than you intend? Look back on the last three months and compare what you actually did to where ideally you want to be spending your time; then make changes fast.

3. Don’t let meetings control you. Stop automatically accepting every meeting. Ask what the purpose is, and question whether you need to attend personally or can you delegate it to someone on your team? Then ask your team to give you feedback about the meetings they attend. Ask where they want you involved and where they don’t. You may be surprised just how much they are willing to take from your calendar to theirs.

4. Ask your executive admin. Are you making the most of whoever manages your calendar? They have the greatest insight into the way you spend your time. Ask for their input and give them clear instructions what to accept, decline, or delegate on your behalf.

5. Schedule your to-do list into your calendar. When I sit down with leaders and ask to see their to-do lists, it’s usually 50 lines long, and more than half of the items have been on the list for three or more weeks. Unless you put your to-do list into your calendar and schedule time for action, it’s highly unlikely to happen—or you will do it in obscure hours of the day.

Open your calendar right now and block off time to evaluate your calendar. Those extra free hours are there waiting for you to take back for you to use as you choose. 


Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

How To Launch Your Satellite Navigation System For Success

Waze accurately predicts the time to your destination and crowd sources real time incident data to reroute you around roadblocks. Can you say the same for your 2019 business goals?

“Are we there yet?” Used to be a familiar cry from the back seat of our car when I was with my sister and brother on family adventures around the British countryside. 

Now it’s “how many minutes until we get there” followed by “but that’s just gone up you said 37 minutes now it’s 43?!”

The technology might have advanced from maps to apps for your car journeys but do you truly know the real ETA for your product launches and initiatives this coming year?

Ask yourself these three critical questions to determine if your Business Satelite Navigation System is pointing to where it should be:

* Does everyone have a shared understanding of the “you are here” Point of progress 

* Are you satisfied with your months of progress given where you are in your financial year?

* Do you have a re-route recovery plan if your planned time for reaching your destination is later than planned?

That way you can make sure when your board asks “are we there yet?” You can confidently answer with precision.

Dedicated to growing your business,

Val

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What Is Your Typical Reaction To Looming Deadlines?

In my corporate days, I had a boss who delivered early on deadlines and expected everyone on her team to do the same, except nobody told me that, and I wasn’t clever enough to ask. I suffered one too many painful public chastisements for being the last to complete a task, even though the deadline was weeks away, and I didn’t last long working for that manager before I decided to leave.

For over a quarter of a century I’ve studied how people in corporations approach deadlines, and I have discovered there are four typical reactions to impending due dates:

1. The early deliverer (like my former boss). The greatest danger here may be a lack of thought put into the final product. But early deliverers are great at finding the fastest way to achieve a task. If you manage a team, try teaming up an early deliverer with someone who approaches deadlines differently.

2. The spotty dabblers think a little, then they do a little. Then they repeat, perhaps multiple times. Spotty dabblers are most likely to miss a deadline because they are jumping between so many tasks it is hard to keep track. If you’re a spotty dabbler, you may be repeating work unnecessarily. Consider intentionally chunking out your work to make forward progress and avoid repeating work.

3. Adrenaline addicts leave their deadlines to the last minute. The danger here is increasing the probability that you will miss your deadline because you leave no capacity for competing priorities. The second risk is that you won’t produce your highest quality work due to exhaustion or insufficient time. If you have an adrenaline addict on your team, ask them for their work ahead of the real date to build in buffer time.

4. The most structured are the steady achievers. They plan and achieve deadlines early. If you have someone on your team who is a steady achiever, you may be mismatching their capacity to perform. Their workload could be too small, and you may need to stretch their capability further.

What is your thinking time and action time relative to tasks? Are you paying attention to where your team could be burning excessive energy and time on tasks that don’t merit it or perhaps achieving a deadline too early without giving it the proper thought and attention?

Ask your team about their preferred method of achieving deadlines. Then look at your whole team profile and consider how you can build on each of their strengths, perhaps by matching up different team members to play to their strengths.


Dedicated to growing your business,

Val