April, 2011 | It's Worth Noting

Productivity

Setting aside a day for that one thing

April 6, 2011

What’s that one thing, whether at work, at home or in a relationship, that you could do that would make all the difference in the world? It lingers and weighs on you, but somehow you never have the time, energy or courage to tackle it. The more you neglect and postpone, the more difficult it becomes to start or complete. Want a simple solution? Grab your calendar and block off a day called “that one thing”. Life won’t pause around you and there will be other demands on your time, energy and attention, but guard the day with vigor. Make your only objective to do the one thing of consequence that has alluded you in the past. The trick here is a dedicated day with a singular focus. That one thing keeps alluding us because we try to squeeze it in when we need to create room for it to…

Dear Customer: I don’t want to talk to you

April 26, 2011

Over the past two decades, the internet has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for new companies. In recent years, a weak economy has forced many into the world of entrepreneurship and freelance. The rate of competition is increasing while the previously explosive increase in productivity, quality and efficiency is waning. While this seismic shift is taking place, we still have companies retaining and devising strategies to minimize customer interaction like we hit the pause button in the 90’s and nothing has changed. They view interaction with customers as an annoyance or a cost to minimize. Look no further than your inbox and all those noreply@ email address. Or consider a recent call you made navigating ten auto attendant layers while desperately hitting zero just to get a real person on the line. You can’t get service but you can wear out your keypad and finger tips. These techniques are…

7 hours/week email challenge

April 19, 2011

I recently surveyed some members of our team to find out how many hours a week they were spending on email. They, and other business colleagues I asked, all came back to say they spend more than two hours a day, or ten hours a week, managing email. How much time do you spend on work email each week? If you’re not sure, you can use a tool like RescueTime to find out. Everyone agreed that ten hours a week, 20% or more of work weeks, was too much given roles and our other priorities. We admitted that we had gotten lazy and allowed a number of bad habits to fester turning email into a time monster. What if we could reduce the hours spent on email by 30%? The opportunity to reclaim a few hours a week was motivating and we agreed to a challenge – to reduce time…

April 2011