Beth SchaeferJanuary 14, 2025Most Recent Blog, Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Stop the World #3 | I Want to Catch Up

Stop the World; I Want to Get Off  Catch Up

Beth Schaefer IPD Director  

stop the world 3 rectangle

This series on Stop the World has been about taking time to do Important and Innovative work.

I know, easier said than done. Time is a limited resource.  Even if you work overtime, you still only have 24 hours in a day.  You cannot create time, but you can control how you spend your time.  This is what is meant by time management.

You may already do some of these time management strategies, but maybe you will be sparked by a new idea or two.  I am presenting these in “David Letterman countdown style” – starting with most difficult for me to practice on a consistent basis and ending with the one I do the most.

#8 – Write Down Process

I find it is easier to delegate tasks or ask for help if the process I use is written down.  It allows me to easily hand off work knowing the person has direction/instructions.  I will not lie; documenting process takes time to do.  Because it takes time, this makes it the most challenging way for me to manage time.  However, once you get some processes defined, it really allows for teamwork.  Others can help you when work piles up, and you can help them when their work piles up. As an added bonus, documented processes used by more than one person have a better chance  being streamlined, and that streamlining absolutely helps you manage time.

#7 – Prioritize

Prioritizing does not help you complete all your work; it just helps you kick some of the work cans down the road, but they are still down there waiting for you.   This is why prioritizing work does not always feel like a time management win.  However, it can be a win because when you keep kicking the work can down the road, these things can happen before you see that can again:

  • Someone else has completed the work
  • The initiative stalls out, and the project manager moves all the due dates to later
  • A new leader comes in, and the whole initiative goes away

Kicking the can is effective if you choose wisely.

#6 – Be Realistic With Your Time

The first step to being realistic with your time is to actually think through how much time it takes you to do tasks.

Does this scenario sound familiar?:

  1. You make a list of things you want to get done that day.
  2. You do not calculate how long the tasks will take and make the assumption they will all get done.
  3. You do not allow time for any “fires” that may occur that day.
  4. As the clock ticks towards 5, you start to panic and decide “what needs to get done” that day.

To combat the end-of-day panic, take a beat to think about how much time a task will take.  For instance, when I facilitate a meeting, I do not just schedule time to run the meeting, but time to prep the meeting, and time to do the meeting follow-up actions.  This technique really emphasizes how much time meetings actually take.  It also makes sure that when you take people’s time for meetings, you are prepared which respects their busyness, and it causes you to think twice about the usefulness of your meetings.

#5 – Get Rid of Meetings

Because meetings are more than the meeting time — they are the prep time, the follow-up communications, the time to get to the meeting (or logged into the virtual meetings), and time for the meeting-after-the-meeting meetings — meetings eat more time than you may realize.  If you attend meetings that are not useful, consider asking your supervisor to let you skip those meetings stating what work you would be able to complete during that time.  If you are the one scheduling all the meetings that have no purpose, well… you know the answer already.

The reason this time-saver is not higher on the list in terms of easy-to-do is because meetings can be more about work completion.  For my remote team, the meeting is about connection that fuels collaboration and support for one another.  The better you understand the purpose of a meeting, the more you can determine the value of the time.  Balance efficiency with relationships.

#4 – Limit Your Time

Time blocking – setting aside a pre-designated block of time for a specific task – can be quite effective for time management on some tasks. Time-blocking a task can help you focus and work more efficiently. (This is your reminder that most research indicates that multi-tasking is a fallacy).  The time pressure can motivate you to persist on challenging tasks.  Time-blocking can be especially helpful on “black hole” activities such as research, cleaning out email, or innovation and idea-generation.  If you reach the end of the time without sufficient progress, then schedule another time-block for another day and move onto other work.

#3 – Do NOT Be a Perfectionist

Those of you who know me well are saying, “Really?” Yes, I am definitely a recovering perfectionist. The pandemic taught me to let go of perfection.  We needed to punt all the time during the pandemic, and people were really gracious when things did not go as planned.  This showed me that perfectionism is overrated. I have learned to embrace the concept of “good enough.”

Let’s be clear – you cannot approach your work with a “whatever” attitude all of the time.  That is just being a slacker.  Good enough is about picking and choosing moments to accept good instead of great. In a Reddit thread, someone suggested prioritizing tasks by thinking about what adds value to customers and what does not.  If a task does not add value to a customer, figure out how to “half-ass” it. This should be used judiciously, but it can still be an effective time management strategy.

#2 – Work From Home When Needed

Working without meetings or messages or interruptions or chit chat at the water cooler is a great way to get more work done, so stay home and spend the day focusing on the work that needs your deepest concentration. This is easy for me as part of a remote office; however, I started this practice prior to working remotely.  This technique is very similar to time-blocking because you are dedicated to getting specific tasks completed while at home.  For me, the tasks that I get the most value in tackling from my kitchen counter are the ones that take large chunks of time and complex thinking to complete.  Researching and writing these articles are in that category, along with annual budgeting. High-concentration tasks can vary depending on your aptitudes.

Some tips to make this work. Put on your out-of-office, silence your phone, and log out of pop-up Teams messages. If you must be in the office, try closing the office door or finding an alcove in the lunchroom and put on your headphones.  Also practice a do-not-bother-me face so that just a glance can deter interruptions.

And the easiest way for me to manage time…

#1 – Use a To-Do List

This seems basic but many people do not use lists to organize and prioritize work tasks.  I started making lists as soon as I could hold a crayon in my hand, so I have nearly perfected my method. I end each week with my to-do list for the next week.

While this takes 1 – 2 hours of my time, I also take this time to:

  1. Complete any task that I can do in less time than it takes me to write down on my to-do list.
  2. Tap coworkers or clients who owe me completed tasks for my projects to move forward.
  3. Determine if a project needs a status meeting to move forward and get it on the project team’s calendar for the next week.

I know that using my own brain to generate my to-do list each week is old-school; however, my language arts teacher background tells me that writing is one of the best ways to create order out of chaos.  Organizing information (whether handwritten or typed, whether essay or table or list) is thinking.  Creating the to-do list is my own way of taking time each week to think holistically about the work/goals/purpose of IPD.

For me, not enough time is one of my biggest stressors at work.  I am always balancing time in terms of what I need to complete for my team and clients with what I need to check off my list to feel less stress about my job to the time I should spend away from work for a healthy life.

While this Top 8 list provides some strategies for managing time, you may still feel guilty about the steps you take to balance your work time and your personal time. Here are a couple of statistics that can ease your guilt:

  • Research indicates that once you put it more than 50 hours a week, your production decreases to the point of being pointless to work.
  • Americans are towards the top of the list for working more hours in comparison with other countries with an advanced economy. Americans also suffer more health issues and higher insurance costs related to work than any other country with an advanced economy.  So, save your organization insurance costs and work less.

Sidebar

As part of my research, I was curious about the phrase, Stop the world – I want to get off.  Turns out it is the title of a musical from the 60’s.   Set in a circus, it is the life journey of a young boy, who stops the show to have sidebar conversations with the audience every time something disastrous happens in his life.  As an intelligent reading audience, I will leave you to draw your own connections between the workplace and the circus and add your own sidebar comments.

Stop the World Series Resource List
The 7 Habits
Encouraging Creative Thinking in the Workplace
Falling Behind on Work? Take These Steps to Get Back on Track
Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot
The Hidden Tactic Overloaded Workers Are Using to Catch Up
How CEO’s Make Time to Create That Unexpected Lead Forward
How to Catch up on Work When You’ve Fallen Behind
How to Give Busy People the Time to Innovate
How to Gossip Strategically to Get Ahead at Work
Systematic Innovative Thinking
Top 10 Productivity Killers in the Workplace

Read More
Beth SchaeferDecember 5, 2024Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Stop the World #2 | I Want to Be Innovative

Stop the World; I Want to Get Off  Be Innovative

Beth Schaefer IPD Director  

Get off Long

In the first Stop the World article, I discussed making room for important work.  Read Stop the World; I Want to Get Off Do Important Things to set the stage to engage or re-engage with your work and your coworkers.  While that article discussed important work, some readers may have noted that it left out Innovation.

This month’s article focuses on making time to be innovative, which – because it’s so important – gets its own article.  60% of CEO’s rate innovation as important to the organization.  Innovation is what allows an organization to flex, adapt, grow, and offer unique solutions to customers.  Some might say innovate or disappear.

Take a look at your calendar for this week; how much time have you set aside to be innovative?

Innovation Culture Killers

In the first article, being physically (but not mentally)  present and looking busy were called out as an enemy to productivity; they are also the enemy of innovation.  The brain will not spend time on creativity when it is overworked or when pretending to do work.

Avoid these innovation culture killers:

1. Overloading people with operational tasks.

Those who lack time to complete their work are 3 times more likely to struggle with innovation.  The trend to eliminate workers and “do more with less” continues.  While I agree that a reduced workforce saves money in the short-term; in the long-term, the burnout will:

  • Reduce workers’ ability to find process efficiencies
  • Delay the development of new products or product improvements
  • Negatively affect quality customer service (which research consistently tells us is closely correlated to how individuals feel about their jobs)
  • Diminish the ability of workers to problem-solve

2. Encouraging only Quadrant 1 activities.

The first article in the series introduced The Covey quadrant model that categorizes workplace activity. Quadrant 1 activities are necessary and important, but having your head down, checking off task after task kills “aha moments”–those moments where you and your team discover a process improvement or a brilliant new way to suit customer needs. Constantly moving to the next thing does not allow the space for the brain to think creatively.

10 Strategies to Balance Necessity with Innovation

1.      Improve processes so that mundane tasks don’t take so long! 

Find out what rules and protocols are soaking up work time and fix them.  “Process debt” can build up in small pieces without being noticed.  Innovative people will be innovative if you remove the routines that prevent innovativeness.  Ask your people.  They will tell you which processes are overburdened and can be easily streamlined. Create an agile or flexible list and reorder each month based on current needs and new suggestions. Pick one cumbersome process each month and fix it.

2.      Add innovation to performance goals. 

Established goals are green lights that allow people to schedule innovation time.  Host regularly scheduled “innovation sprints” every 2 weeks or once a month to help your team meet those goals.  Consider inviting other departments to your sprint to create/revise a process you share.

3.      Grant permission to turn off the world. 

Encourage your team members to occasionally ignore the phone and turn on an Out of Office message to create blocks of time for activities that promote creativity.  Set the example by blocking off time on your own calendar and pointing that out to your team.

4.      Be Attuned. 

Do not schedule or expect innovation during busy times.  Most organizations have hectic periods where business is brisk or times when holidays or vacations are more frequent and fewer workers are in the office. Do not squeeze innovation into time when people are scrambling to serve customers.

5.      Allow reading and viewing.

Reading leads to learning. Learning leads to innovation. Learning can also happen when viewing a Ted Talk or listening to a scientific podcast, or similar program. “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think.  That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think.” -Warren Buffet.

6.      Subtract something old before adding something new. 

Innovation equals projects.  Projects equal work.  More work equals tough choices.  Encouraging innovation may generate more ideas than can be simultaneously executed and sustained. If you continue to launch the new without removing the old, you have a recipe for overwhelming your team, and they will circle back to innovation stagnation.

7.      Reward subtraction.

Addition is visible. Subtraction is invisible.  Leidy Klotz addresses this in Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less where he calls this Shiny New Object Syndrome. Organizations tend to reward new things – additions – but they seldom recognize when someone is able to subtract an underperforming project or streamline steps to a process. Hold meetings focused on subtraction. Create a guideline to complete or subtract a priority or project before adding a new one. Openly celebrate subtractions; do not limit innovation to additions.

8.      Make a path to submit new ideas. 

If you ask your team how and when they submit innovative ideas, would they know?  Provide many venues and modes for sharing.  Let your team know that innovative ideas can be communicated through a sketch, a paragraph, a one-page document such as an SBAR, or a conversation.  Make it easy to be innovative.

9.      Teach innovation and creativity.

While some of your team members may just need time or permission to be more innovative, others will need specific tools, guidance, or established patterns for how to be innovative. See Innovation Tips and Tricks for more ideas on how to encourage innovation from your team.

10.  Model

Ensure that your team sees you taking time to be innovative.

 

Sidebar

As part of my research, I was curious about the phrase, Stop the world – I want to get off.  Turns out it is the title of a musical from the 60’s.   Set in a circus, it is the life journey of a young boy, who stops the show to have sidebar conversations with the audience every time something disastrous happens in his life.  As an intelligent reading audience, I will leave you to draw your own connections between the workplace and the circus and add your own sidebar comments.

I know… All of this is easier said than done, so next month we will tackle, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off Find More Time 

Stop the World Series Resource List
The 7 Habits
Encouraging Creative Thinking in the Workplace
Falling Behind on Work? Take These Steps to Get Back on Track
Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot
The Hidden Tactic Overloaded Workers Are Using to Catch Up
How CEO’s Make Time to Create That Unexpected Lead Forward
How to Catch up on Work When You’ve Fallen Behind
How to Give Busy People the Time to Innovate
How to Gossip Strategically to Get Ahead at Work
Systematic Innovative Thinking
Top 10 Productivity Killers in the Workplace

Read More
Beth SchaeferOctober 30, 2024Professional Development and Career Advancement Blog

Stop the World | I Want to Accomplish Something Important

Stop the World; I Want to Get Off Accomplish Something Important

Beth Schaefer IPD Director  

stop the World Blog 1

Explaining Stop the World Logic

I had a conversation with a colleague last week who was lamenting the lack of time to complete all their work.  This led me to think about time management and a phrase I often use in both my work and personal life, Stop the world; I want to catch up. I need everyone else to freeze in time so that I have a few days to keep working and get caught up.

And, as often happens, real life generates an article idea. In this case: time management. Yes, this is an old topic, but a perennial favorite because so many of us still feel the time crunch.  Add it to the list of other topics we can never seem to get consistently right: change management, process improvement, onboarding, (add your own topic here).  These are topics that we are constantly revisiting and learning more about because the gap between doing it, and doing it well, is so large.

Researching innovative time management ideas turned this one article into the Stop the World collection of articles.  Because, as research tells me, time management is about more than just catching up.

What Am I Doing All Day?

Thinking about time management reminded me of Covey’s 7 Habits for Highly Effective People. I most recently used Covey in teaching a college course on effective supervision. Covey divides your time into four quadrants based on importance and urgency.

 

  1. Necessity: Important and Urgent
  2. Effectiveness: Important and Not Urgent
  3. Distraction: Not Important and Urgent
  4. Waste: Not Important and Not Urgent
time management matrix

The Stop the World collection will focus on reducing Distraction and Waste so that you have more time for the Necessary and Effective. This may seem an obvious solution; however, the latest workplace trend is “Present-ness.”

Looking Busy

While “being present” is a good thing; present-ness is about appearing busy.  Present-ness is the response to the return-to-office movement.  Recent research has shown that people sitting at their desks in their offices are more likely to be seen as a quality worker, a dedicated worker, an engaged worker and are, therefore, more likely to receive promotions.  However, that same research reveals that the traditional thinking of “desk = productivity” is not accurate.

Sitting at a desk in the office does not mean those workers are more productive.  When it comes to perception vs. reality, perception is 9/10th of the law, so workers are willing to sacrifice productivity in favor of appearing busy.  What are those “busy” people actually doing?

  • Answering emails (average of 9 hours a week)
  • Sitting in meetings (average of 7.5 hours a week)
  • Gossiping (average of 2-12 hours a week depending on your source)
  • Texting friends and family (average of 5 hours per week)
  • Surfing the internet/social media (average of 5 hours per week)

“Busy” is, not necessarily, productive. “Busy” can happen at the office (gossiping even more so) just as easily as at home.

Accomplishing Something Important

With that new trend in mind, let’s take a look at the Effectiveness Quadrant.  The Effectiveness Quadrant (Important, Not Urgent) includes proactive activities that can be done in an office located at work or at home:

  • Setting important goals
  • Planning
  • Relationship Building
  • Learning
  • Thinking Creatively

Just thinking about doing these things at work makes me feel guilty because I am not crossing tasks off my to-do list; however, what strikes me about this list is that it correlates quite strongly to items leaders should do to promote employee engagement.  (See our Employee Engagement series.)  I firmly believe in cultivating intentional employee engagement.  Maybe that will help me make time for important, not urgent items.

I also read this list and find that these items could fuel my own work engagement. I can proactively incorporate important, not urgent items into my own schedule to keep myself invested and model the importance of that quadrant to my team.  You can too.  What parts of your job do you love but do not take time to do because it feels like a guilty pleasure?  Do them.  If you do not have anything you like about your job, consider referencing the articles on The Great Resignation to find a new job.

For me, I love writing curriculum.  It is no longer the main part of my role, but finding pockets of projects that allow me to write curriculum sparks creativity, keeps me engaged in my work, and gives me joy. For you, these activities could be taking some training, having a conversation with a mentor, or researching a topic you are passionate about.  Clearly finding joy in your work can only be a good thing for both you and your employer.

Hopefully, the Stop the World collection of articles will help you to step off the busy-ness and step into what is important.

Next article in the collection coming next month: Stop the World; I Want to Get Off Be Innovative.

Sidebar

As part of my research, I was curious about the phrase, Stop the world – I want to get off.  Turns out it is the title of a musical from the 60’s.   Set in a circus, it is the life journey of a young boy, who stops the show to have sidebar conversations with the audience every time something disastrous happens in his life.  As an intelligent reading audience, I will leave you to draw your own connections between the workplace and the circus and add your own sidebar comments.

Stop the World Series Resource List
The 7 Habits
Encouraging Creative Thinking in the Workplace
Falling Behind on Work? Take These Steps to Get Back on Track
Finding Your Innovation Sweet Spot
The Hidden Tactic Overloaded Workers Are Using to Catch Up
How CEO’s Make Time to Create That Unexpected Lead Forward
How to Catch up on Work When You’ve Fallen Behind
How to Give Busy People the Time to Innovate
How to Gossip Strategically to Get Ahead at Work
Systematic Innovative Thinking
Top 10 Productivity Killers in the Workplace

Read More