Efficiency is Sometimes Inefficient

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When you’re looking at your project or task list it is easy to get caught in trying to minimize your investment of time, effort or money.

But be beware, the time you spend figuring and planning is sometimes a substitute for starting a straightforward task.

Some situations to consider:

  • How long do you spend looking for a bargain on an item that is a fairly minor expenditure?
  • Is your task list system or software taking a long time to become useful?
  • Do you pursue 98% flawlessness when 85% is great for this draft or proposal?
  • Do you ask your team to follow a specific guideline when a bit of flexibility might generate more initiative along with the minor disorganization?
  • Do you wait to pay bills until they’re all in, when it might be more pleasant to break up your days by paying a few at a time?
  • Do you always pay off the highest interest loan or credit card even when paying off a small balance on a low interest card might feel good and clear additional space in your attention?

When I was young my parents gently chastised me for trying to carry too many grocery bags at once or too many dishes to the sink. They called this a “lazy-man’s load.” They pointed out that to save a return trip I was risking dropping my whole load—short-term it felt efficient, but the actual outcome was potentially very wasteful.

It may be a good to ask yourself:

  • “Is doing this task this way actually efficient, or am I putting roadblocks in my way of getting things done?”
  • “Am I paying attention to the fact that I may be wasting a lot of time strategizing something that just needs doing?”
  • “Would just starting probably get me done a bit faster?”

If you’re ready to point out how much can be gained by planning, considering and minimizing your investment, we want to agree with you. It certainly isn’t prudent or judicious to just bust ahead. But be very careful if you often have tasks that languish and lists that grow faster than you can prune them. It may make sense to try a few experiments with a “just do some little things” approach.

And stay alert to your feelings. Task lists and projects are not done with organization alone. They often require momentum, enthusiasm and creativity and those can be generated by getting some small things out of the way, even if you’re a bit inefficient while doing them.

If you like practical, straightforward ideas that can increase effectiveness for you and your team, give us a call. We listen and help you find the ideas that get things moving in new directions. We are experienced experts on the people side of business. That means you, your clients and patients, and your team.

Never Enough Time

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If you’re in the middle of growing your business or your career, you likely have more work than you have time for, and just putting your head down and doing isn’t a sustainable situation. Yet it can become a chronic and ultimately troubling one. What’s to be done?

When we have too little work, it is an emergency. Too little work means a significant push is called for — advertising, networking, PR, media. Not enough work offers clear pathways to solutions; although some are more and some less effective-find work, don’t stop until you’ve sufficiently filled the calendar. Every startup initially faces this, and many people get so comfortable dealing with this pressure that they don’t see the tide turning and beginning to overfill their work blocks. They just keep saying yes.

There are also those blissful moments when we have just the right amount of work, Goldilocks moments–our calendars aren’t too cold or too hot. We are making reasonable revenue but we can get home for supper on time. The problem is that “just enough” will often quickly fall back into not enough. Your pipeline has air bubbles in it; expansion, R&D or payroll will soon demand more resources, even though there isn’t current capacity for it. If you have just enough and you’re in growth stage, productivity figures flatten out. If you’re slipping from a previous glut of work, productivity figures fall.

And then there is the experience that most of us are familiar with– you have more than you can reasonably do, particularly if you value balance in your life. Your best employees are swamped, your days are stretched, and the satisfaction of completing a job is replaced with the stress of seeing your list of responsibilities grow while you’re trying desperately to finish up the last project. Emails alone can feel like a floodtide that has no end until it drowns you.

Here are three things to try that can change how you think about, feel about and handle too much work:

1. Organize it. Until you have a complete list of all your projects and tasks, it is hard to know whether you’re looking at      inadequate time and project management, inappropriate delegation of tasks (to you or others), poor discrimination on your part when accepting responsibility, or a true need to build additional capacity in your team. And without a complete list you are in a weak position to lobby senior leaders to either prune your responsibilities or add positions.

2. Reframe it. Stop catastrophizing the situation with labels that mischaracterize an overabundance of work as “Too much!”, “Drowning!”, “Swamped!” or “Buried!” Your actions, emotions and thinking will tend to follow the views you espouse, so talk to yourself and others using specific, realistic descriptions and solution based statements–“I need to get control of my workflow.” The reality is that you do have an abundance of possible tasks, and they put pressure on you to better manage your work flow and selection.

3. Choose Wisely. Whether you choose your projects or they’re chosen for you the key is to choose wisely.

If someone is pressuring you to take on additional tasks, when you can’t get done what you have on your list and you’re sure that you are already working pretty efficiently, involve the delegator in helping to choose your priorities. Be certain that you both agree on what can get done during your work time.

If you choose your own clients or projects, slow down and choose who and what are going to be the most important in the long run. This is a time to not let urgency-today’s interests or crisis–take precedence over your long-term goals. Having too many projects allows you to raise the quality of your clients, take on the most productive or lucrative ventures and prune out low-return undertakings.

We simply have the time we have. We can invest it in complaining and ineffective processes or we can focus on strategic choices and thoughtful organization. Be clear about what responsibilities you’ve accepted; think and talk about them in realistic, positive terms; and make a commitment to cautiously choose what you add to your plate.

We can help you learn the skills necessary to manage your workflow and to relentlessly implement those skills when the pressure is on.