Working smarter, more efficiently

When our to do list is long, we can be keen to find a quick productivity fix: a better app, a new method, a new book. 

But these fixes take a process and just apply it over the top of our existing behaviours, band-aid style. 

All the years we’ve been working, we’ve been forming our own habits and ways of working. That’s how we got like this!

Meanwhile, many teams and businesses have shifted and adopted some newer ways of doing things. 

Some of these are smarter and more efficient vs what we might be doing: slower, requiring more effort. 

How are you changing to smarter ways? 

Rather than stressing over our to do list or day full of meetings, we can rework the work, re-imagining how it can be done. 

There is much to learn about these newer ways. And they can be far more efficient for us than a productivity bandaid. 

Strange times call for new ideas

When the Institute for the Future called out ‘novel and adaptive thinking’ as one of those skills we’d need right about now ... do ya think they knew just how much we’d need it?

The use of the word ‘novel’ may have become a little tainted (you know, the novel coronavirus and all).

So could we say unique? Or clever? 

The thing is, these strange times call for new and quite different ideas. 

We know the clichéd group brainstorming thing doesn’t work. 

We’re better off keeping an ideas book, capturing flashes of brilliance as they arrive. 

Or getting hands-on with an idea and prototyping it, to see how well it actually works. Although getting as practical as we can as soon as we can is a totally new concept for some people. 

- Part of a team? 
Know how to bring your clever. 

- Leading a team?
Know how to bring the clever out in others. 

- Running your own show? 
Look for opportunities to use your clever .... anywhere, any time. 

Almost anything goes!

These strange times need our unusual ideas and thinking. Be braver about that. 

Hold on the judgement that what you’re thinking isn’t ‘good enough’. 

We won’t know the value of an idea ... until it’s put into practice anyway. 

When there’s just no space

Is there space in your schedule? 
◻️Yes
◻️No it’s jammed
◻️What schedule! 

When there’s no space, no breathing or regrouping space, we’re inviting overwhelm.

‘You’re welcome here overwhelm’, we say, ‘take up residence in my diary, my world, and let me struggle, wrestle and juggle with you.’

◻️When we have ‘back to backs’ all day, we’re letting overwhelm in. 

◻️When we don’t protect time, we invite more overwhelm. 

◻️And when we cave in on boundaries or limits, we let in still more. 

It’s curious how we use the word ‘overwhelm’, as in being overtaken, flooded, inundated. Space in our life is like the sand bag to a flood.

Space serves as a boundary, a buffer that cordons off and provides us with safety. 

And space is mighty valuable too; it may not be freely dispensed or offered up. 

Those who are rushed and pressured may try to squeeze your space ... to give them more space later on. 

When we give space away and yield to this pressure, we have less space. 

Check you schedule and diary.
Put some space in here and there for the next week, at least. 

And then be highly aware of who tries to take it from you ... or how easily you’re willing to give it up. 

Deciding what to do

When a to do list is full of to do, it can be challenging to work out what to do!

And even when we start doing one to do we can be distracted with the thought of all of those other to dos.

How will they get done?
When might we get started on them?
Should we switch to one of the other to dos?

It’s one thing to list out what to do ... and another of when to do it.

Rechecking our to do list and seeing whether it’s still accurate - that is, do we still need all of those to dos - is such smart use of our time.

It’s like the ‘sharpen the saw’ activity of the two tree loppers - one who kept going with a dulling blade; the other pausing to sharpen their saw and therefore make better progress.

As good as the sharpen the saw advice is, we may not want to stop our busy day to revisit what’s on our to do list. We can fear we’re wasting time or losing our flow.

But we could already be wasting time and effort working without priority.

Check or refocus on what needs to be done as a priority. The other to dos can wait awhile.

Obsessed with a detail

Missile lock.
Focused on a target, excluding everything else.
Determined.
Sticking with it.

This is singleminded focus.
And we need it in many situations.

Yet our crazy changing world requires us to also lift ourselves up out of that detail and to see the wider view.

It doesn’t mean we don’t see that task or project as important.
It doesn’t mean we won’t return to working on it.

We can get lost, blinded and ignorant to what is important and what the priority is. Just because we’re ‘in too deep’ or ‘too far gone’ doesn’t mean it’s the right path or that we can’t pause or reverse out.

The ‘sunk cost fallacy’ can drive us to continue with something because we’ve already put so much effort in.

But hey, isn’t that also a good reason to pause, and reassess if it really is still so very important?

Somewhere between persistence and stubbornness is a space ... a flexible space where we can put our attention and effort so it’s valuable, impactful ...and efficient.

If we don’t raise our eyes, lift our head and come up out of the detail, we may never see what the bigger picture is all about.

Pause for a little while.
Look up ... and around.
Reset.