Productivity Field Guide

How do you catch more fish, as a metaphor for winning more deals or completing more projects on time or getting promoted? It’s all about winning more often, so how do we do it, win? Is it timing? Is it a natural born talent? Or? Is it knowing where to stand? The grizzly that has figured out where to stand catches the most salmon. The equivalent in selling of knowing where to stand is knowing where to spend your time. It's what Jack Daly calls High Payoff Activities (HPA). The best salespeople know where to stand. They work on HPAs. What's an HPA? An HPA is simply any activity that generates more business. If you aren't careful, you'll be spending 50% or more of your time on busy work. Make a list of the HPAs, and question everything else: · can you ignore it, · can you delegate it, or · can you delay it till a non-prime time? Skip the to-do list. Jack suggests working off a calendar instead of a to-do list. I couldn't agree more. I scan my emails [applying lessons learned from Getting-Things-Done author, David Allen]: · to delete what's possible · complete anything I can do in less than 2 minutes, or · move it to a "processing" folder. I empty my inbox about every hour or two. When I work through the "processing" folder, I think through each email: what's the work that needs to be done: study? respond? create? organize? I use outlook on both my MacBook and my ThinkPad. On my mac, I tap with two fingers to trigger the right click options. I select create - new appointment to create a calendar entry. On ThinkPad, I have a quick action built to "book time" (creates an appointment with text of message). This is where you do the preprocessing. Think through what you want to do before you hit save. The trick is you don't want to consider it again. When it comes time to act on the email, you can act, not think through it again. You have room on both platforms to write a note to yourself above the email and keep track of progress. If I'm not able to finish in the time allotted, I make a note of my progress and reschedule. Every action requires time. If a message is worth acting on, then it's worth scheduling the time to act. When you use a to-do list, you are in effect saying, "I hope to make time to work on this someday." What if it isn't from email? I use the note app on my phone. It's quick, easy to use, and saves in the cloud. I have a few standard lists: · Books recommended · store -- things to buy next time · writing prompts · good ideas · tasks noticed to complete around the house, etc... I process these notes about once a week. Same idea as the emails. I schedule a time to get it done. The exception are small tasks at home. I just work through the smaller tasks at my leisure on weekends. At home, I use google docs for organizing information, and at work, I use OneNote and SharePoint. I love OneNote for its ease of use and mobile access. I have a notebook with several tabs: daily journal, external clients, internal clients, key vendors, process notes, tools. I share the notebook with my team. Routines help me save space for HPAs. The routine of capturing work and ideas builds the trust that projects will not be dropped. The trust is in myself. I can rest at ease that I'm not forgetting anything important. I can focus on the HPAs without worrying about the little things falling through the cracks. One more routine is Friday afternoon planning. I put in the Big Rocks (Steven Covey) for next week. The Big Rocks are the important but not urgent activities that will be missed if not scheduled first: prospecting, training, exercise. By living off my calendar, I am more honest about my time and spend my time more wisely. I use my time on purpose, more productively. It's always a work in progress. These are just a few of my ideas. Greg