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Hey, procrastinator: Don’t you dare bookmark this to read later. “Watercooler Wisdom” co-author Karen Leland reveals the four habits followed by efficient people. Here is an excerpt:
In 1956, George Miller wrote a paper entitled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.” He had discovered that people can only focus on five to nine things at a time — anything beyond this has to be held in the unconscious mind. For most of us, it would be a dream come true if we only had to focus on five — or even nine — things! Unfortunately, in today’s work environment we too often have to do too much in too little time, with too little energy and too little focus.
A recent study by the Families and Work Institute found that a full third of Americans are overworked; more than 50 percent of those surveyed said they are either handling too many tasks at the same time or are frequently interrupted during the workday — or both. In short, we are overloaded. Is it any wonder, then, that we have trouble getting jobs started, keeping them going, or finishing them up?
One of my clients Suzanne, a financial advisor, put it this way:
“My inbox has been piling up for weeks with items that would be good for business. I want to take some action on them but because none of them are really urgent I never get around to them. The pile is getting so high that things are beginning to fall off onto my desk! Every time I look at the stack I feel defeated, but I just don’t know where to start.”
You know what you need to do. You know why you need to do it. You even know what steps you must take to get it done. But there’s one small problem: You can’t seem to get moving. It’s a common problem. Maybe it’s chronic procrastination or maybe you’re just so overwhelmed that you feel paralyzed. Either way, the task you must complete is just sitting there, gathering metaphorical (or perhaps literal) dust, and growing more ominous by the day.
Smart and savvy business people use four habits to get themselves to take action, even in tough times. These habits act as an inoculation against procrastination.
Habit No. 1: Chunking down: Focus on the trees, not the forest
In the computer world, chunking means to break things into bits. To chunk down is to move from a whole to its parts; to chunk up is to move from parts to a whole, or from the specific to the general. Chunking your projects and goals down into smaller pieces will help you take action more quickly and easily, while at the same time helping to combat the feeling of too much to do.
The following case study examines how Jack and Sharon, first-time authors, used chunking down to achieve their goal of publishing a book: For several years, Jack and Sharon had wanted to write a book about their travel experiences in Italy. They had gotten as far as writing down some of the stories they wanted to include in the book. They took several classes on how to write travel books, but came out feeling even more confused than when they’d started. However, “One thing all the classes emphasized was to write a book proposal first,” said Jack. “So we knew this would be a good place to start.”
Traditional project management advises taking a large project — such as Jack and Sharon’s plan to write a book — and breaking it down into predictable and logical milestones. In the case of publishing a book, these milestones might include:
Step 1: Write the book proposal.
Step 2: Submit the book proposal to a list of qualified agents.
Step 3: Follow up with agents.
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Step 4: Sign with an agent.
The problem is that while these milestones may be logical and predictable, they may still be too large to handle — physically, mentally, or emotionally.
Jack and Sharon felt that the first step, writing the book proposal, was too much to take on; it just seemed overwhelming. Their solution was to break up this first step by chunking it down into eight smaller, more actionable micro-milestones. Their new plan looked like this:
Step 1: Write a two-page overview of the book.
Step 2: Write our one-page authors' biography.
Step 3: Research on Amazon to find similar books already in print.
Step 4. Write a comparison book write-up.
Step 5: Write a chapter-by-chapter outline.
Step 6: Write a sample chapter.
Step 7: Write a marketing plan.
Step 8: Put all the above together into polished book proposal form.
Jack and Sharon then set deadlines for each of these smaller actions, and created a time-plan (see habit No. 3) that specified the dates and time periods when they would do their writing and research.
“Amazingly,” says Sharon, “we completed all these steps for writing the book proposal within the set time frame and then took the same approach with the other milestones in the project, breaking them down into smaller actions. It took us six months of working like this, but we are now ready to find an agent and move on to getting our book published.”
Habit No. 2: Take energetic credit for completion
When we have a big goal or task to work on, many of us wait — unnecessarily and sometimes to our detriment — until the entire project is finished before we experience any sense of completion, satisfaction, or accomplishment.
Often, even though we’re achieving pieces of our projects and goals all the time, we don’t fully acknowledge them. The most productive people we know are in the habit of enthusiastically taking energetic credit for any action they complete, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant. These people know not to wait until the big item is 100 percent done before experiencing closure. Rather, they generate energy all along the way by recognizing each item they complete.
Habit No. 3: Time-planning: Put a stop to putting it off
Smart people are in the habit of using a time-plan to get beyond procrastination. A time-plan is a method of assigning blocks of time to those items you want to get done (but not a minute-by-minute description of your day!). To harvest the power of planning and create your own time-plan, follow these two easy steps:
Step 1: Identify your power times for different types of activities.
Everyone has high and low periods of energy, attention and focus. By knowing and understanding your own energy patterns you can create a time-plan that takes advantage of your personal rhythms. Reflect on your own energy patterns. When are your power times? Some questions that may help you:
- Do you like to plan for the next day, on the morning of the day or the night before?
- What is your most creative time during the day?
- Do you have an easier time doing difficult tasks earlier or later in the day?
Use your power times to take on your most difficult items. Use your down time for more routine items and errands.
Step 2: Set aside blocks of time for getting certain things done.
Keeping in mind your power times, go through your calendar and schedule a specific day and period of time when you will work on an item. Time periods ranging from 15 minutes to 2 hours are most effective. Every hour or so, schedule a ten-minute break from your task; this will both keep your brain from getting tired and give it a chance to process any information, so that you can return to your project refreshed.
Lastly, don’t just plan your time in your head — write it down! Whether you use a PDA, a calendar contact program, or a plain old date book, keeping a written record of your time-plan is key.
Habit No. 4: Resist the lure of the trivial
How much of your valuable time and energy at work is taken up with trivial distractions that have no positive long-term impact on your life but do have a negative short-term effect on your productivity and sense of accomplishment? For example, gossiping with co-workers in the break room, surfing the Net for hot eBay buys, cleaning out your pencil cup, etc. Know that resisting trivial distractions and facing the more challenging and significant tasks before you leads to a greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Making those more significant tasks ‘A’ priorities, whether they are time sensitive or not, helps to bring them to the top of the heap.
About the authors
Karen Leland and Keith Bailey are authors of “Watercooler Wisdom: How Smart People Prosper in the Face of Conflict, Pressure and Change” and co-founders of Sterling Consulting Group.
Excerpted with permission from “Watercooler Wisdom: How Smart People Prosper in the Face of Conflict Pressure and Change.”
© 2012 MSNBC Interactive. Reprints
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