Do You Practice Single-Tasking or Prefer Multi-Tasking?

 Today’s business professionals are expected to wear more hats than years before, pushing themselves to get more done in less time, and that can make it appealing to multi-task. Unfortunately, in reality, multi-tasking has the opposite effect on one’s productivity, minimizing outputs and increasing stress. It’s a lose-lose situation!

Instead, let us take time to celebrate today’s Single Tasking Day. 

While projects are a conglomeration of different tasks, if you break projects down into individual tasks and create a list of what tasks need to be done, you can work your way down the list, one by one by one. Start each task with a verb that drives action, assign a “when” for each “what” to be accomplished and set a timer for how long you can block out distractions to focus your efforts on each of those tasks.

Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m not discounting the value of simul-tasking, but that is very different from multi-tasking. Whereas multi-tasking involves bouncing between two tasks that require thought and focus, simul-tasking involves pairing any activity that requires thought (like reading your daily feed of blog posts) with an activity that can be done mostly automatically (like walking on a treadmill). Simul-tasking can help mark two things off your to-do list at once; however, it does require just the right pairing of activities, and it’s not always possible to find tasks that can be done without thinking.

As you are working on single tasking, consider the interruptions you face in a typical workday, whether that’s emails, calls, texts, folks stopping by your office, pings or dings of notifications and more. If you are accustomed to responding immediately to each of those emails, calls, texts, visitors and notifications, consider this: Those folks reaching out to you don’t know if you are sitting at your desk or in a meeting; if you block off a bit of time to really focus on the task at hand and respond to those needing your attention once you are done, those folks will assume you’ve been in a meeting, you get more accomplished in less time and you no longer have that task hanging over your head as an item you must do.

Take action and attempt single tasking this week. Then, let me know how it works for you. I’d love to hear your successes or what you found most challenging about it!

Top 10 Ways To Make Email a Better Productivity Tool

Did you know that the average business professional gets at least 150 new emails each workday? I have clients that can easily reach 300 or 400 new emails on any given day, and many of them feel strongly that handling email is a very time-consuming aspect of the workday... Wow! It can make you wonder how any real work gets done amidst simply reading all those messages.

While there are countless tools and techniques that'll help you use email to organize for success while getting more done in less time and quickly finding what you need, here are a few solutions I have found to offer the greatest results:

1. Shift your mentality from "checking" to "processing" your email so your email inbox is no longer a holding zone:

• Tasks taking less than 5 minutes should be done when the message is received while tasks taking longer should be added to your running to-do list
• Appointment requests should be moved to your calendar
• Reference emails should be quickly moved to personal folders
• Trash is not really junk and should be moved to the trash

2. If the average person needs anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes or more to really refocus after any distraction, don't make email a distraction; think of OHIO and "only handle it once" for each message, including reading and processing each email.

3. It is easier to quickly find what you need when you need it if you aren't searching through electronic clutter; therefore, there is no need to hold onto whatever is no longer accurate, applicable, useful or bringing you joy. Further, when determining what to save or delete, consider what can be easily located online later... There's no need to take up valuable space on your computer when you can easily find that information online whenever it is needed.

4. Send fewer emails to get fewer emails back. Although it sounds simple when stated like that, we are in a society trained to quickly shoot out an email when we need to tell or ask someone something. This can be excellent for having documentation of your communications; however, one simple phone call can element quite a bit of back-and-forth when the topic is more complex or when you need an answer to included questions.

5. Unsubscribe from eNewsletters you aren't reading; otherwise, consider culling subscriptions you maintain and stay up-to-date reading in a daily "roll-up" or "bundle" via Unroll.me.

6. Master the art of creating reference folders by having enough that each email to be kept has a home while limiting the number of folders so no one email could appropriately fit in multiple. If you struggle with where to file a message upon its receipt, how will you ever be able to locate it again later?

7. Utilize automated rules to sort email into folders... Highlight what needs time-sensitive attention by directing it into a folder designated to that particular sender or subject line topic. Cull together what can be attended to more conveniently on a later date and time, setting messages from that sender to bypass the inbox and go to a separate Personal Folder all their own.

8. Better employ all the features offered by your email management tool, like Delay Send, Send Again, Meeting Requests and renaming your received emails' subject lines.

9. If you have been emailing someone back and forth, each subsequent email contains all the content of the prior emails so keep only the most recent message in a conversation; in newer versions of Outlook, clear such clutter with the "clean-up" button on Outlook's home ribbon.

10. If an out-of-date email address keeps populating when you are trying to send a message, there are options for removing an erroneous email address. As you start typing in Outlook's "to" field, press the down arrow to highlight the erroneous address and, then, hit DELETE; in Mac Mail, populate the erroneous address in an new email message and, then, click the arrow on the far right to select "Remove from Previous Recipients". Problem solved!

I'm working on an eBook about how to "Use Email to Organize for Success and Get More Done in Less Time" and could use your input... What techniques have made it easier for you to management your email?

Overwhelmed By All That Needs To Be Done?

If your memory is anything like mine, it's just not possible to remember every little thing that pops into your brain, let alone all the requests, to-do's, phone calls, etc. Some things pop in and out of my brain fairly quickly, making it so very important to write things down. In fact, I've found the saying "what is written down gets accomplished" to be very true but only when done in a way that works for me. Operating directly out of my running list on a day-to-day basis can be quite overwhelming; however, I've adapted the process into a technique that has proven effective for many of my clients and might be helpful for you, too.

Everywhere I go, I always have with me a small, lined notebook. From a psychological perspective, it's important that the notebook is in a color or pattern that makes me happy and puts a smile on my face, making me more likely to use it and not avoid it. A good example of something that would work for this notebook is Franklin Covey's Floral Lined Journal, which can be found at http://bit.ly/azyfPl, or Wellspring's Flip Notes, which can be found at http://bit.ly/auIkcQ. For individuals that prefer electronic solutions over paper solutions, the Notes or Evernote applications on any smart phone can work, too. My notebook serves as a "master to-do list", basically a data-dump. When a to-do item, an idea, a voice mail message I must return, meeting notes or the like arises, it gets written in my notebook, freeing my mind for what pops-up next or, better yet, to focus on the day's priorities.

Then, at the end of each day, I review my "master to-do list" for what are the next day's priorities, pulling 3 - 5 items which absolutely must be completed. In my strategy session, I review upcoming appointments that require planning, pending deadlines and what appointments are scheduled the next day requiring certain preparation or that I take related items with me, taking into consideration anything impacting what are those 3 - 5 action items. With all that gets thrown at me (and my clients) during any given day, I find that 3 - 5 action items are about all that can be planned in advance while realistically expecting them to be completed. Finally, those 3 - 5 action items are written on a 3"x5" index card, something to keep in front of me when working on my computer or carry with me between that day's appointments.

If you take just a few moments at the end of today to plan for tomorrow, it could make a world of difference in how your day goes, enabling you to accomplish more and avoid overwhelm from what's not important or not time-sensitive. How do you currently handle your to-do items? Is your system working? If it is working, what do you like best about your system? On the other hand, if it is not working, what frustrates you most about your current system for handling to-do items?