Time Management Expert, Event Speaker: Mark Lamendola

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Productivity Knowledge Base: When Productivity is a Dirty Word

Productivity enhancement efforts often bomb, despite management's high hopes and complete backing. Why is this?

Productivity enhancement isn't something you install, like a light bulb. It's something you do as a team. However, many well-meaning people forget this--or never knew it.

Many productivity efforts require changing work methods. Keep in mind that the typical front-line worker has a work ethic that is based primarily on personal pride in a job well-done and in giving a good day's work for a good day's pay. When you come out and say, "Well, you are now going to do things this way instead of how you have been doing them," what do you think that person actually hears?

You probably know what is going to come next.

That person hears that you are saying s/he is lazy, stupid, or deficient in some other way. You have insulted that person and simultaneously insinuated you are superior. This is not a recipe for success or for building team spirit.

So, what should you do instead? You'll find that our in our productivity seminars.

Keep in mind that productivity enhancement isn't just another project. It's the way your  company can stay competitive. If you fail at this effort, your company will start a downward slide into oblivion. Perhaps it already has. Even if you are busy, are you really making good margins on your projects? Do you even know the answer?

 

 

More thoughts on time management

The phrase "time management" is an unfortunate language quirk. You can't really manage time. It just is. You can't gain time, create time, or even lose time. Time is what it is, regardless of what we do. And, paradoxically, many common "time management" techniques and practices are timewasters because they divert limited resources (such as time) to the wrong things.

It would be better to say "time allocation" or "activity management" "time usage" or some other phraseology to indicate that it's not time itself you're managing but how you use the time that exists. But we'll use the common terminology here to avoid confusion.

Some things time management is not:

  • Being more efficient. Suppose you become very efficient at making buggy whips. Does this fact mean you are managing your time well?
  • Getting more done in a given amount of time. Getting more done of what? And to what degree of quality? If you rake the leaves on a lawn from one side to the other all day long, does that mean you are a good time manager?
  • Being able to juggle multiple priorities. Instead of juggling priorities, assign priorities. First tend to the urgent things, then the most important things.
  • Mastering multi-tasking. This concept conflicts with what we know about the human brain. If you buy into this self-defeating, time-wasting, quality-killing ideology, you might also be interested in practicing solo flight by flapping your arms frantically.
  • Working faster. No, this mode is how you make mistakes that you subsequently have to spend more time fixing.

Some things good time management involves:

  • Deciding what to do. This is trickier than it sounds. Which is why there are time management experts.
  • Deciding what not to do. This is even trickier than deciding what to do. Which is why there are time managers and why discipline is a huge, huge factor in accomplishing this.
  • Deciding what to do when, and in what order. In essence, prioritization.
  • Determining the scope, goals, and metrics for each activity you undertake. In this area, we the find most room for improvement. Precision here allows you to avoid waste on the one hand, and falling short on the other.
  • Planning out the work, task, project, or activity such that you determine the necessary steps to quality completion. That is, what must you do to meet the intended goal and quality metrics?
  • Identifying unnecessary steps. Get this right, and you can cut your wasted hours significantly.
  • Figuring out what resources to use. Not all resources applicable to a task are equal. Picking the right tool for the job saves time, improves quality, and makes life less stressful.

We've highlighted only some of the factors involved in good time management. We actually teach extreme time management, which is a methodology that allows you to make effective use of your time almost second nature. You don't need a complicated system. Our system puts many of the variables on autopilot, so you have more time to do what you need to do. Our system goes way beyond most other systems in results, yet is far simpler.

Contact us for a presentation to your organization: comments @ mindconnection.com (remove the spaces after pasting into your e-mail client's "to" box.