As Karen walked to her office, her boss intercepted her in the hallway with a question.
“Where is the new timeline for the Jenkins project?”
“Ugh…”, Karen thought.
She was supposed to have given her boss the revised timeline for a client project last Friday.
Today was Tuesday.
After apologizing for her lateness and promising to submit it by 3:00 pm that day, Karen walked into her office and closed the door. She put her things down on her desk, turned away from her computer and just stood there, staring out the window.
How could she have forgotten the Jenkins timeline? It was one of their biggest projects right now.
What happened?
As Karen reflected on the prior week, she started recalling what it had been like. Not an unusual week, by any means, but she remembered having a lot of back-to-back meetings during the week. On top of that, Karen remembered how busy Wednesday and Thursday had been in particular.
On those days, it seemed that every time she had a little time to get something done, she was interrupted by a phone call, an email notification, a text or a person standing at her door requesting her input on one of the many projects they were working on.
On many occasions, Karen had to stop what she was doing to address a requests from others. For instance, Bob had stopped by to ask her to look at new logo ideas for a client. He was stuck on a concept that needed a fresh pair of eyes. That conversation turned into a 35-minute discussion that involved 2 more individuals before it was wrapped up.
On another occasion, Karen had been interrupted by Jane, a colleague who had asked for a document she needed a few days prior, but Karen hadn’t sent it.
Karen remembers hunting for the document, finding it 20 minutes later in an email that was still in her Inbox. She had made the quick revisions necessary before emailing it to Jane and had felt bad that Jane had been waiting on her.
At other times, Karen was so distracted by email notifications—afraid to miss something important—or side-tracked by the sudden remembrance of a forgotten follow-up. This always broke her train of thought, which took time away from the task at hand.
What had piled up on Karen’s desk often caught her eye as well and reminded her of tasks undone. That’s how Karen felt lately. Like her work was never done. And worse, she had no time, so how was she supposed to get so many things accomplished in so little time?
Karen’s day is not an uncommon one. And unfortunately, how she’s working is actually working against her. But Karen is not aware of what’s happening. She only knows that she’s feeling behind, stressed out, and like she’s letting everyone down.
If you can relate in any way, you may be working reactively like Karen. She is VERY reactive to what’s going on around her, letting what’s happening in her workday dictate how she spends her time.
As a result, Karen is not in charge of her time.
Karen is also missing a reliable way to keep track of what she needs to do and because of this she is not stronger than the interruptions and distractions around her.
If this is true for you, too, you will continue to work reactively.
But your goal is to work more proactively and productively, so you can make more progress.
The way to shift from reactive to proactive—or to make any change you want—is by first raising your awareness. If you want to be more efficient, productive and successful—and a LOT less stressed—it’s ESSENTIAL to have 100% awareness of HOW you’re working today.
If your workday is not working for you, it’s time to pay attention to how you’re managing tasks, where your time is going, and how you’re managing email.
Here are a few questions to ask and answer so you can increase awareness of how you’re working.
Do you…
…work more consciously (proactively and with purpose) or unconsciously (reactively)?
…get distracted during the day? Sometimes, often or all the time?
…get interrupted during the day? Sometimes, often or all the time?
…get sidetracked during the day? Sometimes, often or all the time?
…waste time looking for papers, to-do lists, documents, emails or attachments?
…try to multi-task to get things done?
…jump from one task to another without finishing the first task?
…flag emails to return to later?
…use an all-day, open-door policy?
…respond to emails as they appear?
…always pick up the phone when it rings, no matter what you’re working on?
…apologize to others for missing deadlines or follow-ups?
After raising awareness, change is required in order to get your balance back and make strong, steady progress moving forward without getting easily sidetracked, interrupted or distracted.
Here are 3 things to have in place in your workday to reduce reactivity and increase proactivity in your workday.
- Reliability
A to-do list on paper (or several to-do lists) will NEVER bridge the gap where a task management system should be. That’s like referencing a big stack of disorganized business cards on your desk instead of using a CRM or contact management system for keeping track of contacts. It’s just not efficient.
What you need a quick, easy and reliable method for managing tasks—an all-inclusive system that includes ALL tasks from ALL sources, which number more than 10 in a typical workday. The system should be central, digital and complete.
Without an approach like this, you’re left using paper or planners to try to manage things to do PLUS you’re referencing all of those sources of tasks in your day as well. Those include the email Inbox, the papers and files on your desk, meeting notes, your calendar, an excel spreadsheet and so many more.
With this approach, you’re left with checking all of those sources—along with your legal pad or planner—and then you try to remember the most important tasks you’ve seen in each location. Then you try to plan and prioritize in your head. This is when things slip through the cracks.
What you need to know is that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to plan, prioritize and accomplish tasks while trying to manage them ONLY from their sources, without missing, losing or forgetting something—or a LOT of things. - Clarity
When you’re crystal clear about EVERYTHING you need to do, it’s so MUCH easier to plan and prioritize accurately, and make smart decisions about how to spend your time.
When you have all tasks in your view, you have 100% awareness, which makes it easy to compare tasks and prioritize.
Decisions are easier to make: THIS task must to be done today. THAT task must wait until next week.
And with clarity of tasks you’ll also gain an increased sense of urgency on your most important tasks and daily priorities. When clarity and urgency go up, you’ll suddenly become more protective of your time, knowing that certain tasks MUST be accomplished each day—and why.
This comes from an understanding that time is not replaceable. That it must not be wasted, but protected, which leads to #3… - Time
It is difficult to make steady progress on your work when you have no time to do it. And when you’re booked solid—or worse, over-booked—it’s impossible to turn on a dime, be responsive, and take care of the unexpected in addition to taking care of tasks and emails.
To be able to handle all of that, you must PROTECT time on your calendar. Every day.
First, be sure your calendar is not over-booked with back-to-back meetings or double-booked with side-by-side appointments every day.
In addition, make sure you have some white space between appointments. This is essential so you can pivot quickly and address new tasks or urgent issues without sacrificing your original plan. With a little white space you can handle the unexpected without it destroying your day.
Other ways to protect your time include shutting your door for periods of time each day and not picking up the phone every time it rings.
And finally, turn off all notifications for things like email, texts and social media. Instead of dealing with PUSH notifications all day long, you can PULL from certain sources of information when YOU want to check in. Stay focused on what YOU want to accomplish FIRST and avoid engaging in anything else until the task is finished.
When you have these three things working for you in your workday, you’ll be able to declare victory over reactivity and take over with proactivity.
Not only this, but you’ll automatically be more efficient and productive. You’ll save time, energy and effort. With more efficiency, you’ll be able to get things done faster and easier, and make more progress. You can also work more effectively so you can create higher quality work and get great results.
And when you can achieve all of this, you’ll be much happier, less stressed, more confident, and more motivated every day.
