Attention Management – Distractions, Part 1
Most of us do a poor job of managing our time – whoops, that’s managing our priorities. None of us actually manage time, right? Time can’t be managed. But what we DO with our time we CAN manage.
One way we manage our priorities is we choose to schedule those things that we believe are in line with our priorities. An example of that is putting meetings on our calendars that help us accomplish our projects and responsibilities. Makes sense. When we schedule a meeting, we’re saying, this is worthy of my attention. We’re managing what we attend to, we’re managing our attention.
But unfortunately many of us, no matter how good we are at scheduling those things to which we wish to attend, also are terrible at managing those things that distract us from our priorities. But if we’re going to have plenty of time for what we want to accomplish, we better not only schedule things well, but we ought to avoid distractions. And most of us are terrible at that. This cast recommends specific actions to take to reduce the pain of distractions on our effectiveness.
Attention Management - Distractions Shownotes (PDF)- Attention Management - Distractions Slides (PDF)
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Synchronicity
Check out today's Dilbert strip:
http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-04-05/
Inbox (1)
The most compelling piece of information on my computer screen has to be those words: "Inbox (1)"... even 1 email and there's a thing in me that must go and see what that's all about. It's something more than simply liking email. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
It's as if the Holy Grail is to have just "Inbox"... no number, indicating no messages, a clean inbox. Your advice on "avoid" email is highly warranted and much appreciated. But, having acknowledged that, at least some of my emails are urgent enough that they might warrant immediate action. With Google mail if I read an email and it's less important than what I'm currently doing, I can "star" it. It's there in my inbox and I can come back to it later.
It's not as effective as pure email-avoidance, but it gives me peace of mind that I'm not neglecting some burning fire... or perhaps I'm just making excuses for a nasty workplace vice: my clean inbox, ooh so shiny clean!
Ahhhhhh...
The age old problem: putting personal preference over organizational value. If only we were paid to do only stuff we liked, as opposed to stuff that creates value.
Resist the urge!
Mark
E Mail Response From Executives
I've just listened to the attention management podcast (1) and agree with practically all of it except your justification for executives not responding to E Mail. I accept that there is a time and a place for everything, but simply not bothering to repond to E Mail at any time is in my opinion just plain rude. This action seems to undo a everything a good manager / executive should be trying to achieve with those below him or her. I definitely don't think executives have a monopoly on being busy, they have the right to manage their time efficiently but not to leave their manners at home. Any way thats my gripe, other than that a great cast as always.
Regards
Vince
I understand
Vince-
I understand your point, and it's valid. And we disagree.
I know a CEO who gets 700 emails a day, from every layer of the organization. If he responded to all of them, he'd do little else. Some of it, frankly, is junk, or it's from folks who oughtn't be sending long emails to a senior executive without letting their manager know.
My inbox isn't your task list, is how I put it one time.
Mark
Bad manners? I think not.
Sorry Vince, it's probably not the answer you want, but I don't see it as poor manners at all. I get paid to respond to things that matter for the organization and they pay me more because I'm supposed to know the difference. BUT....
I instituted one on ones because I was going to be covering three administrative jobs (I am into my 8th month of this now). I did this especially since I knew I was not going to have the time to devote to pop-in meetings, sudden e-mails, etc. and so the way I needed to communicate with my staff on things I couldn't see, but mattered to them, was through their one on ones. They have paid off in so many ways I couldn't type them all. If your boss doesn't do them, then maybe you can learn to be a better boss and jump in some day.
If it is an emergent issue then I have to know in person, by phone, or through my admin - not e-mail. If it isn't emergent and they said it is, then I have to give feedback on what qualifies as an emergency (and maybe some coaching on agency values and priorities). Otherwise, the one on ones are where I expect to back and forth on things that my directs want to talk about. That's their time and I'm happy to give it.
Good day Zoeller I think you
Good day Zoeller
I think you nailed it, if you are getting unecessary E Mails deal with the root cause of the problem. Simply ignoring them and the people that wrote them doesn't build a good organisation or leave you well respected. Ignorance is not bliss.
It works
I too, work in an "e-mail culture" and this has worked wonders. While there was no perceptible difference in my relationship with external customers, I did have to do some retraining of internal customers. Saying that I retrained them is a bit of a fallacy - they just had to learn that there were ways to get a hold of me if they needed something immediately. It has also freed up my time from dealing with many requests that are frivolous on their face - people seem to hesitate to ask me because of the added effort of coming to my office for something they could probably just do themselves.
A quick tip for BlackBerry users: learn to set up filters on your BlackBerry inbox and how to configure your profiles. I receive a few emails every week that I absolutely need to know about immediately. Fortunately, they all come from the same emergency notification email address so I was able to set up my filters to deliver them as "Level 1" messages. I then configured a profile similar to the "Quiet" default profile which turns off all notification (including the flashing light) except for Level 1 messages. Now the majority of my email interruptions actually need to interrupt me.
Now if you can teach me how to manage the distractions that sit 10 feet from me in our "collaborative work environment" (read: convert-a-conference-room). (Yes, yes, I know - the peer feedback model...)
Great article in FT on Twittering Executives
I enjoyed this article on Executives distracted by Twittering and thought I would share it. My favourite line:
"Last week I met a British business leader who told me that he had just joined, but complained that he was now so focused on turning the details of his day into pithy tweets that he was finding it hard to pay attention to what he was doing. Worse, once he had composed his Tweet he felt insecure and unpopular as only three people seemed to be following him."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3bf352e8-32c4-11de-8116-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Another Trick
Part of the problem I initially faced was opening Outlook to send an email - and there are all those unread messages waiting to lure me in. This article details a method by which you can send a new mail message without opening the client at all. By using this and having Outlook minimize to my system tray instead of the task bar I can forget my inbox exists until I need it.
Focus
I recently heard an interview with Winifred Gallagher author of Rapt:Attention and the Focused Life. I haven't read the book. However, based on the interview, it is a indictment of multi-tasking. Her point is that we can only process one set of information at a time and that if we have multiple tasks to process we switch back and forth. The switching makes us less efficient and less effective at all tasks. This is consistent with most research I have read on cognitive sciences. The interesting quote from the interview was that we can process 173 billion bits of information in our life. We can't process more simply by cramming more in. We have to choose what to process. It is like money; we need to spend it wisely. I did the math. Assuming 78 year average life expectancy, that is about 100 bits a second. Think about the information on a computer screen and how many mental bits it takes to look at a single window on the screen. How many different ways can I realistically divide my 100 bits before my resolution is below utility. Not very many. Great points. Thanks for the focus.
Ed
As Kate would say....
Multi Tasking is the DEVIL!
<blockquote>The interesting
<blockquote>The interesting quote from the interview was that we can process 173 billion bits of information in our life. We can't process more simply by cramming more in. </blockquote>
I can't tell you how validating that was to hear on the radio (it was NPR, right?). I've been convinced for years that memorizing all the names (and feeding habits) of over 500 families of insects made other things fall out of my brain.
I was right! Vindication!
I can never find my keys, but if you want to know about the family of lice that only live on seals, I'm your girl.
(Also, knowing that sort of random stuff is not nearly as useful at parties as you might think.)
Was i the only one who jumped out of their skin?
Please let me know if anyone else jumped out of their skin during the middle of part 2 of this cast? Mike’s additional comments / insert of someone screaming scared me to death! I just had to comment.
James Gardner, Sales Manager, Component Force Ltd.