Controlling your workload

Not being a great talker, I often wonder at those who love to talk.
When I’m coaching people, there are those who will answer a question with a huge amount of detail and not easily get to the point and others who will say “don’t know” as an initial reaction (and of course a whole range in between!)

Recently someone said to me “it’s good to talk” and that made me stop in my tracks: was I encouraging too much talking because my natural tendency is to need to be drawn out to talk?
It’s said the ratio of listening to talking is naturally 2:1 because we have 2 ears and 1 mouth! What about you? Do you have enough people who’ll really listen to you, or would you value someone doing that while you talk?

I was brought up on the phrase ‘children should be seen and not heard’; hardly conducive to being prepared for being asked for an opinion on things and having something ready to say! Sometimes asking people what they think after “don’t know” works fine, because they just haven’t worked the pros and cons yet, but if you’ve not learned to list them, or brainstorm ideas, conversation can be slow-going.

(I would recommend Toastmasters for working up an opinion on things: we talk about all sorts of topics in Bournemouth and every meeting there is a chance to speak ‘off the cuff’ for 1-2 minutes, not to mention listening to others’ opinions through their speeches.)
Shirley Thompson - The Desk Coach
Time Management and Motivation Specialist
Tel: 01425 480631

Do you know how you make decisions?

On my NLP Practitioner course (thanks Mavis Kerrigan at SmallSteps Giant Leaps) I learned my consideration steps, based on our ’senses’ - e.g what do I think about them, are they value for money, how do they feel, how do they look, what will others think?
And the consideration is wider than that - I probably need a deadline to go buy a pair of shoes!

Considering we make many decisions in any day (eg 221 about food! ) is it any wonder our brains use a ‘process’ for decision-making. Apparently there is a distinguishable sequence of checks when a decision is called for. Can you discern this in yourself?

It’s a great process to have - the faster we decide, the faster we get on and do! One of my clients recently highlighted a newly-realised weakness - spending too much time wondering how to cope with so many things to do, rather than doing them!

How many decisions will you make today?

Shirley Thompson - The Desk Coach
Time Management and Motivation Specialist
Tel:  01425 480631

How frustrating do you find it when people focus in on detail, when the point of your current conversation is to discuss the bigger picture?

Despite understanding people have different preferences, (and normally being a very considerate person,)I can start to tense when the person I’m talking to is so clever in their (detail) field but fails to get above that to purpose, value and direction. Will they play in their sandbox for ever? Does anyone else exist in their world? (And my criticism of others probably highlights I exhibit these traits when those around me talk about even bigger picture ideas!)

Do you find big picture people tend more to know what they want in their career, seem confident about what want they want out of life, have a vision and direction? (And detailed people are more self-reliant, happy to play, passionate about their focus?)

Do you want to

1. ‘play in a sandbox’ in life, so rarely alter the bigger picture?

2. influence the community you’re in?

Does it depend on how high you want to ‘helicopter’ and the breadth of your picture (and influence)?

Shirley Thompson - The Desk Coach
Time Management and Motivation Specialist
Tel:  01425 480631

For many in small business, time management seems to be a case of balancing a list of ‘active’ projects with a list of ‘potential’ projects so that the rate of work, and income, is at least constant!  And often projects are all deliberately different in terms of the work one has to do, to help the cashflow situation.

One challenge is the blurring of ‘active’ and ‘potential’: once a client expectation is given, the project is ‘active’ even if nothing is going to happen immediately.

Another is the ‘juggling’ that can occur, based on issues arising on different projects when ‘waiting for’ action from someone else or even changes in project requirements. Sometimes, keeping projects ‘woolly’ has apparent advantages to both sides.

What can you measure when in this situation, to ensure you’ve got some kind of control in number and extent of projects? One suggestion: work out the height of the “active project mountain”: in other words your total work to do: there’s generally a ceiling for this that suits you (eg to feel unpressured) and you know the lowest point, where you want to add something to the active pile and top it up again eg if 6 weeks is about right for your type of work, then you might top it up if it got down to 4 weeks.  Another suggestion, which is better if things have got slightly out of hand: keep your active project list to those things you have to work on in the next month (or other time period) and relegate everything else to ‘potential’ (and keep all your stakeholders informed of course) !

Shirley Thompson - The Desk Coach
Time Management and Motivation Specialist
Tel:  01425 480631

If we’re focussed on day-to-day operations too much, we can get stuck just looking at those, rather than what is important for the longer term.

It’s rather akin to doing too much day-to-day on email, or spending too much time with employees, or wallowing in the success of of current activities!

Of course cash-flow is important and you need to keep on top of that, particularly in small business, but how sure are you that you’re using your time wisely from an investment perspective? Who else could/should be monitoring (or gathering) day-to-day results for you, so that you can think at a higher level about your business?

Business coaches would probably prompt you by asking you about your exit strategy! What other longer term projects do you have?
When doing my initial client assessment, I investigate what their diary looks like. The client knows what is right or wrong, and will suddenly see a problem, if they see a diary full of meetings, checking up on employees and operations. When will they take time out to think?

It’s common to assess you’ll take that issue home with you and spend time over the weekend, but are you sure you’re fresh enough to give it serious consideration? It may well be you need to get away from the office environment, during the week, to look at the issue, but when exactly will you do it? And can you do it all on your own?
Shirley Thompson - The Desk Coach
Time Management and Motivation Specialist
Tel: 01425 480631 Email: info@desk-coach.co.uk

Sometimes we have a way of doing things that just gets ‘in the way’.

A client last year had a (complicated?) ‘3-pile’ system for communicating with a book-keeping service. Communications tended to be ’slow’ and the piles were on the desk ‘just in case’ there was a query, or spare few minutes to deal with the paperwork. How tempting do you think it was to let the piles increase and get more behind? How often do you think paperwork got ‘lost’?
What came to mind when putting thought focus on how the desk was being used? It became obvious (to the client) to swap items on a side table with the invoicing paperwork and assign time to address it more regularly - away from the desk where he did most of his client work.

When did you last consider how you’re using your desk?

Shirley Thompson - The Desk Coach
Time Management and Motivation Specialist
Tel: 01425 480631 Email: info@desk-coach.co.uk