Be More Productive by Making Better Daily Choices

The quest for efficiency and productivity improvement that permeates the corporate world trickles down from entire organizations, to teams, to projects and, finally, to individuals. At the most personal level, we make many choices that affect our productivity. Choices as simple as whether we use on-line banking, have a face-to-face meeting or set up a WebEx or Telepresence conference, send a written thank you note or an e-mail. Most of the time, the same technology that enables each and every one of us to multi-task and be always "on call" and consider trade-offs that didn't exist in the past.

As a working mother, these trade-offs that affect my personal productivity go far beyond the corporate environment. For example, a few years ago I requested a parent-teacher teleconference or Skype conference because I could not be at the school in person on a given day. That was a completely new experience for the teacher (and for me) but created an alternative way to have a parent-teacher conference for many other parents. When one year I accepted the challenge of being the PTO President for my children's school, I persuaded some of the PTO committee leads to run their "meetings" via conference calls. The key lesson learned was that most systems that are effective in the corporate environment can also increase productivity in our personal lives.

This programmatic approach to managing our personal lives calls for thinking about our day-to-day duties as a collection of small projects. Whether you label your to-dos "projects" or something else, at the end of the day, each line item is a exactly that: a project. Therefore, the way we manage work projects is perfectly applicable. Prioritizing, sequencing, delegating, and thinking from right to left should be part of our personal lives just as it is part of our business lives. Try planning the week in advance. Think about everything that needs to be accomplished that week and then put in buckets: (1) needs to be done in person (or requires driving), (2) can resolved by e-mail or phone and (3) can be delegated (to husband, children, baby-sitter, assistant or friend, etc).

Then allocate times to "get stuff done" — for example, email tasks can be done out of commercial hours but "needs-to-be done in-person" tasks will likely be performed during work hours. Regarding these tasks, consider itineraries: anything that can be dropped-off, picked up on the way to work, for example. I know it sounds basic and intuitive, but without a systematic approach, how many times do we find ourselves going back-and-forth just because we didn't take five minutes to think about what needed to be done and how the task could be accomplished. I would even suggest having a running list of things to be done in a certain part o the city, or on rainy weekends (e.g., that closet that needs to be organized).

Finally, once you delegate something, disengage from the temptation of inspecting the process or finding out if it is being done "your" way. Agree on the expected outcomes and just let go. I've lost count of how many times I have seen managers delegating the development of a presentation to an employee and then spending more time in edits, changes, and corrections than if they had done it themselves. Had the manager agreed on the expected outcome and then stepped out of the way, the process would have been much more efficient and the end product most like much better.

The same is true at home. Last weekend a friend decided that her husband would be in charge of putting up holiday decorations with the children. After their third trip to the hardware store to buy yet a new string of lights — the previous couple of trips yielded light strings that were either too short, had the wrong color string, or both — she called me in desperation, ready to run intervention. My only advice: "disengage."

Accept the fact that you delegated and they are not doing it in the most efficient way you would have done (hopefully, in a single trip to the store). Had my friend intervened — the equivalent to micromanaging or taking over at work — she would have created a lot of frustration and would have spoiled all the fun. The same is true for your employees.

Finally, keep one list only for all your obligations: work and personal. Prioritize by level of urgency and criticality. Otherwise, you will end up prioritizing twice. This will also make it easier to communicate to your family or co-workers why you can, can't, will, or won't make certain commitments. This blog, for example, topped my projects list for today. I hope it is helpful and am looking forward to hearing what works for you.

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Original Page: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/ghsJ8IF1dqU/the_quest_for_efficiency_and.html

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