Archive for December, 2008

A common New Year’s resolution for business owners and entrepreneurs is to be more productive in all they do in the upcoming year. While many of us are extremely busy, few of us are extremely productive. Remember, busy ≠ productive.

If increasing your productivity is something you’re after in 2009, read on for a few recommended resources to help you along the way.

1. The Four-Hour Workweek
This book is packed full of ways to increase your productivity. I want to highlight two things that are simple and easy to apply.

The 80/20 Rule says that 80% of your output is produced by 20% of your input. For example, 80% of company sales come from 20% of customers or 80% of new sales are produced by 20% of marketing efforts. Or even, 80% of problems are caused by 20% of your employees.

On a regular basis ask yourself two questions: (1) Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes? (2) Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems?

Eliminate the tasks, projects, customers, or employees that fall outside of the 20% critical zone. You can apply this rule across virtually any business or personal situation.

Three times a day ask yourself this question: Am I being productive or just active? Are you inventing things to do to avoid doing what’s truly important? Put the question on a sticky note by your computer or set up a reminder on your phone or calendar so you see the question three times each day. If you’re just being active or doing busywork, quit and change gears immediately.

2. The Power of Full Engagement
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz say that managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance. This book details four types of energy (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) you need in order to be more productive and effective.

I recently revisited this book and pinpointed why my energy has felt low. I used to eat five small meals a day, but have gotten back into the habit of eating just three. By adding a mid-morning and min-afternoon snack I’m already feeling an energy boost and can stay focused and productive longer.

3. Getting Things Done
David Allen offers a great system for being more productive. I love systems and found this one easy to follow and implement. If you find yourself overwhelmed and unfocused by all the thoughts and ideas you have flying around in your head and/or suffer from paper or data overload, I highly recommend his book.

4. Countdown Timer
This is something I’m going to utilize in the New Year. During my review of The Power of Full Engagement I decided to try working in 90-minute intervals. Loehr and Schwartz say the longest we can focus on a task is 90-120 minutes. Using this countdown timer I’m going to try dividing my day into 90-minute intervals and will take a break away from the computer between each.

A timer can also be used to implement Parkinson’s Law, something else Ferriss talks about in The Four-Hour Workweek. Parkinson’s Law states that a task will grow in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the amount of time allocated for its completion.

The idea is to give yourself, and others, shorter deadlines in order to complete critical tasks more quickly. Most of us don’t need as much time to complete tasks as we think. 

I personally use this principle to get me moving when I’m procrastinating. I give myself a 15-minute deadline to accomplish a task and get to work. I usually accomplish it and when the 15-minutes are up, I’m ready to move on to something else—my procrastination has fallen to the wayside.

I hope you find these resources helpful as you enter into 2009. Remember, the goal isn’t to be busy, it’s to be productive. Make it a point this year to rigorously examine your work on a regular basis and make adjustments as necessary—don’t wait until 2010 to evaluate your productivity again!

I love this Dilbert cartoon because it captures the essence of managerial resistance to telecommuting, flexible work arrangements, and results-only work environments (ROWEs). If they can’t see you, they don’t know what you’re doing, and they can’t manage you.

Below are three reasons telecommuting and flexible work arrangements aren’t enough. The purpose of these types of initiatives is to create work-life balance and allow employees to experience more flexibility in how, when, and where they work. But as you’ll see below, they fall short in accomplishing those goals.

1. Not Available to Everyone

In most companies, the right to work remotely or outside of the standard 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. hours must be earned. It’s a privilege that’s rewarded to high performing employees or those that have tenure with the organization. Additionally, flexible schedules are only available for people in certain positions. If you manage others, deal directly with customers, or are an administrative assistant, your company is unlikely to think telecommuting will work with your job.

However, in a ROWE, every employee chooses where, when, and how they will work—regardless of tenure or position. It’s not a privilege; it’s just how things work in a ROWE.

2. Work-Life Balance is Not Improved

Flexible schedule is an oxymoron, isn’t it? Telecommuting and most flexible schedules are actually quite inflexible. You can telecommute one day a week, but you must choose either Monday or Friday, and that day cannot change. You can work 4-day weeks, but you choose your day off, and it cannot change.

People working in a ROWE realize you cannot prescribe what work-life balance looks like for everyone! They also recognize that life changes from day to day and week to week. Working in the office on a Monday, at home on Tuesday, and from a coffee shop near a client’s office on Wednesday may work one week, but the next week things will change. It will be off on Monday, in the office Tuesday through Friday, and working at home on Saturday. When you work on a results-only team, you rejoice in the fact that you can adjust your work schedule to fit your life as needed.

3. Control Is In Management’s Hands

In a traditional organization, employees must ask permission to telecommute or work flexible hours. It’s up to management as to whether or not the request is granted. As in the Dilbert cartoon, a manager can turn down a request to telecommute for the most ridiculous of reasons.

When you work in a results-only company, how you work is up to you. You have control, not management. Research has shown that when employees with highly demanding jobs experience a high level of control over their work, they are happier, more fulfilled, work more productively, and experience less stress. Who wouldn’t want that for their team?

What are your views on telecommuting and flexible work arrangements? Do they offer employees enough? Consider your organization’s policies around work-life balance and look into offering your team more with a results-only work environment.

Recently Plantronics held a contest to rename the telecommuter. The term “cloudworker,” coined by Venkatesh Rao, emerged as the winner. He’s even outlined a Cloudworker’s Creed on his blog. According to Rao a cloudworker is:

“Someone who uses on-demand technology and collaboration tools, such as unified communications, to work anywhere and anytime, and uses the resulting freedom to enable a my-size-fits-me career path and lifestyle. The metaphor of the cloud extends well beyond cloud computing and software as a service applications to include work environments, distributed teams, and communication tools.”

The cool thing about this definition is that it fits perfectly with our concept of workstyle design which is all about fashioning work to fit your beliefs, values, and the lifestyle you want to live. As a cloudworker, you focus on results, not time, leverage technology and have the freedom to design the way you work and live.

What do you think? Are you a cloudworker? If so, there’s a contest going on right now over at CloudWorker.org that ends December 28th. Head over and enter the Light Up Your Cloud contest by sharing your cloudworking story for a chance to win some cool prizes.

Do you think the term cloudworker adequately replaces telecommuter? Is there another term you prefer? Digital nomad? Technomad? I’d love to hear what you think. Leave me a comment below with your ideas and thoughts.

Generally speaking, society has agreed that work happens between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. And that’s when most of us work—we consider 8-5 our core hours. But is that when you work best?

I can’t imagine that every single person does their best work between the hours of 8-5. I know I don’t. I have a few good hours in there, but rarely can I focus and complete high quality work for the entire 8-hour period.

I’ve experimented and know the best hours for me to work are between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. and again from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. And on occasion, I’m really good before 8:00 a.m. and after 8:30 p.m. My husband on the other hand, does some of his best work between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. People are different. It just doesn’t make sense to put everyone in the 8-5 box.

When we work against our natural preferences and energy levels it takes much longer to finish our work. It feels different—it’s more difficult, thoughts and ideas don’t flow as easily, and we may be more apt to procrastinate. If we were able to shift our work around during the day, we’d likely see big boosts in performance, productivity, and morale.

Have you identified when you work best? If you don’t know when you work best, start paying attention to how you feel during the day. Are there times when you’re dragging yourself along? Times during the day when you feel “in the zone?” Keep a log over the next week and see what patterns emerge. See if you can figure out a way to shift some of your most important tasks into your best hours and save the menial no-brainer activities for your off-hours.

If you already know which hours are best for you, what’s your ideal work schedule? If you could shift the hours you work around, what changes would you make? What would you do in your “off hours?” Leave a comment below and let us know when you do your best work.

What is the biggest productivity challenge leaders must solve in 2009? Presenteeism. This newly coined term means there’s a body in the building, but the mind is elsewhere. Your talented employees are showing up at the worksite, but for a variety of reasons, they aren’t producing results.

It’s been reported that presenteeism accounts for 80 percent of lost productivity and costs organizations in the United States more than $105 billion a year. We have a huge group of employees who aren’t working, even though they’re “on” the job.

Some claim the average worker wastes more than two hours each day—that’s a 10-hour loss each week! So if they’re at work, but aren’t working, what exactly are they doing? Well, they’re on the Internet, zoning out, chatting with colleagues, or reorganizing their desk.

I recently overheard a conversation among several colleagues which highlighted this phenomenon: two people in the group, who both work full-time jobs, confessed to only truly working a fraction of the workday (perhaps two hours in all). What had they been doing instead? Shopping online, talking with friends, and staring at the wall.

A results-only work environment (ROWE) solves the problem of presenteeism. When you reward for results instead of time and give employees control over their schedule, there’s no incentive for wasting time at work. If I have control over how long I work, you better believe I’m going to become more productive, work more efficiently, and finish my job quickly so I can leave and get on with my life.

Another benefit of a ROWE that solves the presenteeism challenge is that everyone has unlimited time off. If an employee is sick, dealing with a family crisis, or feels burned out, they can take a day or two for themselves, no questions asked. As long as results are accomplished in a timely manner, there’s no need to force yourself to show up for a day of work when your mind is elsewhere. Save work for a day when you know you can focus and be productive.

If you’re guilty of presenteeism, what triggers it for you? What tweaks or changes in your job would make a difference? Leaders, is this a problem in your organization? What are you doing to proactively combat this productivity challenge? Leave me a comment and let me know what’s working. Let’s learn from one another and figure out how we can make work a little better for everyone.

It’s an interesting look at something that seems so logical and simple. Reward people for the results they produce, not the time they put in at work. In a ROWE, the authors say, “Everyone is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done” (p. 66).

Practically speaking, this means as long as you are producing the results required for your job, you are free to work where you want, when you want, and you can take time off as needed. Working in a ROWE allows you the freedom to work how you work best—early in the morning, late at night, while at Starbucks, or brainstorming while out on a run.

In a ROWE everyone has the right to question the work they’re doing and stop doing any activity that is a waste of their time, the company’s time, or the customer’s time. No more TPS reports! And guess what?! In a ROWE, all meetings are optional. Halleluiah!

Just because we’ve always done work the same way, doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do it. One of my favorite authors, Tim Ferriss once said, “Reality is negotiable.” Part of our reality is work—and work is negotiable. It won’t be easy to negotiate to results-only, but it is definitely worth it.

If you’re looking for a Christmas gift that will impact someone’s life and change the way they view the world, I highly recommend this book. Pick up a copy for yourself too and be a part of changing the future of work.

In 1938, The Fair Labor Standards Act created the 40-hour work week in an effort to make labor fair and uniform. And we’ve been working the same way ever since… even though 70 years have passed!

I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to believe every single person requires exactly 40-hours a week to do their job. Some people work more quickly, others more slowly—40-hours is arbitrary.

What if we determined our work schedule, rather than a 70-year old piece of legislation? What if you were free to decide how many hours you need to complete your job? What kind of difference would that make in your life?

Schedule control is the ability to control when you work, where you work, and how many hours you work.  It’s based on the idea that when people have more control over their time, they are better able to meet all the demands that arise in their life—work demands and personal demands.

Think about the difference control makes in a highly demanding job. If you have low control, but are faced with high demands, you can’t do what you need to do! You have to get permission from your boss for your every move. Want to make a decision—wait! You have to ask! Need access to certain resources—wait! You have to get approval. When you have a high demand, low control job, after work you’re exhausted, you don’t want to wake up in the morning, and may even feel depressed or anxious as you commute to work each day. That’s no way to work!

Now imagine a job where you still have high demands, but you also have high control. You are free to meet the demands of your job in the best way you see fit. You have decision making freedom, autonomy, and the ability to exercise discretion. You are trusted to do what’s best for the company and you do.  What a difference a little schedule control makes! You’re satisfied with your job!

If you were given complete schedule control – the ability to decide when, where, and how you work—what difference would it make in your life? What would you do differently starting tomorrow? Leave me a comment and let me know the positive impact schedule control would have on your life!

I went to bed last night well and woke up this morning sick. If I worked in a traditional 8-5 work environment I would have had a choice: go into work sick or stay home and take a day of paid sick leave or PTO. For many people out there, those are the only two choices.

Many employees feel an obligation to go into work even when they’re sick. Unfortunately, that creates big problems. A sick employee gets everyone else sick too! The entire office—maybe even customers—now have a cold, the flu, the latest stomach bug and no one is getting any work done. Everyone is sitting around with medicine head staring off into space until the end of the day when they can drive home and crawl into bed.

The flip side of this is the employee who calls in sick when they’re not. They lie about being sick because they feel entitled to use their paid sick days and PTO. The end of the year is fast approaching and they don’t want to end up with unused sick days left on the balance. So as a business owner you’re left not wanting employees to come in sick, but not entirely trusting them to tell the truth about being ill.

There’s a better way to approach sick employees—better for your business and better for your employees. It’s called a ROWE—a results-only work environment. In a ROWE, you’re judged on the results you produce, not the time you put in. This means if you’re sick, you can freely take the day off and go to the doctor, guilt free. As long as you take care of your job, continue to produce the results for which you’re responsible in a timely manner, you can work the hours you want, wherever you want. If you need to take a day or two off to recover, you can make it up later in the week, or call on a co-worker for help.

When you work in a ROWE, feel like you’re coming down with something, and don’t want to infect your co-workers, it’s perfectly fine to work from home that day. And if you have a child that’s home sick from school, it’s okay to stay home and take care of them. There’s no need to call the boss and ask permission to take the day off. No need to feel guilty about putting wellness first.

And there’s no reason to call in and lie about being sick. If you need some downtime or a day off, you can take it—no questions asked. When you work in a results-only environment, the company trusts you to act like an adult and do what’s best. As long as you’re getting your job done, your schedule can adapt to fit your life.

As for me, I’m going to take it easy today. I have some big things coming up later this week and I need to be well. For me to produce at my best I can’t be sick—so I’m putting my health first today—guilt free.