Get Moving! Part 1: 4 Simple, Practical Ideas
There’s a saying that I learned some years back that captures the essence of unfocused activity: “counting loose change.” It means this: I could be, or should be, doing something much more important or of higher priority right now, but I’ve decided instead to pour my efforts into the most mundane, unimportant tasks that I can find—like counting the loose change scattered at the bottom of my kitchen junk-drawer. The exercise often ends with me wondering where the time went, and then cursing myself for not accomplishing anything….
Perhaps you can relate.
Over the years, as I’ve worked with leaders at all levels; I’ve heard a repeated lament: I don’t have the time to complete my to-do list! Their anguish appears genuine and, in most cases, causes them to question their ability to be a good leader. When I hear this oft-repeated complaint I invite them to step back and take a new and fresh look at their calendar. What’s there that is urgent? Important? What’s there that might be delegated or pushed out to a later date?
In my coaching practice, the wish to explore more ways to manage time comes up frequently. On the one hand, leaders often feel that if they delegated more, their staff would feel more pressure. On the other hand, these same leaders know the importance of keeping a strategic stance and not getting pulled into the weeds. What to do?
The simple answer is to pay attention. Note when you’re “counting loose change” and avoid it when you can. Then, think seriously about prioritization.
Here are four things that you can do to immediately prioritize your time:
1. Plan your work and work your plan: organize and prioritize your to-do list each morning by placing your most urgent and important tasks at the top.
2. Relationship-building and planning are important, but not urgent. Plan for lunches or coffee-chats with folks with whom you want to build relationships. Send an invitation for the next two weeks. Done.
3. Call your staff together and delegate those tasks that fall into the urgent, but not important bucket. Who can represent you at a meeting? Who might take a stab at drafting the report that’s due by the end of the week? This is a great opportunity for developing your employees.
4. Don’t do or pay attention to anything that isn’t urgent or important. (Or, as an alternative, toss them into your kitchen junk drawer. You can count them later on!)
One final note: it’s not always a bad idea to keep an eye on your “loose change.” Sometimes it piles up and, when it does, needs to be dealt with. The key is balancing and creating a productive environment for you and your team.
Actually, before the advent of all the social networking, I was extremely well organized, efficient, and task-oriented, but over the last few months, I’ve been meandering around all the social networks and I think now it’s time to consolidate my findings and reprioritize. Thanks for the reminder!
You’re welcome, Sandra! I agree with your sentiments about social networking. For all the value that I’ve experienced from connecting and learning from others, it does take time and, well, effort to read, respond, decide who or what to follow, the impact of your conversations, etc. etc. One of my goals for 2012 is to do just what you said — to consolidate and re-prioritize. A question that I often ask my coaching clients is this: “What’s the most important thing that we can talk about with the time we have together?” I’ll hold up the mirror more often for myself when asking that question!
Love this and I agree with Sandra about the social media time consumption! I am trying to “schedule” SM time first thing in the morning and then at end of day, otherwise it’s way too easy to keep looking at it, especially for those of us who work in a location where it’s not monitored!
May I suggest that scheduling e-mail is also a great way to prioritize and free you up to focus on the priorities…
Great idea, Rosanne, about scheduling time to read and respond to email. Thank you for your input! I coach a couple of leaders who are working on managing their time more effectively and email traffic comes up as a key time sucker. Prioritizing urgent and important emails and correspondence frees us up to focus on the work that’s most important now. How is your SM scheduling working for you? What are you noticing so far?
Thanks for these great tips. And I love the “count your change” analogy. We all have days like that. Actually it is just those very days that seem to motivate me to try to do better the next day. Like you said when we reflect back on a non-productive day, we often are scolding ourselves for wasting that time on unimportant things. I usually respond well to that “scolding!”
Thanks for this thought-provoking post.
Thank you for your comment, Christine. I love your clarity and awareness about what works for you. So many times we look for new or different ways to accomplish something. Your “scolding” works and you respond well to it. As I encourage my coaching clients when they discover something that works…Keep doing that! (BTW: I did a fair amount of counting loose change today. I actually felt quite productive!
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