Last time I wrote about how to better manage time for your teams in terms of meetings and scheduling. This time I want to focus on some structures you can put in place for yourself to help you stay focused and get the work part done.
Emails
Email is a wonderful tool and yet it can also be overwhelming. More and more I am finding people inundated with emails of all kinds. They have multiple devices to check them, which also leads to missing important information because they are distracted or can’t type the appropriate response back with such a small key pad. Several approaches we have seen work for email management include:
- Don’t open it if you can’t respond right now
- Put “Response Needed” in the subject line if you need someone to reply or do act on something
- Indicate timelines
- Re-read your email to make sure it is clear
- Use bullets – long emails are not effective and information is often missed
- If you are going back and forth with someone more than twice either get up or pick up the phone so you can talk through the situation
- Select several times of day when you will check for messages. Tell others that you are doing this and give them a way to reach you if a matter is urgent. Some people check in the morning, mid-day and late in the afternoon. Otherwise their email is closed so as not to distract or get you off track.
Leave the Building or Just Close Your Door
We want to be available to others, it feels good and often it is needed. But if you have to focus on your work and you can’t have interruptions, it is okay to remove yourself. Schedule time outside of the office, close the door or put up a “Quiet Time” sign. Tell those around you that when your door is closed or the sign is up, unless there is a fire they should let you be! Don’t over use this, but know that it is one incredibly strong way to crank through your work. Even as I write this, I am working from home because I find writing at the office does not allow me to concentrate or be as creative.
Getting Questions Answered
It feels like there is always “that person” that sends multiple emails a day (sometimes 10 in a row) all with different questions. If this interrupts your work, ask them to help you help them in a more efficient way. Tell them that you are trying to be more efficient, that you want to support them – but that you also want to make it easier to focus on your work. One idea is to ask them to create one email with their questions for the day or for the morning/afternoon and send it to you with an indication of the timeline they need you to get back to them. Another option for those that do need you to help clarify questions more often, is to schedule several times a day where you can do a 10 minute Q/A. It will be important that you keep to the time you set so it doesn’t creep into being an hour meeting and it could help with the constant interruptions.
Consider that sometimes a person is asking so many questions because they don’t feel empowered to answer the questions themselves, they want to make sure they are “okay” with you or they are so used to you knowing everything that they don’t work on problem solving for themselves.
- Give them guidelines as to what they have permission to do on their own or start asking them what they would do. If it’s going down the right path, encourage that you know they already know the answers!
- Perhaps they need to know that they are in a good place with you. Making sure to give feedback around what they are doing well and what you want to see more of regularly will help them feel more secure.
- Creating a rule that says something like “If you come with a question, have at least two possible solutions to suggest”. This starts people down the path of problem solving on their own first and then coming to you.
Pick one of these ideas and put them in place. See where it helps and where you need to adjust. I am curious to hear what others have done to help their teams and/or themselves become more efficient.