Mar 29, 2012<\/p>\n
We all get requests to do additional \u201cwork\u201d many times a day. Most of those action requests are embedded in the e-mails we get all day long. Beyond the time just reading an e-mail, many e-mails can lead to substantial things we have to do\u2014and doing them can add hours of work to our workday. Because of that, we are all getting the feeling that we’ve got way too much to do, that we cannot get our core work done.<\/p>\n
Well, there is an 80\/20 rule on all these requests that are coming in. The rule goes like this: 80% of action requests we get by e-mail will decline in importance over time if left undone. Only 20% will get more<\/em> urgent if not done quickly. If we use this rule appropriately, we can start to solve our feeling of overwhelm and scattered work focus, and accomplish a lot more of our core work.<\/p>\n Why is this rule so true? <\/strong>It\u2019s true because in this fast changing business world, nearly all business priorities change rapidly. It\u2019s true\u2014the priorities of your boss, your clients, your firm, your colleagues, and even your own priorities, all change very rapidly as time goes by. So something that seemed very important on Monday may be much less important by Friday, as new priorities have moved in.<\/p>\n What are the implications of this rule? <\/strong>The number one take away from this rule is this: never work lower priority, short-term needs at the expense of high priority ones. If you spend most of your day on lower priority, short-term needs, then you’re missing opportunities to get your important work done. And you are wasting your time on work that, given the test of time, you really should have passed on.<\/p>\n But because of the way our attention span and communications trend, most of us DO favor the lower priority, short-term needs. Why is that? They are easy to do and feel like quick-wins. And we are afraid if we don\u2019t do them immediately we will lose track of them. And since they usually end up right in front of us, we just do them.<\/p>\n E-mail is a perfect example of this. <\/strong>The way e-mail inbox is configured, it always puts the latest e-mail at the top of our list\u2014even if it is very low priority. And if we want to be diligent, that\u2019s where we start, at the top. Some of us feel like we have to get to every e-mail that comes into the inbox or else we\u2019re not being proactive\u2014not being responsive. Due to our desire to be helpful, and our training to be responsible, (and often due to an undisciplined attention span), we do<\/em> spend time attending to nearly everything that crosses our plate.<\/p>\n However, working e-mail diligently is absolutely the worst way to spend your time. 80% of those e-mail action requests will probably expire or decrease greatly in importance over the days and weeks ahead and so if you didn’t spend your time working on them there would be less impact anyway.<\/p>\n And this is not just an e-mail issue. Note that our attention span works the same across all modes of incoming requests and information. The latest phone call, pop-up alert, instant message, text message, or conversation\u2014those are what we allow to dictate what we work on, and that leads to our important work never getting done.<\/p>\n However, this is not just <\/strong>a matter of committing to your important work and dropping everything else—ignoring all or most e-mail for example. We cannot just drop everything else.\u00a0 The trouble is, you are never sure which of those requests really is in the 20% until some time has passed and you see the priority go up. Many things could mushroom later if not tracked, and that could lead to a career limiting issue.<\/p>\n The Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n The solution is to use the MYN system or the One Minute To-Do List (1MTD) system. In that system you triage <\/em>mail as it comes in (read or scan it quickly to gauge importance), but you do not work <\/em>it immediately (unless really quick). Instead you convert e-mail action requests to tasks, record all other requests, and then work them off your prioritized list in priority order<\/em>. Once these are on your prioritized list, the low priority items get pushed down and you focus first on high priority items.<\/p>\n But the key is that MYN and 1MTD also provides a structured way to periodically track the lower priority ones too, to make sure you don\u2019t drop any emerging priorities that are in those deferred actions. You see, MYN and 1MTD give you a simple way to store low priority requests out of sight, but with a scheduled review to revisit them regularly. In MYN it’s called Defer-to-Review. By using Defer-to-Review to properly place lower priority actions out of your main action view, but still reviewing them appropriately, you can both focus on high-value core tasks and not let any issues drop through the cracks. In today\u2019s work world where we get tens of new action requests each day, any of which could bite you over time, this is the only way to stay focused, be productive, but not lose track of the hundreds of other to-dos, any one of which could still be important.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the main point. Given how much is coming at us these days, we all now know that we will never get it all done. Many things will have to drop off the bottom. MYN\/1MTD is a system that segments everything coming at you, almost automatically, so that you will focus first on that 20 percent of requests that really make sense to do and still keep track of the rest. That’s what the MYN and 1MTD system does for you.<\/p>\n Michael<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mar 29, 2012 We all get requests to do additional \u201cwork\u201d many times a day. Most of those action requests are embedded in the e-mails we get all day long. Beyond the time just reading an e-mail, many e-mails can … Continue reading