Chapter 5. Don’t Just Execute, Flexicute!

Learn to Turn on a Dime

Now let’s talk about the next skill in activity management, the skill of flexicuting. Here’s where we’re headed with this one. You’ve arranged the order for accomplishing the day’s activities, and you begin to work your plan. You know, however (because you’ve done a reality check), that your day will not go exactly as you arranged it.

On a typical day, you can expect to get caught in the crossfire of interruptions, the unexpected will bubble up, and demands will fall out of the sky at inconvenient times. Flexicuting will be required.

Okay, so we invented the word flexicuting because we can’t think of a better way to describe this skill. Events are so fluid in today’s work environment that we have to change, adapt, and shift our focus all day long. Flexicuting involves the ability to

• Be as willing to leave your activity list when priorities shift as you are to stick with it.

• Be able to turn on a dime in the middle of the day when an opportunity presents itself.

• Have the wisdom to modify your work style on the spot, and be willing to walk the path of another person’s style to collaborate and get things done.

• Develop the habit of reserving some time every day to deal with the expected/unexpected.

• Be wired 24/7/365 without letting it be a source of frustration.

The Newest and Best Survival Skill

Would you like to become better at flexicuting? Here’s how. Recognize it’s a survival skill by changing your mindset and practice the foregoing flexicuting skills daily. It can actually be fun.

In the new time paradigm, flexicuting involves the skills of both multitasking activities and alternate-tasking activities. It also requires the wisdom to know when to use and when to avoid either of these approaches.

We’ll talk about multitasking first. In our society, the term multitasking is overused. Even worse, the skill has been elevated to the pinnacle of desirable abilities, and we often find ourselves abused—and sometimes abusing—in the execution of multitasking because there are some guidelines to multitasking that most people aren’t aware of.

The best advice I can give people is to BEWARE OF MULTITASKING! Here’s why. When you are executing multiple activities at the same time, none of these activities has your complete focus. If you must multitask, it should be done only when you combine simple, mindless tasks such as opening your mail and watching the news.

Beware of multitasking while engaging with another person; for example, opening and reading your mail while carrying on a business conversation with somebody in your office. Not only is this disrespectful and a put-down of the other person, it’s easy to miss a point or to misinterpret the communication.

My personal rule of thumb is never, never, never multitask while carrying on a conversation with another person.

Multitasking, when abused, leads to time contamination. An example of time contamination would be taking your child out for pizza so you can have some quality one-on-one time together, and then taking a cell phone call for 15 minutes while your child stares into space. Time contamination is also working on your laptop while supposedly watching your child’s soccer game.

Alternate-tasking is the natural result of being wired 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year (24/7/365). Living under these conditions, it makes sense to alternate our work and personal life activities in a way that we can fully experience both. While multitasking can contaminate time, alternate-tasking does not.

Be Where You Are

Alternate-tasking is being 100 percent where you are. Be 100 percent in the pizza shop with your child and then place the call after the pizza outing. Alternate-tasking permits us to fully engage all activities without dilution or contamination of the experience.

Alternate-tasking can help you get more done in less time than multitasking because, when you are fully engaged, you are more efficient and productive.

Flexicuting also involves the oscillation of our daily activities. This, too, is part of the flexicuting skill. In other words, we alternate activities that require intense concentration of effort with activities that are easier and much less stressful. The easier activities give you a chance to recover your energy and then re-engage again.

Here’s how I oscillate. I spend a lot of time working from my office at home. Typically, I’ll schedule the activity of telephone coaching with a client, followed by 30 minutes of paper pushing. Then I might do another period of coaching, followed by taking some time to get out of my office and run an errand. This is what we call “making waves” during the day. It’s a way to manage our energy as well as our time. It can be a real downer to run out of energy before we run out of activity on our action list.

One of the foremost experts in the country on this subject is Dr. James Loehr, who cowrote, among other books, The Power of Full Engagement. His advice is to manage our day as a series of sprints, each followed by adequate recovery time. If you are executing activities all day long as a marathon, it’s likely you won’t be as effective and will possibly burn yourself out by the end of the day.

Flexicuting and making waves during the day is not only ridiculously easy—it can be ridiculously fun as well.

Use Your Own Style

Flexicuting involves understanding both activity management styles and then using the one that works for you to get things done.

There are two styles for executing what’s on our time plate. You probably know somebody who eats one type of food at a time. In other words they might first eat their chicken, then the potatoes, and then the broccoli. They completely finish one type of food before proceeding to the next.

Some people clear their time plate the same way. They execute activities in linear order, starting with what they consider to be the highest priority to the lowest priority. Hence the classic method of prioritizing using the A, B, C, 1, 2, 3 methodology found in other time management programs. For a more efficient approach remember to prioritize using color: red, green, and yellow. Red (R) represents activities that are vital and urgent, requiring attention first. Green (G) represents activities that are vital/not urgent and should be done second. Yellow (Y) represents activities that are not vital/but have value, and these should be done third. In other words, yellow activities need to get done, but it’s not vital they get done today. People that use this method are singular activity managers. They are effective and at the end of the day will have finished most of what is on their plates.

Others might take a bite of their dessert first. They alternate eating pieces of all portions on their plate moving from one to another. These are the simultaneous activity managers. Many are effective with this approach if they have good activity management skills, and at the end of the day they, too, will have finished most of what is on their plate.

In our society, simultaneous activity managers are often made to feel guilty because they operate with less structure. Don’t feel guilty because you don’t precisely follow the rules and laws of some time management gurus. We encourage people to use their own style, but understand both.

If you are simultaneous, you’ll use your time management tools in a more relaxed way, probably won’t write within the lines of your paper planners, and you’ll hate being a slave to electronic tools. That’s okay. Whether you are a singular or simultaneous activity manager, it’s not style that will determine your success or failure but whether you have the right activities on your plate in the first place. Work primarily in your own style, but remember a good flexicuter can use either style depending upon the circumstances.