How to keep time on your side

I had a project I had been trying to write for several days, but too many things kept getting in the way. One interruption after another. All of them important. All of them necessary. But few of them urgent. No one would leave me alone!

Remember the lessons our parents and teachers taught us—interrupting is rude. Somehow, that all changes in the workplace. But should it? Try to remember (if you can) the last time you got through a project from start to finish without being pulled in another direction.

My friend Alan Freitas of Priority Management in Boston says productivity’s number-one enemy is interruptions. He’s offered a few suggestions for dealing with them. I’ve added several of my own. Now my hope for you is that you can get through this uninterrupted.

• Hang out a “Do Not Disturb” sign, and insist that others honor it. Set aside a period of time each day—even if it’s only 10 minutes—when you are unavailable for anything less than a four-alarm fire. That goes for office visitors, telephone calls, email, and carrier pigeons. Trust me, people will think your sign does not apply to them. If that doesn’t work, try coming in to work early or staying late.
• Just say no. It’s up to you to decide whether the task at hand is more important than the subject of the interruption (see the “four-alarm fire” reference above). Schedule time later in the day or week for the interrupter and address that issue—uninterrupted.
• It’s not about how many balls you can keep in the air at one time. Superman fights one crime at a time, and finishes the job. Multi-tasking only works when a task is accomplished. We all have more than one project on our desks. The question is: how many of them will actually get done, on time, and satisfactorily?
• Provide a regular meeting time during which key people can “bundle” interruptions into a single meeting. This practice helps people plan ahead and anticipate many of the pesky details. Naturally, some issues will need to be revisited, but when the expectation is that you come prepared, no one wants to look foolish.
• Be a great listener. Do not interrupt while someone else is talking. Good communication is essential for understanding the issues at hand. This may well prevent unnecessary interruptions later. (“What was that you said earlier?” … and so on.)
• Limit distractions, especially if you have a short attention span. Do not decorate your office with “executive toys” or any other temptations that cause you to lose focus.
• Take a break when you feel yourself zoning out. Walk around. Get a drink of water. Clear your head for a few minutes. Set a limit on how long you’ll be away from your desk, or you will become your own worst interruption.
• Can it wait? Encourage coworkers to consider whether an interruption is really warranted right at the moment. Amazingly, many of those disruptions can be put in email or voicemail to be acted on later, or saved for the scheduled meetings.
• Be respectful of your coworkers’ time. If you expect them to honor your “Do Not Disturb” sessions, you must reciprocate.

Getting your staff on board may take some time and gentle reminders, but the results will be worth it. Even if everyone doesn’t buy into the new program, you will still have far fewer distractions.

Now, let me tell you what I consider to be legitimate interruptions: customers. I am never, ever too busy or too absorbed in what I am doing to help a customer. If your business is customer-driven, you shouldn’t be too busy either. Otherwise, you may never be busy again.

L.L. Bean and McDonald’s, two superstars in the customer service arena, share some rules that have become guidelines for many successful companies. One of the cardinal rules reads: “A customer is not an interruption of our work; they are the purpose of it.”

That’s been the rule at MackayMitchell Envelope Company ever since we started looking for business more than 40 years ago. In fact, I have a sign in my office that reads, “Our meeting will not be interrupted … unless a customer calls.”

Take the time to manage your time

Have you ever wondered where all your time goes?

You’re not alone. People have been talking about time for centuries. Consider this excerpt from The Book of Fate, written by Voltaire in the 17th century:

“Of all the things in the world, which is the longest and shortest, the quickest and the slowest, the most divisible and the most extensive, the most disregarded and the most regretted, without which nothing can happen, which devours everything that is little, and gives life everything that is great?

“The answer is time. Nothing is longer, since it is the measure of eternity. Nothing is shorter, since it is lacking in all our plans. Nothing is slower for him who waits. Nothing is quicker for him who enjoys. It extends to the infinitely little. All men disregard it. All men regret the loss of it. Nothing happens without it. It makes forgotten everything unworthy of posterity, and it immortalizes the great things.”

I have a saying that I’ve often used: “Killing time isn’t murder; it’s suicide.” We all start out in life with one thing in common; we all have the same amount of time each day, each week, each month, and each year. Now it’s just a matter of what we do with it.

I’ve seen estimates that the average person spends seven years in the bathroom, six years eating, four years cleaning house, five years waiting in line, two years trying to return phone calls to people who aren’t there, three years preparing meals, one year searching for misplaced items, and six months sitting at red traffic lights.

That’s nearly 30 years and doesn’t include a lot of what you might need or want to do. Prioritizing your time should be a top priority.

Getting more done doesn’t always mean doing more things. Sometimes it’s about doing less. Don’t try to schedule every minute of every day. When you make and prioritize your to-do list, leave yourself some flexibility to handle interruptions and unplanned tasks that are bound to come up during the day. You should block out segments of your day for important tasks, but be sure to reserve enough time so that you don’t have to rush through things. Taking your time can sometimes be the best use of your time.

Do you need to manage your time better at work? Who doesn’t? One of the first things you have to take control of is your time. It always seems like there’s not enough time to accomplish everything when you’re working hard, but Bob Nelson in 1,001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work says there are some steps you can take to rescue your time. Here is some of his advice:

• When you get to the end of your day, make a to-do list for tomorrow. Put whatever’s most important to accomplish at the top of your list. That way, when you walk in, you’ll know just what you need to do and where to start.
• Make a commitment to arrive at work a half hour early every day. Then you can get started on whatever’s most important and work without interruption for that period of time.
• Don’t jump down on your list to lower-priority tasks until you have made sufficient progress on your higher-priority tasks.
• Use a calendar and plan. It will organize you, and you won’t have to spend time asking what you’re supposed to be doing. You’ll already know.
• Go through your in-box at least once a day and prioritize it.
• Say goodbye to unimportant meetings. If you don’t need to be there, don’t go. It will waste your time, and your list won’t get any smaller.
• Focus on what only you can do. Then, when possible, delegate to others.
• Take a couple of hours every week to sit down and look at your big picture goals. Are you making progress? Set or reset goals appropriately.
• Learn to say no. Be polite, but firm. Otherwise, you won’t have the focus or energy to attain your goals.

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “If we take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves.” A minute doesn’t seem like much, but the cumulative value of those minutes determines the quality of a lifetime. Don’t waste another second!

Make the call to improve phone skills

The world is getting smaller every day. Thanks to advances in technology, we can connect to points around the globe in seconds through our computer, phone, or other devices. Businesses can easily reach people and places that were inaccessible just a few years ago.

This is why I say the phone is one of the most awesome tools available. We’ve all had years and years of experience using a phone, so why are so many people bad at using it?

Here are some of the techniques that I use.

First, when your call is answered, always ask whether this is a good time to talk. This simple step can add years to your life—and your career.

Get the assistant’s name if he or she answers the phone. I can get a lot of work done just working through assistants. And use their names. They are very important in getting your message across.

Obviously, you want to answer the phone on the second or third ring. Speak slowly and project so people can understand. When I switch to a speaker phone, I want to make sure the connection is still acceptable. Try not to interrupt. Don’t get distracted when you are on the phone. Focus on the caller. Listen to what he or she has to say. Turn your phone ringer off on important calls when talking on your office line. Be sensitive to the tone of your voice. Don’t eat or chew gum or type audibly on a keyboard.

When someone calls you on the telephone, you should always greet him pleasantly and tell them how happy you are to hear from him. That has to be evident in your voice. I ask our employees at MackayMitchell Envelope Company to answer the telephone with a smile because you can hear it in a voice. You want every customer to feel like she is your most important customer and virtually the only customer you have.

Try to start every phone conversation with good news, even when you have bad news to report. And also have a good close. Have an agenda of what you want to accomplish. Every crucial phone call should have clarity of focus and clarity of purpose. Think through what you want to say and discuss before you even make a call. That’s how you build a network.

Start early in your career to keep track of the 100 to 300 most important people in your network. Find out their birthdays and call them every year on their special days. If you work in sales, make sure to call your customers on their birthdays. You won’t believe how much business you will write up.

I was one of the first people to get a car phone, and now it is hands-free. Driving without communicating is every salesperson’s biggest time-waster. I’ll do anything to make the time more productive, so I even stopped making cold calls. I call ahead to make sure the buyer is in.

I never leave my name for a return phone call without a designated time I can be reached. Don’t risk playing telephone tag. I don’t care to squander my time any more than the other person cares to squander his or hers.

And this is especially crucial: If my assistant or gatekeeper answers the call, I make sure he or she says, “Mr. Mackay is expecting your call.” This makes the caller feel special.

Can’t get a call-back? Leave a message no one can ignore. I picked up this tip from my Florida realtor. Start with your name, day, date, and time, and then a pledge: “Leave your name and number, and I guarantee I will call you back within 24 hours. If I fail to do so, I will make a $100 contribution to your favorite charity—as long as the charity is not you.”

Keep to a schedule whenever possible. Minimize interruptions by returning phone calls at a specific time of day. For me it’s usually the end of the day. Of course, you will need to take some calls, but those that aren’t urgent, you can return when you have time to best deal with them.

I’ll let you make the call: How important are your phone skills to your career?