Here's a screenshot from a client's computer. What's wrong with it?
Let's count the windows: 1...2...3...7. We've got three email messages, two Word docs, a spreadsheet, and a Powerpoint presentation open all at once. I'm guessing that had I not announced my arrival, we'd probably have found a game of Solitaire, updates on the ESPN NFL draft, and two different flight reservations for a trip to Aruba, too. And though this client really is pretty good at his job, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time. Which is to say, he can only work on one item at a time.
Interestingly, as we were going through this mess o' windows, he realized that he had forgotten about some of them. One of the email messages was from early in the morning -- he never finished writing the email before getting distracted by something else. And another email he had no idea about at all. He addressed it, but wasn't sure why he was writing to that person.
By embracing the discipline of your calendar, you'll liberate yourself from having to make choices all the time. And in a world where attention and focus are the most valuable commodities, that's a priceless kind of freedom.
Toyota calls it “lowering the water level.”
Imagine a value stream or a production process as a river. Reducing the inventory in the process – “lowering the water level” – exposes the “rocks” that represent all of the hidden costs and waste in production. Only by revealing those rocks can you improve the process and reduce the waste.
This metaphor works for knowledge workers, too. In this case, however, their key inventory item is time. Having too much time to do one’s work hides the waste and inefficiencies in the process.
This post received such a strong response when I published it on Evolving Excellence that I'm republishing it here.
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On my too-frequent flights to New York recently, I started reading Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. It's a trip up and down the food chain from a naturalist's perspective, and one of his first stops is an examination of corn.
Government policies over the years have led to overproduction of this crop, from 4 billion bushels in 1970 to 10 billion bushels today. At the same time, because supply exceeds demand and prices are so low, federal government payments to farmers -- for corn alone -- comes to slightly more than $4 billion.
According to the Greek legend, as one of his Twelve Labors, Hercules had to kill the Hydra -- a nine-headed sea serpent. Not much of a problem for the legendary hero, except for one catch: when he cut off one of the heads, two would grow back. So how to defeat the monster?
Hercules took a different approach. After cutting off each head (or mashing them with his club, depending on the version of the myth you prefer), his nephew, Iolaus, burned the stump of each neck to cauterize it and prevent the new heads from growing back.
You may not be mistaken for Hercules (which isn't a bad thing, really, unless you like wearing a lionskin loincloth to work -- and that's a bit risky, even on Casual Fridays in Silicon Valley), but you have your own Hydra to face: email.
That overflowing email inbox. Cut off one head -- i.e., answer an email -- and two messages come back. No matter how quickly you respond, no matter how thoroughly you answer the question, you just can't get to the bottom of your inbox. Like Hercules, you need a different approach. Simply answering your emails is not the answer.
Have you ever been in a good meeting? I mean, a really good meeting -- one that started and ended on time, one in which everyone knew why they were there and what the objective was, and that actually gave participants the tools to move forward?
Probably not. Or at least, not often. More likely, your meetings are flaccid, bloated, puffy things that have more in common with a UN Security Council debate on the precise definition of "civil war" than with a tactical session to support a new product rollout.
Standard work, one of the cornerstones of the Toyota Production System, can help.
Standard work is often defined as the "the most effective combination of manpower, materials and machinery." In a meeting, of course, the critical resource is time. Thus, the purpose of standard work in a meeting is to specify how to use the allocated time -- and only the allocated time -- most effectively. No running long.
A few years ago, Mary Czerwinski, a researcher at Microsoft Research Labs, demonstrated that increasing the amount of real estate on a computer screen dramatically improved productivity. She found that the clearer your screen, the calmer your mind. Czerwinski’s experiments utilized a 42-inch (!) screen, but anyone who has hooked up two or three monitors to their computer understands the value of the added screen space. Switching from one task to another is far easier when you don’t have to toggle between programs (and windows) to find what you need.
That’s what makes this picture of Al Gore’s office so peculiar. 
Clearly, Al gets the idea that multiple monitors enhance productivity. But look at the rest of the office. It’s a disaster. I’m willing to bet that (1) he doesn’t know what half of the stuff he has piled up is; and (2) at least half of it is obsolete or low-value junk.
The American psychologist, William James, believed that creating habits was essential to productivity and efficiency. If you'll bear with me (and his turgid, 19th century prose) for just a bit, you'll see he was quite eloquent on the subject:
David Premack is a behavioral psychologist who discovered that pleasant tasks can be used as a reward for doing unpleasant tasks. (Of course, if you're a parent and have told your child that he could watch TV after cleaning his room, you knew this already. But you need to wear a lab coat and hang with mice to get a principle named after you.)
Why does the Premack Principle matter to you? Unfortunately, we generally work the other way around at the office: we put off the most unpleasant tasks, preferring instead to do other, more enjoyable tasks. As a result, we don’t get around to actually doing those things in a timely fashion. The phone call to the angry customer, the confrontation with our subordinate, the expense report we need to fill out – these are tasks that all too often are postponed.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Chevron and Credit-Suisse are taking a new approach to data storage. Chevron noticed that digital files (including emails) stored on their servers were growing at 60% per year, with negative effects on the business:
Besides the cost of buying new storage systems, Chevron's employees were spending between 1 1/2 to three days a month just searching for the correct information they needed to do their jobs, taking a toll on productivity, the company found. "We haven't adequately managed all our information," says Lynn Chou, Chevron's general manager of global technology and strategy, adding that the 59,000-person company processes one million emails a day. "There's been a digital tidal wave."
People are consumed by setting priorities. They make to-do lists and carefully note whether it's an "A," "B," or "C" priority.
Here's a question: have you ever gotten to the "C" priority items? Probably not. At least not while it was a "C" priority. Of course, once it became an "A" priority, you got to it, but not before then. The "C" priority dental checkup you didn't schedule? I'm guessing you got to it once you needed a root canal. The "C" priority 60,000 mile auto service? You definitely handled it once your car broke down on the highway. The "C" priority phone call to that customer you don't really like? You probably had to actually visit him once he cancelled his next order.
You've got an infinite amount of work to do and only a finite amount of time in which to do it. So when stuff comes into your system, you shouldn't waste time carefully calibrating its precise priority level. You need to make a simple decision: Are you going to do it or not?
Ben over at The Instigator Blog has launched an interesting group writing project to create The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, a collection of productivity tips from around the blogsphere. As with any effort of this sort, you'll find ideas that work for you next to ideas that make absolutely no sense for the way your brain is wired. No matter -- the real value comes from assessing your work habits, identifying the waste and inefficiencies, and then making appropriate changes.
Here's my contribution: learn to live in your calendar.
Most people don't have a clear plan for their activities and responsibilities for each day, and as a result, they lose time trying to figure out what they should do. Think about the last time you went to the supermarket without a shopping list -- how long did it take you to get out of there? How much money did you spend? If you're like 99% of the population, the answers are "too long" and "too much." And that's for something simple like buying groceries.
Earlier this year, the British press reported on a British government's scandalous £7.4 million consulting contract for a government "office lean" initiative. The consultants applied 5S principles to workers' desks in order to increase their efficiency -- the theory being that a clean desk will result in less time wasted in looking for important documents and supplies -- and they marked desks with tape to indicate where the office equipment should be. 
WorkLean has nothing to do with Jenny Craig.
Lean is a manufacturing ideaology invented -- and best exemplified -- by Toyota. (Which is on its way to eclipsing GM as the world's largest car maker. And long ago eclipsed GM as the world's most profitable car maker.)
Lean is an all-encompassing way of running a company. I use "way" in the sense of "the way of the warrior" or the "way of the Camaroon pygmies." lt's a comprehensive philosophy that guides a company.
The aspect of Lean most important to me, right now, is the emphasis on eliminating waste. "Waste," in this case, is defined as anything the customer doesn't want to pay for. So the time you spend surfing the web is waste from the customer's perspective. (They don't want to pay for your entertainment. They want to buy your product or service at the lowest possible cost.)
Quick: get an image in your head of a businessman's office from a movie before the advent of computers. Maybe it's a Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn movie. Maybe it's James Mason in a Hitchcock movie. It doesn't matter as long as it's pre-computer.
Now, think about the desk. It's big. It's mahogony, or maybe walnut. There's a brass lamp on one side with a green shade. There's a phone on the other side. And what's in the middle?
A blotter. And not just any blotter. A blotter with a calendar on it. Because the executive needs to see where's he's been, where he's going, and what his commitments are. He lives in his calendar.
Now, take a look at your desk. What's in the middle? A computer, of course. And most likely, your email is up on the screen. In fact, if you're like most people, that's the first thing you look at in the morning. Not your calendar, but your inbox.
But here's the thing: email is not your work. It's just a communication tool. It enables you to do your work, but it's not actually your value-added work.
Swamped by last minute tax filings, Intuit's Turbo Tax e-filing system crashed yesterday. That's bad news for people filing, who had to deal with delays and uncertainty.
This snafu reminds me of a client whose employer required him to take an HR training program on the company's intranet. He put it off for days, then weeks, until the task disappeared from visibility: the email reminders were buried in the thousands of emails sitting in his inbox.
Eventually, he HAD to do the training. . . along with the all the other procrastinators. But the server couldn't handle the load, and as a result it took him four hours to complete the program, instead of the normal 30 minutes.
How do you handle the tidal wave of incoming stuff that lands on your desk? How do you surf it, instead of getting crushed by it?
Rigorous application of the "4Ds" is the key.
When "stuff" comes at you -- mail, email, phone calls, text messages, a knock on the door from your coworker -- consider that you have four -- and only four -- courses of action.
You can Do it. If it takes two minutes or less, just take care of the task there and then.
You can Delegate it. If you're not the best person to handle something, or if you don't have the most current information, or if you just can't get to the task for three weeks, pass it to someone else. This may be a coworker, or it may be a supervisor. The point is that you need to move this item forward, on the next step towards completion.
Some quick math for you: You've got about 12.5 square feet of desktop. Total.
Now, take off space for your computer, phone, office supplies, picture of the dog, cup of stale coffee, Jerry Seinfeld bobblehead doll -- and you're probably down to about four square feet of space to work.
Oh, wait. If you're like most people, you've got at least one, and probably three, piles of paper just sitting on your desk. You know, the stuff that you're planning on getting to, but just haven't found the time. That's another two square feet gone.
Now you have two square feet in which to work. To think. To plan. To figure out how to get from here to there. Or, if you’re like the partner at a large accounting firm I once worked with, your desk is nothing but piles of paper, and there’s NO room to actually work. (He spent all his time in a conference room.)
Feeling claustrophobic yet? You should. You’re penned in like a rat in a maze, trying to find the physical and psychological space to do your work. And it's not there.
In the beginning, there was the manila folder. And it was good. All your information fit into one compact place. So you put more info into it. And more. And more.
And then it stopped working. Folders bulged like Vegas-era Elvis in a three-piece rhinestone suit. Stuff spilled out. You couldn't find what you were looking for. You bought Pendaflex pocket folders to handle the spillover, but that only posponed the inevitable. Eventually, you were back in the same boat.
It's not just kids with the obesity problem. It's your filing system. It doesn't work.
Here's what to do: separate your working files (the active stuff that you touch daily, or several times a week) from the reference files (the stuff you only look at occasionally).
So you'll make two fiiles for Spacely Sprockets: a working file and a reference file. the working file is in your desk and has only the current contract and papers relating to a recent order. It's easy to access the six pieces of paper (or email or Word docs) that are an issue today.
Repeat after me: multi-tasking doesn't work.
Saturday's New York Times ran an article on the perils of multi-tasking. According to the article, David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, reports that
Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes. Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.
And if you still believe that you're different, that you really can talk on the phone to a customer while writing an email, this is what René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University has to say:
A core limitation [of the human brain] is an inability to concentrate on two things at once.
