Collins Business Secrets – Getting Things Done

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Collins

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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by HarperCollinsPublishers

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FIRST EDITION

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2010

SECRETS and BUSINESS SECRETS are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers

Rus Slater asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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Version: 2018-07-16

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Author’s note

Getting things done is the way to get on in life

Knowing what things to do

1.1 Check your bank balance of time

1.2 Ask for clear instructions

1.3 See the relevance of the bigger picture

1.4 Identify what’s relevant to you

1.5 Do the ‘right’ things right

1.6 Plan for output, not activity

1.7 DREAM to get more done

1.8 Have a personal vision or mission

1.9 Know WIIFM

1.10 Make ‘to do’ lists

Knowing how to do things

2.1 Decide if ‘how’ is important

2.2 Fit into a bigger process

2.3 Find out how others do it

2.4 Set quality measures

2.5 Know how to KISS

Knowing when to do things

3.1 Prioritize this – or that?

3.2 Look at effort versus pay-off

3.3 Go for quick wins

3.4 Use your body clock

3.5 Schedule your tasks

3.6 Schedule for task dependency

3.7 Schedule for resource dependency

3.8 Schedule for concurrent activity

3.9 Use your waiting time

Working to your plan

4.1 Deal with people distractions

4.2 Deal with other distractions

4.3 Use technology

4.4 Beware the Seven Wastes of Time

4.5 Manage your meetings

4.6 Fight fatigue

4.7 Practise ‘good housekeeping’

4.8 Avoid procrastination

4.9 ‘Sharpen the saw’

Saying “no”

5.1 Don’t say “yes” to every request

5.2 Just say “no”

5.3 Use 5Y questioning

Dealing with problems

6.1 Assess risks sensibly

6.2 Manage risks well

6.3 Define problems

6.4 ‘Appreciate’ problems

6.5 Choose a quick fix, then a long fix

6.6 Find the root cause

6.7 Learn how to improvise

Asking others to do things

7.1 Work to YOUR strengths

7.2 Influence others

7.3 Give good instructions

7.4 Learn the art of delegating

7.5 Use WIIFYs

7.6 Say “thank you”

7.7 Learn from doing

Jargon buster

Further reading

About the Author

About the Publisher

Author’s note

This book is dedicated to Margaret Ellen Slater

(1922–2009)

Getting things done is the way to get on in life

If you want to get on in your career or your home life you will need to get things done. In the modern world, however, there are lots of different people wanting lots of different things to be done, and you can’t do everything for everyone unless you get much better at a number of different things.

I’ve been working for over 15 years with individuals and organizations to help them to find ways of getting more done. This ranges from teams with enormous workloads and tight deadlines to individuals simply looking to improve their productivity. I’ve learned many secrets and tricks over the years. Some I’ve discovered myself, but many I’ve learned from others; humans are wonderfully inventive.

This book aims to help you to get better at managing your life to allow you to get more of the things done that you need to get done. It contains 50 secrets, grouped into seven themed chapters. If you follow the secrets you will find that you amaze yourself at how much you can actually achieve!

“If we did all the things we are capable of doing we would truly astound ourselves”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931), American inventor

The seven themed chapters are:

• Knowing what things to do. You need to know what it is that needs to be done. You also need to be happy that you are doing the ‘right’ thing.

• Knowing how to do things. Sometimes you have to do things in a way that is laid down by the organization; other times it is up to you.

• Knowing when to do things. You aren’t likely to have just one thing to do – you probably have loads, so you need to know how to prioritize tasks.

• Working to your plan. You know what and how you want to work, but people keep distracting you. How do you manage distractions so that you can get things done?

• Saying “no”. You could get it all done if only people wouldn’t keep asking you to do other things. You need to learn when to say “no”.

• Dealing with problems. You thought you could do that job in an hour, but something has gone wrong. Here’s how to prevent and solve these problems.

• Asking others to do things. Sometimes the best way to do something is to get someone else to do it for you. This shows how you can successfully enlist the help of other people.

Learn the secrets of planning, prioritizing and managing workloads.

Knowing what things to do

Firstly it is critically important to recognize that you are responsible for your own destiny. This chapter aims to help you set out your personal mission or vision, to recognize the value of using your time wisely and to develop some foundation strategies to help you manage your time. You need to ensure that the things you do are of value both to you and to your organization.

1.1 Check your bank balance of time

Imagine you have an account at a bank where you automatically get credited each morning with $86,400. Every evening the bank takes back whatever part of the balance you failed to spend during the day. Nothing can be carried over or transferred. What would you do? Well, I’d try to spend every cent, and I bet you would too!

You do have such a bank account; at the ‘Bank of Time’. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it debits whatever portion of this total you have failed to invest to some ‘good’ purpose.

“The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is” C.S. Lewis, English author

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for time is the stuff life is made of.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), a Founding Father of the USA

If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. You need to use this deposit wisely so as to get from it the utmost in business success, health and happiness. Use it so as to get the most done.

The clock is running, and you need to make the most of your time. Think about the value of these units of time:

• The value of one year. To recognize the value of a year, ask a student who failed to achieve the grade.

• The value of one month. Ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

• The value of one week. Ask the person who edits the weekly newspaper.

• The value of one hour. Ask the people sitting waiting for someone vital to join a meeting.

• The value of one minute. Ask the person who just missed their train and so failed to make an important presentation.

• The value of one millisecond. Ask the person who won the silver medal.

If you should have done something and you didn’t, you can’t have the time back! So learn to make the most of it.

Remember that time waits for no one.

1.2 Ask for clear instructions

Often people can be a bit vague when they are giving instructions or explaining what they want. This may not appear to be much of a problem at first, but it can lead to a lot of wasted time. If someone asks you to do something for them, make sure you are 100% certain about what’s required.

1 Whenever possible, get a written instruction or request; the act of writing down instructions makes people think more carefully and fully about what they actually want. It also saves you having a difference of opinion later about what was said and heard.

2 Whether written or spoken, try to get the request in as much specific detail as possible. For instance, “Pick me up outside the west door of the HSBC Bank”, rather than “Pick me up at the bank.”

3 Getting it done late is no good; you need to know the deadline for the job to be done. Again, make sure you get specific detail: “by 5.30pm on Friday afternoon” rather than “by Friday” or “this week” or “as soon as possible”.

one minute wonder Before you start on any task, make sure you know the What, Where, When and How of the job you are about to undertake. If you don’t, you will quite possibly end up wasting all the time you spend.

At work there may be specific quality standards to be achieved. For example, your manager wants a report on sales to date this year, broken down by product and region and cross referenced by sales person. The report is needed by 5pm on Friday the 12th of July.

Ok, those were your instructions, which on the face of it seemed clear, with a specific deadline. However, is there really enough detail about how the report should be submitted? You shouldn’t be starting on this task until you know the specific details, such as:

• Is it in draft form or final form?

• Is it to be in a specific format (for example a company template)?

• Does it need to feed into other standard company forms?

If the person giving the instructions doesn’t offer all the essential detail, then you are going to have to ask. Never be shy about asking for more detail. The best way to start is to repeat back your understanding of the instruction to the person who gave it to you. That’s what pilots do!

See also Secret 7.3 when you need to give good instructions.

Getting it right first time is always better than having to come back and do it again.

1.3 See the relevance of the bigger picture

People often talk about the ‘bigger picture’, often meaning the strategy of the organization or overall purpose. You need to know how what you are doing is contributing to the ‘bigger picture’ and moving the organization closer to that final goal.

It is really easy to simply accept any instruction from your superiors as being ‘right’: not something to question, but something just to do, even if you can’t see its relevance.

It isn’t necessarily a criticism of your boss if you question an instruction; it may be simply that you want to understand how the instruction fits into the overall purpose of the organization. Understanding this increases your commitment to doing it and doing it well, whereas if you are doing something that, quite literally, has no point you will quickly become disillusioned. Likewise, it is valuable to recognize how doing something that doesn’t benefit the organization is potentially valueless to them, therefore making you (or at least your job) unnecessary.

What is important is to ensure that you check the relevance to the bigger picture in a way that doesn’t seem to be critical of your boss. Opposite are some tips on how to do this.

one minute wonder You may have to do a mix of tasks, some of which are relevant to the bigger picture and some of which are irrelevant. Make sure you know the level of importance to attach to the irrelevant ones.

1 Approach your boss in private, not in front of other people, when you want to check the relevance of the tasks requested of you.

2 Ask ‘open’ questions, which cannot be answered simply with a “Yes” or “No”. Ask how, why, what, where and who questions rather that do/does, will, can. For example, “I need to understand how this contributes to the departmental sales activity” or “Where does this feed into the manufacturing process?”

3 If necessary ‘sell’ the benefits to the manager of taking the time to explain this: “I want to do this job really well for you, so can you explain…” or “If I understand the value of this task, I can ensure that it gets the priority it deserves…”

4 If the task isn’t actually relevant to the bigger picture, but the boss still wants it done, ask what its priority is in relation to the tasks you have that are relevant.

5 Thank your boss for explaining it. You’ll quickly ‘train’ your boss to ensure that you only get relevant tasks without asking!

Knowing how your tasks relate to the bigger picture helps both you and your boss to organize the workload.

1.4 Identify what’s relevant to you

In work you need to be sure that the things you do are really part of your job (and that means your boss’s view of your job). Similarly, outside work you want to be sure that doing things for others doesn’t stop you doing things for yourself.

There are many reasons why people find themselves doing things at work that aren’t their job. The same goes for non-work life; whether it is doing things for your family or the community. For example:

• Their job is ill defined.

• The person who complains the least gets the task.

• This person will do it better than anyone else, either because they have the skill or the commitment.

• The task is something that a person likes, so they volunteer to do it.

one minute wonder Consider the proverb: “The cobbler’s children are the worst shod in town.” This is a description of someone who has become confused about what’s relevant to them personally.

• When does it matter if you are doing something that isn’t your job? If you are distracted into other activities that are not included in your formal targets, but which prevent you from achieving your targets, or stop you achieving them on time, then you have failed. Therefore, if you take on extra things, make sure that you really do have time for them and they are for a purpose that’s relevant to you. For example, your boss is looking for a volunteer to do a departmental survey. Nobody else wants to take on this extra work, but you volunteer because you want to know more about how the department works and you want to network with people, not because you feel obliged.

• When does it matter if you are distracted into doing things for others in your non-work life? Of course it is good to be altruistic and to help others. However, some people become so distracted by helping others that they leave no time to do the tasks that are important to them personally. For example, when you find you are spending far more time helping with the school committee than helping your own children with their homework, then you need to step back from the situation, identify your real priorities and arrange your time better. Also, if you take on extra things to help others, make sure this is not just because you are procrastinating on something else you ought to be doing for yourself, or using the other thing as an excuse. For example, have you agreed to decorate your brother’s flat because you really want to help him, or because you are secretly putting off committing to that evening class you’ve been talking about for ages?

For more advice on this subject, see Chapter 5 on saying “no”.

Remind yourself of what’s really relevant in your workload.

1.5 Do the ‘right’ things right

The previous two Secrets in this book discuss doing what is ‘relevant’, but you also have to do what is ‘right’. There are various levels of ‘rightness’ to judge things by: moral, ethical, legal and practical.

• Moral, ethical and legal. Your personal morality and ethics will reflect the religious teachings and codes of law in your country. If you work for a global organization you may have to bear in mind differences between the moral and ethical norms in your native country and others you might come into contact with. Likewise, make sure that what you do is legally right under the laws of your organization, your country and any international laws affecting it. For example, few people would

case study An importer was making a margin of 4% on high-volume, low-cost, perishable stock. This did not feel ‘right’ in practical terms because it was a very low margin. Not only that, some of the importer’s customers were asking for more environmentally friendly and ethically produced stock that would fulfil the ‘right’ values for them. The importer decided to introduce another line of products that were less perishable and lighter to transport, and which sold for a 15% margin. By doing the ‘right’ thing, the importer was able to continue to provide the original stock to the loyal customers while also increasing the product range and customer base, and protecting and expanding the business.

“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not” Oprah Winfrey, American TV personality

consider that it would be doing the ‘right’ thing to sell alcohol-related products in a country that bans alcohol. That may be an extreme example, but the point is that to keep up your motivation, it’s essential that you do the things that feel ‘right’ according to your moral code, and to do them ‘right’ – or 100% correctly to the best of your abilities.

• Practical. There is a phrase in English: ‘busy fools’. This is used to describe people who are always busy and active but are doing the ‘wrong’ things. The ‘wrong’ things could be:

• Things which aren’t relevant (see Secrets 1.3 and 1.4).

• Things which your customer doesn’t want, need or value (see Secret 4.4).

• Things which are of lesser value.

Make sure that the things you do are ‘right’ in every sense of the word.

1.6 Plan for output, not activity

This piece of advice may seem obvious: we are looking at the subject of ‘Getting Things Done’ so of course we are going to plan for output (i.e. the end result) rather than the activity, aren’t we? And yet, in the real world we often plan things the other way round – for activity rather than output.

Part of this mixed up focus comes from our schooling or our parents and the way we were treated as children. “Oh yes, he practises his piano for an hour every day” is an example of the measurement of activity rather than output. Similarly, “We set half an hour of homework each day”, or “You will spend three years at university”.

All these approaches measure activity rather than output. Indeed, the output is expected to happen almost by chance. “If you spend an hour hitting piano keys each day you are bound to play a good tune eventually.” This encourages the child to become a ‘clock-watcher’: “When I’ve been hitting piano keys for an hour I can go and play.” The child then concentrates on the minute hand rather than focusing on the piano playing.

This behaviour tends to be carried on in our work life; we measure things by how long we are doing something rather than aiming to achieve a specific outcome in the available time. Of course, this is reinforced by the fact that we are often paid a salary of X per year, or Y per month, or Z per hour. Evidentally, it’s payment for the passage of time, not output!

So when you are setting yourself goals (or deciding what to do today) aim for the Outcome not the Activity.

With many tasks you will need to break them down into smaller outcomes in order to make them more visible.

This will help you to focus on getting things done, which will add a sense of urgency, allow you to measure your success and generally improve your morale as well.

It is very satisfying to see that you have achieved something, rather than just spending time doing something.

1.7 DREAM to get more done

You’ll often hear people say that they wish they had more hours in the day, or that they dream of having more time. Well now they can at least use the mnemonic DREAM to help them achieve more in the time they have.…

DREAM is a simple five-option way to manage the things that come into your in-tray during the working day – or the requests you get from your spouse/boss/customers/or staff.

When you receive a request for help or an instruction, decide immediately on one of these five courses of actions. Don’t ignore it or put off dealing with the issue.

1 Delegate it. If it is appropriate to do so, you should delegate it to either a peer or a subordinate. Delegating a job requires you to ensure that the person to whom you delegate has the skill, the time, the authority and the responsibility for completing the job to the proper standard and deadline. If you don’t ensure that they have all of these things, then you haven’t ‘delegated’, you have ‘dumped’! (See Secret 7.4.)

“One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment…If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), US President

2 Reflect or refuse it. If appropriate you should refuse to undertake this task on the grounds that it isn’t right for you to be doing it or reflect it away to the appropriate person, even if that person is the source of the request!

3 Escalate it. You can pass it straight up to your boss if it is something that ultimately she or he will need to deal with.

4 Action it. Get it done immediately if it is definitely your responsibility. Avoid simply adding it to your in-tray – action it immediately, whilst the source of the request waits if possible!

5 Make a time for it. If it is definitely your responsibility and you can’t do it immediately (either because of other priorities or reasons), schedule a time to do it. Either insert it into your prioritized ‘to do’ list (see Secret 1.10) or set a time in your diary to deal with it.

Consciously think ‘DREAM’ with each item in your in-tray and each request, then decide how to manage it.

1.8 Have a personal vision or mission

You don’t want your career to stand still; you want to be sure that what you do is relevant to moving you towards your longer term career goals. There are two elements you need to have in mind here.

What are your long-term career goals?

Most of us are simply grateful to have a decent job and a wage packet at the end of each week or month, but we also need to have a vision of where we want to be in the future. You may want to carve out a long-term career with your current employer or you may want to set up your own business in the future, but the most important thing is to know what you want out of life.

Visualize yourself at the age 50 or 60 years.

• How respected are you?

• Where do you live and work?

• What kind of family life do you have?

• What do you do for fun?

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” Lewis Carroll, English author

Deciding the answers to these questions will help you to define the type of job you work in today and next year in order to get to where you want to be. Many people find it really helpful to write out their vision, either like an essay or a series of bullet points.

What medium-term actions are relevant to achieving your long-term career goals?

You now have to ensure that everything you do is relevant to you in your current and next job. Especially if you are working at a junior level, assess each instruction to ensure that it is within the job description of your current job. You are assessed against your job description, so doing things that aren’t covered in your job description is like spending time asleep, unless…a task is clearly proving your ability to be promoted to the next job up! If you are working at a more senior level, ask yourself if you are getting all the right things done, or could you be prioritizing or delegating more efficiently? Are you genuinely working each day to achieve your long-term career goals?

Look at Secret 1.4 as well since it looks in more depth at the short-term aspect of your current job.

Write down your long-term career goals and what you need to do in the medium term to achieve them.

1.9 Know WIIFM

The mnemonic WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me? It may sound selfish, but in terms of getting things done, WIIFM is important because it can provide you with a motivation to want to do something, as opposed to doing something simply because you think you have to do it.

It may seem odd to be talking about having to find out “what’s in it for me”, but the reality is that every job has its good bits and its bad bits: things that we like doing and things that we hate doing. Usually the WIIFM good bits of a job are fairly easy to find:

• I enjoy it.

• I find it easy.

• It makes me look good/feel good.

• It moves me closer to promotion.

one minute wonder WIIFMS are very rarely about financial reward, so think outside the money-box!

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need” Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer

Finding the WIIFM factor in the bad bits of the job is often more difficult. However, if we can identify the WIIFM it helps motivate us to do the bad bits properly and quickly.

You may find the WIIFM in one of two areas of the bad bits of your job.

Positive WIIFMs such as:

• I don’t enjoy it but it makes me look good.

• I don’t enjoy it but it brings me closer to promotion.

• I’m not very good at it but by doing it I get better.

Nastiness avoidance WIIFMS such as:

• Once I’ve done it, it is out of the way for another month/quarter/year.

• If I can get it done the boss will stop hassling me to do it.

• As soon as it is out of the way I can stop worrying about it.

• If I do this then I’m safe from the authorities/criticism.

If you can find the “what’s in it for me?” factor you can motivate yourself to do almost anything.

1.10 Make ‘to do’ lists

Some people love ‘to do’ lists and others hate them! What cannot be denied is that ‘to do’ lists help you to remember what it is that you need to do, and the more tasks you have to do, the more valuable the list.

• List all tasks. List the one-off things as well as listing any everyday, weekly or monthly tasks.

• Break down the tasks. Write as much detail as you can. This gives you a better chance of accurately estimating the time each task will take. For example, if you have to move to another workstation, break it down into the individual tasks:

• Pack boxes

• Disconnect pc & phone

• Move desk

• Move chair and filing cabinet

• Move pc & phone

one minute wonder Many software programs and even mobile phones nowadays have a ‘to do’ list function (sometimes called a ‘task’ list). These are generally nothing more sophisticated than the type of paper list recommended here.

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