How Effective are Your Meetings?

Most people I know spend more time in meetings than they'd care to
admit. It seems like folks "at the bottom" detest meetings even though
they have few of them and those "at the top" detest them partly as a
result of having too many. You just can't win!

Here's an example of MSNBC's take on meetings called "Meetings Make Us Dumber Study Shows". It's a decent enough take on how groupthink can cloud out meeting creativity but I think that there's a better approach.

Pat Lencioni (a.k.a. THE MAN!) wrote Death by Meeting, a clever fable about a young CEO who runs meetings like a trainwreck.  Says Lencioni,

 

Imagine hearing a surgeon saying to a nurse before
surgery, "If I didn't have to operate on people, I might actually like this
job." Or a symphony conductor preparing for a performance: "If it weren't for
these concerts, I would enjoy my work more." Or even a professional baseball
player: "I'd love my job if I didn't have to play in these games."

But there is hope. By taking a contrarian, nontraditional
view of meetings, and following a few specific guidelines that have nothing to
do with video-conferencing, interactive software or Robert's Rules of Order, we
can transform what is now painful and tedious into something productive,
compelling, and even energizing. In the process, we can also differentiate
ourselves from our competitors who continue to waste time, energy and enthusiasm
lamenting the drudgery of meetings.

Pretty
simple stuff and he's right. As you navigate your meetings for the rest
of the week, consider Lencioni's advice and transform them from
drudgery into something dramatic.

Interruptions at Work

I gave a series of talks last friday to the assistant principals of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
During their spring retreat day, I discussed how one can see their work
as holy. In other words, how to connect faith and the business of life?

We
discussed interruptions and I painted a portrait of how two people
handle interruptions. Phil vs. Paula. Phil sees interruptions as
sidetracks away from his real, important work. Paula on the other hand,
sees interruptions as a part of the road. She's heading somewhere but
she knows that there will be some tough potholes to navigate. Obviously
Paula provides a better paradigm for the busy executive.

Time Thoughts has a great piece about handling interruptions as does Business Tool Chest.

When it comes to our faith, author Allan Wright
talks about the life of Jesus as a "costly display of unexpected love".
In other words, Jesus was interruptable. Now that's a new spin on the
potential value of interruptions.

Interruptions at Home

It's easy to close the door to your colleagues at work when you're
trying to hunker down and work on a project but what about at home?
It's not always practical (nor responsible) to leave your kids alone
while you go off into another room to work, pay the bills or talk on
the phone. Many parents practice skillfully the art of multitasking
when it comes to this: working out while baby is in the bouncy seat,
doing the dishes while Johnny is drawing, etc.

What can you do to help your children respect your time/space when you need to get something done? Families.com has some suggestions but I really like those put forth by Keep Kids Healthy. Some great suggestions include:

• prepare kids for your time of focused work, telling them in advance



• distract them (sometimes a wholesome movie is okay and the right thing to do)



• emphasize that learning not to interrupt is part of learning good manners

Whether you have children or not, helping those around you to respect your desire to get things done is always a good idea!

Crash Course in GTD

If you've been reading The Daily Saint for a while and wonder what
the heck this GTD thing is all about, don't worrry! GTD stands for David Allen's system of personal productivity called Getting Things Done. His book, by the same name, sparked a revolution in time management that only Stephen Covey can rival.

While
Covey's system is more of a top-down approach to time management (i.e.
discern goals and mission then tackle the day to day), GTD is truly
bottoms-up in that it states an obvious truth: having a mission
statement is all well and good but if your desk is a horror show,
you're still going to be unproductive. His advice- process your "stuff"
first, then let it free you up to tackle the mission/vission/goals in
its due time.

One of the fastest and truly smooth intros that I've seen of GTD can be found at BNET.
There you'll find a nice summary of Allen's system, what you'll need to
make it work and a posting board of what other folks have said is
helpful about GTD in their lives. A second resource is for the crazies
out there whose blogs are solely devoted to GTD. Visit Office Zealot for a look at these folks. A nice group of crazies:)

My advice: give GTD a try for a month. Get Allen's book, mark it up and
share your experience. It's worked wonders for me and might be just the
ticket to get a few more things done in less time.

Managing Your Time: Are You an Honors Student?

Last week I tried out an interesting experiment as part of Lent. I gave
myself (always the teacher) a grade based on how well I used my time.

I broke the day into 3 chunks of time that work for me: before work, during work, after work.
I then scored myself based on pure "feel" for how that chunk of time
went. Did I waste time? Was I lazy? What could I have done differently?

Here are my results:

Monday  A, B+, A (a good start to the week and work was hectic but set up the right blocks for the rest of the week)

Tuesday  A, A-, B+ (a better work day and I gave myself permission to relax a bit more in the evening)

Wednesday  C, C+, B (snow days always kill my productivity so I'll just chalk this one up to an off day)

Thursday  B+, B+, A- (a good day to recoup and recapture my productivity road signs)

Friday  No grade, B+, A-
(retreat day here; I'm always too nervous and wired to sit down for
prayer time ont he day of a retreat so I'll skip the first grade)

This new system worked well for me! I was more aware of how I was "using" my
time and managing my commitments. See how it works for you as well.