Blast thru’ an email onslaught

Email is one of the biggest productivity challenges that executives face. Sorting through the daily barrage consumes a ridiculous amount of valuable time that could be spent elsewhere. But this is a solvable problem if you learn how to efficiently manage your everyday communications.

Don’t check your email incessantly; only look at it every hour or two.

Discipline yourself to read only the subject matter so that you can discard irrelevant or unimportant messages right away. You can purge more than half of incoming messages this way.

Practice ‘OHIO’ — Only Handle It Once. Immediately decide what to do with each email, and answer important ones quickly

instead of filing them away. Because once you’re finally ready to tackle them, you’ll spend half an hour just searching through folders.

(Source: Executives’ Biggest Productivity Challenges, Solved, by Gretchen Gavett)

Get over your procrastination problem

We all find ourselves procrastinating on occasion. Sometimes you leave a project on the backburner, or hold off on returning a phone call. It’s possible to get better about not putting things off, but you need to figure out why you’re postponing something in the first place.

If you’re afraid of screwing something up: Look at the task as a way to avoid loss - for example, to keep your boss and colleagues from thinking less of you, perhaps. Think of the dire consequences of doing nothing at all. It might feel awful, but it works.

If the task is difficult, tedious or otherwise unpleasant: Use ‘if-then planning.’ Decide in advance what you need to do, as well as when you need to do it. (‘If it is 2 pm, then I will stop what I’m doing and start working on that report.’) With a clear plan, you won’t rely on (often weak) willpower.

(Source: How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To, by Heidi Grant Halvorson)

Cultivate strategic thinkers on your team

Encouraging routine strategic thinking may be the most important thing you can do as a leader. It’s not an easy skill to teach or learn, because it is as much a mindset as a set of techniques - but it’s not impossible. Consider these ways to cultivate strategic thinkers (since they often make the most highly effective leaders):

Encourage people to ask ‘why’ and ‘when.’ Consistently asking these questions whenever a course of action is being considered enables people to fully understand the goal it aims to achieve and its impact.

Have managers set aside time for strategic planning. Make it a regular part of their job and connect them with mentors who excel at strategic thinking.

Keep people informed on what is happening in your organisation and in your industry. This will help elevate their thinking beyond the day-to-day.

(Source: Develop Strategic Thinkers Throughout Your Organisation, by Robert Kabacoff)

Find a ‘micro-mentor’ for short-term project

The free-range scope of most mentoring engagements presents a time commitment that prevents having more than one or two protégés at a time. This puts suitable mentors in short supply for young workers. To improve the likelihood of getting the best possible mentor, ask for a shorter engagement (think really short, as in, less than a month), or a ‘micro-mentoring’ arrangement.

Target the right person. Look for someone expert enough who hasn’t lost the ability to connect with someone at your level. Use your network of peers, your manager or LinkedIn to find someone suitable.

Be specific about what you hope to achieve. Set one or two targeted goals to focus on, identify ways to measure success and define the time commitment. This will help you stand out in stark contrast to those asking for undefined mentorships.

(Source: Engage a Mentor with a Short-Term Project, by Karie Willyerd)

Not make this mistake

Too often, project managers leap to solutions before taking time to completely understand the problem that needs solving. Defining the problem is a critical first step; if you fail to do this, you risk designing a solution that doesn’t address what users need or want. To understand the issue, answer:

What problem do people think this project will address? Why do they see this as something that needs solving? Who has a stake in the outcome? Do all stakeholders have the same goal, or do their goals differ? What criteria will people use to judge this project’s success?

(Source: Managing Projects, from Harvard Business Review)