Clearing out the clutter

Do you remember what it felt like the last time you managed to clear your workspace and work in an uncluttered environment?   When was the last time you had a clean desk, empty inbox (including email), and were just working on the task at hand. If you’re anything like me you probably got a lot more work done, and felt better while you were doing it.  Now I know youre probably sitting back right now thinking something along the lines of ‘He’s right, I must have a clear out.’  Am I right?

If so, make a commitment to yourself to do it, and I don’t mean just adding it to your to do list, but REALLY making a commitment. Make an appointment with yourself for an hour. Enough time to clear your work space and free up some extra time and space to get more done, more efficiently, more effectively, and with less stress.

The trouble with a cluttered desk is not the mess, not the lack of space, and not ‘losing stuff’ (although these all play a part – some studies indicate that cluttered execs spend up to six weeks a year locating ‘misplaced’ information). The real trouble with cluttered work areas is distraction. Most peoples minds work in a pretty visual fashion. We see something, we process it, we react to it. Much of the processing goes on behind the scenes, but it still goes on. When we have a cluttered area in front of us, be it a desk or a workbench, we are constantly being distracted. We can be working on getting that proposal out in time, and we know that it’s the highest priority we have, but our eye keeps getting caught by that stack of receipts reminding us about our expenses, or the pile of unread magazines reminding us we really should catch up on current trends. Sometimes, we get a distraction that actually does take us away from what we should be doing. The ‘it’ll only take a second’ jobs like opening the post, filing that document, or checking email. (Email is often one of the biggest culprits here; always on, always distracting, often completely irrelevant!)

When we clear it out, we allow oursleves the luxury of focus. A clear mind and path to achieving the task we have in front of us.  Making sense?  Think it’ll work? Going to give it a try? I’ll give you a few little tips to get you started, but you’re going to need some willpower as well – NOTHING gets done without a little determination.

TIPS

1. Turn OFF email – That’s right, OFF. Check it in bulk. It’s much quicker to delete 20 spam or junk emails at once, than one at a time. If there’s something there you do need to deal with, isn’t it better to get to it when you’ve finished the higher priority item you’re working on now?
2. Use the Do it, Delegate it, Dump it rule. It’s pretty simple, but you MUST start from the back. Think ‘Can I dump this?’ first, otherwise you’re going to end up doing all the stuff you don’t need to.
3. If you can’t Dump it, can’t Delegate it, and you’re too busy to Do it right now, Diary it. Schedule time to complete each task – even if it’s just 5 minutes. Tasks we just ‘get around to’ don’t get got around to and just end up as distractions. Discipline yourself!
4. Clean up EVERY evening. If it takes a while to get started with this, that’s ok, but the quicker you get clean, the better. Make sure you’re workspace is less cluttered every evening until it’s completely clear.
5. Get yourself a decent planning system. Some people work well with lists, some work better with computerised tasks. The system is what matters – whatever you choose, stick with it and make it work for YOU!

Remember, most things feel awkward the first few times we do them, but we get used to them quickly if we stick at it.

To paraphrase an old sales adage. ‘The biggest waste of a person’s time are the tasks that don’t get finished!’

If you’re not going to finish, decide early and get rid of it. Any one who wants any specific tips or help with this can feel free to email me or comment here. Just stop making excuses!

Powerful Goal Setting… Part Four « Powered by COMMUNICATION!

Powerful Goal Setting… Part Four « Powered by COMMUNICATION!

This is an interesting article by my friend Jean, at Powered by Communication. It’s thought provoking, and certainly made me think. It’s a different take on the ‘goals’ subject, and offers thoughts on contributing to causes that are bigger than us. Not enough of us think about what we can give back. We’re often all too focused on what we can get out. It’s a useful excercise to consider what we’d like to do given unlimited resources – maybe there are ways we could do something; even if it’s not the ideal something, the key is DOING, not just knowing we should.   The wheel of fate keeps turning, karma weaves its tapestry through all of our lives. Are we balanced in what we’re doing? Supporting as well as being supported?

I have a firm belief that if ALL voluntary contributions were stopped overnight, the worlds economy would suffer to an ENORMOUS degree, so we owe it to ourselves and to the world to give a little something back now and then.

Check it out – see what you think.

Unleash the Warrior Within – Richard J Machowicz

Unleash the Warrior Within: Develop the Focus, Discipline, Confidence and Courage You Need to Achieve Unlimited Goals

Not to be confused with the excellent ‘Unleash the Power Within’ by Anthony Robbins, this is an interesting, although ultimately unfulfilling, book.  ‘Develop the Focus, Discipline, Confidence and Courage You Need to Achieve Unlimited Goals’ is the tagline, and yes, it’s another book on goal setting and achievement. It does have an interesting perspective though. The author is a 10 year veteran of the US Navy SEALs, which gives him a rather unique perspective on some areas, and the book is peppered with anecdotes about life in the SEALs and how these experiences can be made analogous to achieving goals in all areas of life.  Whilst the stories are fascinating, exciting, and well written, I sometimes found it difficult to make the leap from reading about it to making it relevant to me personally.

Some of the acronyms used felt a little bit ‘forced’ at times (ADVANTAGES, for example is a little long for me to be usable without going through a manual process to figure it all out), but the content is all very relevant and will be valuable if it hits the right triggers for you.

In summary, it’s a well written book with good, valuable content. Great military stories break up the dry bits and probably make it more interesting for macho types.

Unleash the Warrior Within

Thought from the Universe

Most days, I get a message from the universe (on my email ) . This one made me smile and sort of hit the mark.  You can sign up for these at www.tut.com. Normally they’re thought provoking, occasionally they just don’t make sense, sometimes they can be completely inspirational.  Have fun!

Start it; you don’t have to be fancy.

Keep moving; you don’t have to go crazy.

Visualize; you don’t have to admit it.

See the end result; it doesn’t have to be material.

Expect miracles; they don’t have to be huge.

Pretend you’ve arrived; you don’t have to dance on tables.

And above all else, have fun. This is why you started it, right?

Life, what a trip -
     The Universe

Speech Contest

Tonight, I chaired a speech contest at one of my local Toastmasters clubs, Reading Speakers. I can’t tell you how impressed I was at the standards of speeches and calibre of people who helped out behind the scenes. I just wish there were more of them! 

There were actually two contests tonight. a speech contest where people spoke for 5-7 minutes on a subject of their own choosing; We had subjects as diverse as ‘Football – Sport or business’ and ‘Continuous Improvement’, and we had an evaluation contest, where a person from another club gave a speech to be evaluated multiple times so that the evaluators can be judged.  How brave do you think you have to be for that! Could you deliver a speech to a 30 strong audience knowing that 5 vof those people are going to stand up and tell you exactly what they thought of it? To give you a critical evaluation of how they perceived your speech?    Most people would be terrified at the prospect, but we had two volunteers for this slot!

How about entering the contest itself? Would you be brave enough to deliver a speech or an evaluation knowing you were being judged and it wasn’t just that ever present ‘feeling’ that you were.

What about helping out behind the scenes? We had visitors from 3 other clubs to help make this thing work, and without them we would have struggled to get things done.

Sooo much work has to get done behind the scenes to make these things happen. If you think it’s brave to enter the contest, have a think about putting it together in the first place and chairing the whole thing or being the chief judge! 

We have a fantastic organisation at Reading Speakers, and one I’m proud to be a part of. EVERYBODY who took part in any capacity this evening has earned my respect by doing instead of just thinking about it.  

What reward do they get for doing this? For the most part, nothing physical (although I did give out a couple of bottles of wine as a personal thank you), but they get the knowledge and satisfaction of a job well done, another fear conquered, another step forward in their personal ambitions to achieve more. They get the immeasurable reward that comes from DOING what they knew they should be doing.  Could you do more? DO you think you should? Do you KNOW you should?

Do it, do something, do it now and tell me what you did. Help me make the world a better place by making yourself a better person.

Please?