Michael Fortino, over an average lifetime, you will spend seven years in the
bathroom. You will spend six years eating. You will spend five years waiting
in lines. You will spend four years cleaning your house. You will spend
three years in meetings. You will spend one year searching for things. You
will spend eight months opening junk mail. You will spend six months
sitting at red lights. You will spend 120 days brushing your teeth. And here’s
the big surprise. You will spend four minutes per day conversing with your
spouse and 30 seconds per day conversing with your children.
Get Focused and Stay Focused
In order to change some of these ratios in a positive way, you will have to
learn how to cut out the time wasters and save time in every area of your
life. To save time at work, for instance, you must continually ask yourself
questions like the following:
Why am I on the payroll?
What have I been hired to accomplish?
What is my major goal or objective right now?
What am I supposed to do, or be doing at this moment?
What results have I been hired to achieve?
Is what I am doing right now contributing to the accomplishment of my most
important goals and objectives?
The most important of these questions is to continually ask yourself, from
the time you start work to the time you finish is, “Why am I on the payroll?
Time Power
Is what I’m doing right now what I have been hired to do?” The greatest
time saver of all is the word “No!” Make it a habit to say “No!” to any
demands on your time that do not move you toward your most important
goals.
Seven Ways to Deal with Telephone Interruptions
Here are seven ideas to help you deal with the tyranny of telephone
interruptions:
1. Use It as a Business Tool
Use the telephone as a business tool. Get on and off it fast. Don’t socialize
on the phone when you are working. Make your calls as efficient as possible.
When you were a teenager, the telephone became a social tool for you. It
was your connection to your friends and to members of the opposite sex.
You became accustomed to spending a lot of time on the phone in idle
conversation. As an adult, you still associate the phone with socializing, with
idle chatter. It has become a habit.
However, when you enter into the world of work, you have to break that
habit and begin to view the telephone as a means of business
communication. You must discipline yourself to use the telephone as a
business tool during the hours from nine to five.
2. Have Your Calls Screened
Time Power
Have your calls screened. Find out who it is and what he or she wants before
you answer. Overcome the natural curiosity that wells up in you when
people you don’t know call you. Find out why they are calling before you
take the phone call.
3. Have Your Calls Held
Have your calls held whenever possible. Set aside periods of the day when
you take no interruptions. Don’t become a slave to a ringing phone. One of
the best tactics you can use is to actually disconnect your phone when you
are working on something important. If it is important enough, whoever is
calling you will call back again later.
4. Set Clear Call Back Times
Get and give call back times. When you call someone and they are not there,
leave a message and the time that you will be available to take the return
phone call.
When someone calls you and you can’t take the call, make sure that your
secretary or receptionist gets a call back time. This is the time when you can
get a hold of him or her so that you don’t play telephone tag back and forth.
5. Batch Your Calls
Time Power
Batch your calls. Use the learning curve and make all of your telephone calls
at once. Don’t spread them throughout the day.
Sometimes you can accumulate all of your phone calls up to eleven in the
morning, and then return them all between eleven and twelve o’clock. Or
you can accumulate them up to three thirty in the afternoon and then return
them all between three thirty and four thirty.
6. Plan Your Calls In Advance
Plan your calls in advance. Think about a business call as a meeting and
write out an outline or agenda for your telephone meeting or discussion.
Don’t waste time by picking up the phone and calling, and then forgetting
why you are calling and the things you wanted to discuss.
7. Take Good Notes
Take complete notes of telephone conversations. The power is on the side of
the person with the best notes. Never answer a telephone without a pad of
paper and a pen in your hand. Keep careful notes of the things that you agree
to. Write down what the other person agrees to, including the numbers,
times, dates, amounts and so on that are discussed on the phone. These notes
can be extremely important to you in the future.
Dealing with Drop-In Visitors
Time Power
Here are five ways to deal with the next of the major time wasters, drop-in
visitors.
1. Create a Quiet Time for Work
First, specify a quiet time during the day where you will concentrate on your
work. During this time, allow no interruptions. Get yourself a “Do Not
Disturb” sign from a store or a hotel and put it on your door. Make it clear to
everybody that when that sign is out, you do not want to be disturbed for any
reason by anyone, except in an emergency.
2. Stand Up Quickly
Deal with unwelcome visitors by standing up when they come in to your
office. Some years ago, I worked in a company with a manager who would
go from office to office making conversation. He was one of the most boring
talkers in the world. He was a nice fellow, but when he came in, you knew
that, if he sat down, he was going to be there for half an hour.
I finally learned how to handle his unwelcome visits. The instant that he
came in the door, I would immediately stand up and come around my desk
as though I was just on my way out.
I would say, “It’s nice to see you, but I am just leaving. I’ll walk out with
you.” I would then walk him to the door and lead him back out into the
hallway. Then, I would keep on going myself. I would go to the washroom
or to some other office until he was gone, and only then would I go back.
Time Power
This saved me an enormous amount of time that the other executives in the
company were unable to avoid.
3. Bring the Discussion to a Close
When the meeting has gone on long enough, say, “There’s one more thing
before you go.” You then stand up and lead him to the door. Finish off the
conversation with anything you can think of, shake hands, and then go back
to work.
One variation of this technique is to say, “One more thing before you go; I
want to show you something.” You then take him out of the office and show
him a plant, a book, a new piece of furniture or anything that you can think
of. Then, turn around and go back to work leaving him there to carry on.
4. Arrange Specific Meeting Times
To deal effectively with drop-in visitors, you can arrange specific times to
meet that are convenient for both of you. Make appointments to get together
with the people in your office. Make appointments with your staff and let
them know that at certain times of the day, your door is open and you will be
available.
5. Avoid Wasting the Time of Others
Time Power
Make every effort to avoid being a drop-in visitor on others. If you do drop
in on someone else, always be polite enough to ask, “Is this a good time, or
can we get together later?”
Encourage others to say the same thing to you: “Is this a good time or should
we get together later?” It is amazing how many people unconsciously waste
the time of others, and are unaware of it.
Saving Time in Meetings
Meetings are a major time waster in the world of work. As much as 50% of
working time is spent in meetings, either group meetings or one on one
meetings. In the estimate of almost everyone, at least 50% of this time is
wasted. This means that as much as 25% of all working time is lost in
meetings of one kind or another.
However, meetings are not an evil. Meetings are a necessary business tool
for exchanging information, solving problems, and reviewing progress.
Determine the Cost of the Meeting
Each meeting costs the hourly rate of the people attending multiplied by the
number of hours spent in the meeting. Meetings should therefore be treated
as an actual dollar expenditure with an expected value, or rate of return on
investment.
Time Power
Imagine that you have ten people in a meeting, and the average person is
earning $20 per hour. Ten times 20 equals $200 per hour. This is the cost of
that meeting. If you were going to spend $200 on something in your
business, which is exactly what you are doing in this meeting, you should
have a very good reason for it.
Think through in advance the justification of spending this amount of
money. Why are you bringing these people, at these hourly rates, together
for this period of time?
Continually think of meetings as an investment with an expected rate of
return. Treat them exactly as if you were spending the company’s money,
because, directly or indirectly, that is exactly what you are doing.
Seven Ways to Make Meetings More Efficient
Here are seven ways to increase the efficiency and improve the results of
meeting time.
1. Is It Necessary?
Ask, “Is this meeting necessary?” Many meetings turn out in retrospect to be
unnecessary. There are other ways to achieve the same goal. Sometimes you
can achieve it by circulating a memo. You can have a conference call. You
can speak to people individually. You can even postpone it to another
meting or another time altogether. If a meeting is not necessary, avoid
holding it whenever possible.
Time Power
If the meeting is necessary, ask, “Is it necessary for me to attend this
meeting?” If it is not necessary for you to attend, don’t go in the first place.
If it is not necessary for someone else to attend a particular meeting, make
sure that he knows so that he does not have to be there.
2. Write an Agenda
If you have determined that the meeting is necessary, establish a clear
purpose for the meeting and write up an agenda. An excellent time
management tool is for you to write a one paragraph statement of purpose
for the meeting. Complete the sentence, “We are having this meeting to
achieve this specific goal:” and then write out the objective of the meeting.
This is a tremendous discipline. Make out an agenda or a list of everything
that has to be covered in the meeting. Next to each item, put the name of the
person who is expected to address that particular issue. Distribute the
agenda, if possible, at least 24 hours in advance so that each person knows
what they will be expected to contribute. They will know what the objective
of the meeting is and what will be discussed. This applies to one on one
meetings with your boss, with your subordinates, with your customers, with
your suppliers and whoever else.
Create Agendas for One on One Meetings
One of the most helpful techniques you can use in business is to draw up an
agenda for each meeting with your boss. I learned this many years ago as a
Time Power
junior executive. Prior to using this technique, we would spend an hour
talking around in circles with no clear beginning or end. Once we had an
agenda to work from, we could cover more information with greater clarity
in fifteen minutes than we used to cover in sixty minutes.
Sometimes I would type up the agenda before the meeting. On other
occasions, I would just write it up by hand, photocopy it, give him a copy,
keep a copy for myself and then say, “These are the things I want to discuss
with you.” We would then go down the list, item by item, and get resolution
of each point. I would them be out of his office and back to work. My boss
really appreciated this approach. As a result, he was always willing to see
me because I took up so little of his time.
3. Start and Stop on Time
Start and stop the meeting on time. Set a schedule for the beginning of the
meeting, and set a time for the end of the meeting. If the meeting is going to
run from eight until nine, start it at eight o’clock sharp and end it at nine
o’clock sharp.
The worst type of meetings are the ones that start at a specific time but have
no clearly determined ending time.
Here is another rule: don’t wait for the latecomer. Assume the latecomer is
not coming at all, and start at the designated time. It is unfair to punish the
people who are there on time by making them wait for the person who gets
there late, if at all.
Time Power
Many companies establish the policy of locking the meeting room from the
inside at the exact time the meeting is scheduled to start. The people who
show up late are not allowed in. You can be sure that they don’t show up late
the next time.
4. Cover Important Items First
Cover the most important items first. When you draw up the agenda, apply
the 80/20 Rule. Organize the agenda so that the top 20% of items are the
first items to be discussed. This way, if you run out of time, you will have
covered the items that represent 80% of the value of the meeting before the
time runs out.
5. Summarize Each Conclusion
When you discuss each item, summarize the discussion and get closure. Get
agreement and completion on each item before you go onto the next one.
Restate what has been decided upon and agreed to with each item before you
proceed.
6. Assign Specific Responsibility
If you have made a decision, assign responsibility for the specific actions
agreed upon and set deadlines. Remember, discussion and agreement
without an assignment of responsibility and a deadline for completion is
merely a conversation. Be clear about who is going to do what and by when.
Time Power
7. Keep Notes and Circulate Minutes
A key to assuring maximum effectiveness from meetings is to keep accurate
