Brampton - How often have you heard someone say, "I seem to be busier these days but don't seem to get as much done.  "Perhaps this is because the person has identified their measure of having a successful day as activities completed rather than results from those activities.  Many of us do exactly that.

We look at what we did today, i.e. we made 20 phone calls; we answered 35 e-mails; we wrote 5 letters; and on and on.Sure we managed to be very busy during our day.  We are able to write all these activities in our daily activity journal.But ask yourself, about results, the payback for expending this valuable resource called time.  What exactly did we achieve?

All too often we ask our employees and even ourselves to perform tasks for the sake of activity.  This is because it feels good to be busy, time passes more quickly and we can convince ourselves that we have accomplished something.

To add to this issue, we often compensate and provide rewards based on totally different measures than those used to measure activity level.  For example, when was the last time you saw the number of phone calls completed as a success measure on a performance review?  More than likely it will be the number of sales made or appointments booked, rather than calls made.

So, how do you know if you are doing the right things?  One way to help you understand whether or not you are doing the right things is to list your activities in a typical day.  It requires that you take time to make a list of the activities you complete in the course of a normal work day.

Use a standard measure for time, i.e. minimum 15 minute increments rather than "about half a day" type measurements for your tracking.  To use less than 15 minute increments might seem useful if you have many quick tasks to complete but it is also very time consuming and can add confusion to your document.  Therefore, group like activities to make up the quarter hour increments.

Next go back over your list and ask yourself the same question of each activity "Is it a Value-Add Activity?"  You may be surprised at the number of times you say NO.  Many of us have, for one reason or another, fallen into the trap of always doing what we have always done.  It has many times been said, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

It takes time to change our habits to make sure we are only doing the right things.  However, if tackled in a structured manner, we can eliminate redundant or non-value-add tasks without totally upsetting the rhythm of our day.

When is the best time to sit back and take a look at your daily activities?  The answer may vary from person to person but it might be worth considering the impact of not doing so.


© 2007 The Newman Learning Group Inc.