Remaining Focused During Busy Times

Image by Billy Alexander.

I’ve been really busy the past couple of months. Of course, this isn’t anything new. In the software world, we get really busy and then not quite as busy and then super busy again.

My biggest problem is that when I get super busy, all my good habits go out the door. The irony of this is that those good habits are most important when you are overwhelmed and stressed-out.

Yesterday, I sat down and reminded myself of the good productivity habits that will make my work life much better and allow me to get all my work done (and still have a life).

Here’s the list:

• Turn off email!!! I’ve blogged about this before. When I’m trying to focus on writing user stories or pulling a survey together, it takes me at least twice as long if my email is turned on. If there is an emergency, people know how to get a hold of me.
• Get to work at 7:30 AM. I slipped out of this habit during the summer when the rest of the family was on a very relaxed schedule. It makes a world of difference to have that 90 minute “quiet time” before the rest of the office comes to life.
• Cut back on meetings. I have gotten back into the bad habit of blindly accepting most every invite I receive. Not good. I also encourage folks to schedule shorter meetings. Based on the Outlook default, we unconsciously end up with a minimum meeting time of 30 minutes, which in many cases is way too much time. The problem is that we adapt to the established time frame. Outlook does allow you to schedule meetings of any duration. Give it a try!
• Observe Productivity Day. Every now and then, I let others rob me of my Productivity Day (when I work away from the office in disconnected mode to get things done). No more. Productivity Day is sacred and allows me to remain on top of my work (and stay sane).
• Get back on track with MITs. The “Most Important Tasks” (see zenhabits.net) really help me focus my day and allow me to feel a sense of accomplishment when I complete them all before noon. I’ve still be listing them out for the most part, but not necessarily giving them my uncompromising attention through completion.
• Eliminate the non-essential.This is a pretty vague and open-ended goal, but oh so important. Hundreds of requests, comments, tasks, things to review, etc come to me every day. There is no way to do it all. It can be tempting to work on the easy stuff first and pray for energy to complete the more demanding tasks later. This is not a great approach. I try to visualize the results of responding vs. not responding to a particular request/email/task/thought/idea/etc. Based on this visualization, I decide if I should address or not.
• Delegate!! This is one I’m constantly working on. The trick is figuring out what makes sense to delegate and what is best handled by me, myself, and I.
• Call/IM instead of email. This is just a technique for lessening email traffic, which ultimately saves you time.
• Empty inbox everyday. Having an inbox full of unread emails is stressful. I plan to take time at the end of each day to process email to the point of zero inbox. I currently have six emails lingering in my inbox, which isn’t terrible, but it should be zero.
• Focus on task at hand. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. Turning off email helps, taking an internet fast helps, turning off IM helps, and having a clean workspace helps. However, beyond all this, the mind can still wander. I find it helpful to keep a notepad handy (or OneNote open), so when I remember something important, I can just jot it down, clear it from my mind, and continue.

In an effort to get remain focused during this time, I am taking an internet fast. This means no blog posting for a while. I hope you will check back in November for more musings on Product Management, work-life balance, and doing more with less.