Be productive by spending time on the right things

We're all busy—busy doing tasks, answering emails, attending meetings, etc., but are we spending time doing the right things?

Not according to Steve Glaveski, CEO and co-founder of Collective Campus, a corporate innovation and start-up accelerator. He says:

Most of us are incredibly careful about how we spend our money. But when it comes to our time, we hardly give it a second thought.

We say yes to all sorts of nonsensical requests for our time; we treat everything as urgent... Unlike money though, time can’t be earned back.

His top advice to people looking to take back control of their time are:

Only spend time on important decisions

If your calendar is full of meetings...

and you're looking for a way to rein in the chaos, Glaveski shares this tip from Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, who identifies 2 types decisions:

• Type 1 decisions are big, hairy, irreversible, and high-stakes.
• Type 2 decisions are reversible. If you screw up, you can change it, sometimes with little harm.

Type 1 decisions are what you want to allocate time to.

Most of our decisions are Type 2 decisions, and they should be made quickly. The fewer decisions that are treated as Type 1 decisions, the less time will get eaten up with meetings and communications.

Involve only the necessary people

Avoid the temptation to call everyone into a meeting when only a few are needed. Be respectful of other people's time by not clogging up their calendars and inboxes.

This lack of ownership, and tendency to outsource accountability by way of multi-person, multi-hours-long meetings and reply-all email trails leaves company productivity stagnant and employee morale low.

Streamline, simplify, and automate

Streamline, simplify, and automate workflow and processes to minimize interruptions and distractions.

Studies show that, on average, employees are interrupted once every 11 minutes, or 43 times per day, with each interruption taking 3-5 minutes to resolve. Furthermore, 75% of these interruptions are neither important nor critical, such as asking for the latest-and-greatest documents, checking on status, clarifying instructions, etc.

Sadly, too few entrepreneurs and business executives are taking advantage of the multitude of affordable and simple, yet effective, tools on the market.

It's time to graduate beyond sticky notes, to-do lists and checklists and start leveraging a robust workflow system, like Pipeline, that can dramatically improve productivity, because they:

Orchestrate what to do

Instead of having tasks scattered across emails, phone calls, and files, have one central, master list of what needs to be done.

Detail how to do it

Embed clear instructions with governance to clarify expectations, minimize confusion, and ensure tasks are done correctly.

Automate hand-offs

Define roles & responsibilities and order of operations to create frictionless hand-offs from one person to the next, even across companies.

Track and measure performance

Monitor activities and analyze KPIs to make data-driven decisions, uncover bottlenecks, and improve over time.

As Glaveski notes, with the right approach to managing our tasks coupled with the right technology, we can actually get more done in less time. And, it all starts by changing our mindset about how we view most precious resource: our time.

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