image by wfyurasko, flickr artist

recently, i had a conversation with my career manager at work (that’s kind of like a mentor to non-booz allen people).  we talked about a few different topics, one of them was “work-life balance.”

the question of “how’s your work-life balance?” is always met by me with the same answer: “i don’t really have one.”  it’s not because i’m not afforded the support of my teammates or my leadership.  booz allen actually doesn’t like when we work too hard, too much.  our firm recognizes that happy workers are better workers, and they don’t want their best and brightest minds getting burned out.  but for me, i just really enjoy what i do.  i’ve got some great teammates — fantastic ones even.  i’ve got a whole digital collection of coworkers from twitter, yammer, and other online realms whom i love interacting with every day.  why would i want to take time away from that?  but at the same time, i am also a bit fearful of taking vacations or leaving work early when i’ve met my billable hours for the month.  the reason why is because of the college football paradigm.

in college football, if you’re injured or don’t perform to expectations there are always others to replace you — both on your team and on the nfl draft board.  you don’t want to take yourself out of a game no matter what.  you’ll play injured and take snaps on special teams because you know you need to impress.  i feel much the same way being a junior member of the firm.  i’m a 25 year old dude who’s still learning the ins and outs of everything.  if i’m going to be in the game, i have to impress.  each client presentation or internal meeting is a chance at showing what i’m capable of.

it’s not like i’m a seasoned veteran in the nfl.  if tom brady gets injured, he’s going to play as soon as he’s healthy again.  if drew brees has a few 200yd, 3 INT games in a row he’s still going to be starting quarterback next sunday.  if i had more seniority in the firm, perhaps i could ‘get away with’ taking more paid-time-off.

of course, the hundreds of dollars i spend each month in paying back student loans really puts a damper on any vacation plans.

you know… perhaps being a college football star wouldn’t be so bad after all.

on the surface, it seems like a valid complaint.  who wants to check 5 web sites, and all the rest, rather than the previous 4?  but the problem isn’t really the amount of work you have to do, it’s that you have a problem managing your time.

no one says you have to answer every email as soon as it enters your inbox, or that you have to answer your phone and txt messages.  that’s a choice that you’ve made.  instead of looking at the amount of work you have to do — or the number of sites or information/communications channels that you have to monitor — start looking at the way you organize your day.

• manage your inbox.  microsoft outlook gives you the ability to create rules for incoming messages, so why not use some?  parse your incoming messages into certain folders, or create and make use of categories — then, once your messages clean themselves up automatically, create a schedule.  only answer “project team” emails a handful of times each day.  answer “corporate communications” emails once a week.  answer “daily status” emails once a day.  whatever you choose, stick to the schedule unless there’s an urgent need.  email is not real-time; spoiler: it was never intended to be!
• screen your phone calls.  utilize your voicemail… heavily.  client calling?  don’t answer it.  boss calling?  don’t answer that either.  ”WHAT?!  are you crazy?”  no, i’m not — here’s why:  you should always have a plan when talking on the phone with someone.  because you don’t have visual communication, your words are all you have, and you need to make sure that you know what you’re talking about.  the client has a question, and your boss needs a status; this is vital information to have before engaging in a conversation with them so that you can prepare.  not only do you seem more intelligent, but you’ll also spend less time on the phone.  unless you know why the person is calling, let your voicemail answer, and — again — create a schedule for checking your voicemail.  check every day before lunch (people hate to chat when they’re on the way out the door in 15 minutes for qdoba) and sometime in the afternoon.  but whatever you do always remember, return every call every day because people hate silence.
• make information work for you.  in a world of RSS feeds and yammer, information comes to you if you let it.  if you’re checking 4 web sites a day for work, why not use an RSS reader or add RSS feeds to outlook instead?  you don’t need to be checking a site if there’s no new information, so don’t.  using tools like blogs and micro-blogs such as yammer and twitter (if adopted by your project team) can help you collect information in the same place, categorize it, and push notifications.  information will come to you if you do your part to build a platform that will support it.

the points above can be simplified into two simple rules: 1) automate what you can, and 2) create a schedule for dealing with that which you can’t.  if you’re feeling overwhelmed, chances are you don’t have a work problem — you just have a time management problem.

it’s not easy to do.  it takes complete buy-in and discipline, but if you can master your schedule you’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish.

oh, hold on a second… i’m getting a phone call…

photo by tiarescott, flickr artist

i couldn’t tell you the number of times people have said to me, “i wish i wasn’t in meetings all day; i’d be able to get some actual work done for a change.” if i had a nickel for each time someone moaned or groaned about having to go to a meeting, i’d have easily paid my student loans off by now. it’s no secret: meetings suck.

but they don’t have to!

if a meeting you’re in is ever boring, or uninteresting, or leaves you totally disengaged — you’re doing it wrong. read through these 5 reasons your meetings suck, and learn from them.

1) too many people
a major issue that many meetings have is the number of people that are invited to attend. if you can achieve the goals of the meeting without having someone around, then it’s probably a good idea not to invite them. for people development reasons, i can forgive this. for instance, wanting to bring a new hire into a meeting with the client to observe proper etiquette and what kinds of personalities he or she can expect to have to work with in the future is a great idea. it’s exposure that you can’t replace and experience you can’t simulate. including someone on a meeting for their “visibility” is just plain ridiculous. if you think someone needs to be at a meeting so they can absorb information, you’ve missed the point; that’s what meeting minutes are for! so stop inviting people to meetings who don’t need to be there.

2) not the right people
no meeting should ever take place if a key decision maker isn’t present. you can only get so much done before you’re going to hit a wall. you can talk all you want, but you’re only spinning your wheels until your manager, team leader, project manager, resource manager, or whoever drops the starting gate. similarly, include all SMEs (subject matter experts) on the topic at hand. you wouldn’t ask your bartender to cut your hair, would you? (if you would, you’re a seriously strange person — and i think i’d like to meet you) also, if you know one of your key meeting invitees can’t make it — or otherwise cancels on you — cancel the entire meeting and reschedule it. make sure you have the right players in on your meetings. every time.

3) too many meetings
if you have a recurring meeting, for each instance of that meeting — make sure that it’s still relevant. there’s nothing worse than blocking off an hour or more of your time (which could prevent you from having some other meeting that is actually important), stopping the work you’re doing, and getting in the right frame of mind (i.e. caffeine to blood ratio) for a meeting, only to have the organizer say, “well…. we don’t have much to talk about today.” each and every meeting should add value to what you’re trying to accomplish. the good news is that this is often times easy to see in advance. if you know that you won’t have much in the way of an agenda for a meeting, then ax it and find some other means of delivering your abbreviated news flash.

4) too few meetings
on the flip side, if you invite a list of people to join a meeting, and go round-robin style around the table (or phone roster) taking inputs from each person individually, you’re doing it wrong. meetings aren’t meant to be token ring networks! meetings are supposed to be periods for collaborative discussion, not a one-to-one or one-to-few broadcast of information. if you need information from multiple sources, and those multiple sources aren’t interconnected, you should be having a meeting with each individual source. take the meeting minutes from those individual sources and disseminate them to the rest of the team as needed. remember this one key note: there ought never be a situation where you have invitees to an hour or two hour long meeting who only speak for 5-10 minutes.

5) you don’t wrap with action items
every meeting you participate in should have some kind of outcome. there needs to be a list of action items for people to follow up on (with dates!). a meeting should persist even after it’s adjourned — otherwise what was the point? the organizer should always recap what just happened in a meeting, and always make sure that action items are assigned to someone before they leave the meeting. action items should also be reflected in the meeting minutes and at least somehow addressed in the agenda for the next meeting.

fix these five issues above, and you’ll no longer have people decrying meetings in twitter posts, facebook statuses, and instant messenger away messages. when used correctly, meetings are “actual work.” your best ideas should be created in meetings, and your best analysis should be done in meetings — if not, you’re misusing your time… and everybody else’s.

photo by stress-relief, via flickr

in my experience, setting priorities doesn’t work.

ever.

why? for one simple reason: 98% of the time, the priority is set arbitrarily. “we need you to take care of this. karen says it’s urgent.” so should you stop what you’re doing and take care of what karen asked? it depends.

“is this task on the critical path?” — whether yes or no, this answer should be the primary metric for driving your efforts. often times a manager, or the client, or someone else who may not be involved in the finer aspects of a project will ask for you to do something that doesn’t reflect the core goals of the project. just because someone “wants” something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing for them. the critical path is a map of current tasks and their interdependencies. if one task on the critical path slips, you’re now looking down the barrel of a loaded gun called schedule creep.

more after the jump.

when you start any project — and most certainly within the project’s life cycle, as requirements change — you should map out the tasks necessary to complete your stated objectives, and identify the critical path. many times you’ll find one key task that ends up being the driving force behind a vast majority of your work. this critical path will help keep you honest, and ensure that you’re completing that which should be completed rather than what you, or the client, wants completed. but the critical path isn’t the only metric you need to focus on; you also need to consider the level of effort involved.

you need to ask, “how much effort is this going to take?” when you boil it all down, you have 40 hours a week in which you can work. that’s 40 hours to get as much done as possible. if you have tasks that require a small amount of effort, why not pick the low-hanging fruit first? because in the end, it has to get done anyway — right? powerpoint decks don’t create themselves, and visual basic applications don’t troubleshoot themselves (though i long for the day!). if you look at effort, as well as the priority of the item, you can develop a matrix to show which tasks can be completed, and which cannot. it’s unrealistic to expect someone to complete a critically important task with a high level of effort and also find the time to complete a medium ranked task that also has a high level of effort involved.

it’s an unrealistic expectation because, as mentioned, your work week is limited. in fact — the man-hours on your project are probably limited as well! if a task falls outside of the matrix, you need to re-visit it and make sure that you’ve categorized it properly in terms of critical path, effort, and priority. however, if you’re certain that it was categorized correctly, then it’s time to bring the nasty pants out of the closet and tell the client their longed for bells and whistles won’t make it into the project — unless there’s extra funding (for more man hours, jelly doughnuts) or they wish to bump some other tasks from the current work load.

without having some sort of quantitative algorithm or qualitative methodology behind the labels, you risk finding yourself buried under a mountain of uncontrollable tasks and requirements.

so stop setting priorities; start thinking in terms of critical path and effort, and start working.

photo by Balakov, flickr artist

i heard an interesting quote from a co-worker just recently. he said, “what gets measured gets done.” what’s more he said, “i learned that from a time management course that i showed up late for.” and he’s right! as they also say – “when the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

it’s nice to think that you can trust people to do what you expect them to do, but it’s hard for people to stay motivated when they know they’re not being watched. if a professor or teacher says they’re not going to grade homework, chances are that students won’t do it (or at least do it well).

it would be great if you could count on people without leaning on them, wouldn’t it?  now, let me ask you this question: how many people thought this post was about other people? now how many people thought this post was directed at YOU?

are you measuring yourself? what steps are you taking on a daily basis to make sure that you yourself are doing what you need to be doing?

in project management, we have metrics. you sometimes hear that word thrown about all willy-nilly to the point where people tend not to pay attention. people complain about keeping track of their time on a task-by-task basis, and PMs complain about having to keep their schedules up-to-date! why do all this?  metrics.

if you tell someone they should be doing a particular thing — coding time, entering data, tracking work completed — they might do it… for a while. most people will start off doing what you ask just because you asked. then, life happens. now what was once important to them suddenly becomes optional. but if you keep track of and measure it, people tend to give it a higher priority.

that’s why we have schedules and set deadlines, otherwise we’d have a difficult time getting anything done. we need metrics.  we need something that we can measure our efforts up to. am i on track? am i ahead of schedule? am i lagging behind the curve? this is the fundamental failure of many “to do” lists. people tend to put the task down, but not when it needs to be completed, or how many hours it will take to finish the job.

can’t get a handle on your inbox? set up a time every day (or maybe multiple times a day) to make sure that you answer every e-mail. even if you don’t have the answer, delegate! and get that e-mail out of your inbox. can’t find the time to get work done between all your meetings? set up a 2-3 hour long meeting with yourself to sit down and focus on what’s important.

sprinkle in some project management and time management into your own life. every day, make sure that you’re measuring up to what you need to do. make a plan and stick to it!