Recently, I often hear that my colleagues around me are busy. It’s a story you hear at any time. Personally, I think it’s better to be a little busy than very free, but too busy is also not good.
Busy men usually say they can’t finish a work easily. They think they work appropriately, report to managers, and make proposals to those around them, but they can’t get approval.
I think one thing, is the setting problem right?
I often feel that Some people think a lot about how to solve, but there are not many people that analyze whether the problem you set is appropriate. No matter how much you think it is an appropriate solution for the problem yourself, if the problem you set is wrong in the first place, it does’t make you lead to an appropriate solution. One of reasons, you have a strong linear awareness of issues and do not see things from multiple angles? I often feel.
This is so-called reframing.
Reframing is “to change the way something is expressed or considered” according to the Cambridge Dictionary. Reframing is often explained on Japanese sites as turning weaknesses into strengths. It is the story of the application of reframing to psychology.
I think that Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg’s “The SLOW ELEVATOR PROBLEM” is famous for reframing the problem setting.
referenced from ~ what’s your problem? by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg (Author)
I don’t think the solution to slow elevators is the wrong solution. He also says “These solutions might work”. However it is not best solution. When you solve a hard problem, you have to stop looking for solutions it and you must turn your attention to the problem itself. By doing so, you can get “a much more elegant solution”
Finding the real problem can sometimes be difficult and sometimes requires experience, but I think you can work efficiently by approaching your daily work with this way of thinking.
Every day, I am conscious of highly productive work. It is difficult for individuals to improve, but I feel that improvement including others is more difficult. I happened to come across this book and found it useful so I would like to introduce it.
This book basically focuses on improving productivity through your own improvements from a time management perspective, but some of them are effective with achieving results as a team.
Based on my own experience, I would like to introduce the following three points.
Set priorities
Calculate meeting
Control Interruption
Set Priorities
I think that deciding the priority is a very important first step to make the right decision every day.
And in order to make a better decision, it is necessary to think about the goal from the Long-term perspective.
From that future vantage point, look back at yourself, to where you are today, and see the steps that you will need to take to get to where you want to go. This “back from the future thinking” is a practice of many top executives.
I often see that many of the tasks are doing from Short-term perspective. For example, I hear stories that some people feel fulfilled by reading a large number of emails every day. Is it really important?
The matter of e-mail is about personal productivity, as a team, we are often starting from tasks that are not important.
Why would such a decision be made?
I think it’s an incorrect decision because it lacks the Long-term perspective. In many cases, tasks that can be touched immediately, or tasks that are less important due to some pressure, have been touched.
In this book, you often use the four quadrants as an example (I will omit them here).
Many people is focused on high Urgent tasks, and when you notice, you only do tasks that are low important (In many cases, reading mail is not even Urgent)
Increasing Productivity means recognizing these four quadrants every day and properly judging whether it is important what kind of work you are trying to do now.
Most of the important tasks are time consuming. There are many important tasks that you have to prepare well, but suddenly becoming URGENT tasks due to put off. The importance and URGENT change possibly, but first of all, you should share them within the team and increase productivity.
By the way, there is no description in the book and it is my personal opinion, I think that there are various ways of thinking in determining this priority. If it is an individual improvement, you should do what you want to do, as shown in the figure below.
Since you belong to a company, you should be aware of what you should do as a company.
The best thing is that what you have to do, what you want to do, and what you can do are the same, but it is often difficult.
Some people will be able to match what they want to do and what they want to do, while others will be able decide what you want to do or what you can do to define what you should do within the company.
In any case, it is important to define what you should do as a high priority
Calculate the meeting.
The cost of the meeting should be considered.
From experience, some meetings start with “what to do, what to do” without prior preparation.
Of course, I think there are meetings like brainstorming, but that also requires preparation for Brest.
If you have ten people in a room who earn an average of $50 per hour, then it is going to cost $500 out of the bank account of the company for a one-hour meeting.
This book touches on the facilities of the conference room used for meetings and the costs involved in labor costs.
For me, in addition to the cost, I think I have to be aware that it spend much time of people.
At a Japanese company I used to work for, there were a lot of regular meetings and a lot of participants.Some people just participate and not speak, furthermore hide behind their computer and do different things.
I should just have to think below.
・ Are you having a really meaningful meeting?
・ Is the participant appropriate?
・ Advance preparations and advance information will be shared with participants as much as possible.
By being aware of the costs involved, you can increase the number of high-productivity meetings and reduce the number of low-productivity meetings.
Control Interruption
It is a matter of course that once work is done, it will not be interrupted until it is completed, and those that are interrupted will be eliminated.
As for myself, for example, I don’t put my smartphone near me, and I keep my desk tidy, which is an interesting and a little painful story, but there are cases like this.
Many people come into work in the morning and begin chit chatting with their coworkers, and then continue for the next two or three hours. In many environments, people don’t really start serious work until about 11:00 a.m., and then soon it is time to break for lunch. After lunch, they come back and chitchat with their coworkers some more, not getting back into the job until 1:30 or 2:00 p.m.
I haven’t done anything extremely like this, but this hits a sore spot.
Chat tools are very useful, and if you have a hurry, you can get in touch faster than email. I think it’s good to use it in an emergency, but it’s not an urgent matter, but I think it’s common for a word that started with a light feeling to stand for tens of minutes before you know it.
start to communicate via chat (which may be peculiar to Japanese people), it is difficult to end and sometimes it continues. It can be painful to start from yourself and stop from yourself. Chatting isn’t bad, but it’s a good idea to refrain from the so-called Chit Chat category that is also mentioned in this book.
By raising your own productivity and at the same time thinking the productivity of others increase productivity more effectively.
This book is written in very plain English, so if you have interests and time, I recommend you to read it.
