Category Archives: Time Management

How many mistakes do you want to make today?

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How many mistakes do you want to make today? – Find out the secret to making zero mistakes this week, month and year.  Read on….

In my GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional continuous online coaching series, we cover real-life professional dilemmas such as the below.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.


On Tuesday afternoon, I opened an email regarding a radio broadcast of some interest to me.  Unfortunately, the radio show was set for Tuesday (today) at 11:00am.  My initial thought was: “Darn I wonder when this originally was sent.  It looked rather interesting.  It was about smart women – and I’d like to think of myself as a smart person who happens to be a woman.”

I checked the timestamp of the email, and it was originally sent Tuesday (today) at 9:00am. Having a project manager background, my next thought was: “Darn.  That was poor planning.  These smart people weren’t really setting themselves up for success on this particular event.  Oh well….maybe they will have a replay available that I can take advantage of later.”

Wednesday, I received another email stating that the broadcast would be rescheduled.   When I opened the email the note said that it was going to be rescheduled for late Sept/Oct.  There was no other news on the topic.

  This led me to wonder:

  1. Since this message was send 24 hours after the event was supposed to take place, were people left hanging?  Or did they just broadcast another program instead?
  2. Was this rescheduled because of lack of attendance?  No one called in because of the late notice?
  3. Did the guest speaker get confused? Was he being taped today – but the actual broadcast would be later?
  4. Was this rescheduled because of technical difficulties?
  5. Was this rescheduled because the guest did not show up?
  6. Was there a mix-up on the studio reservation?
  7. Will I even want to tune in late Sept/Oct?  I can’t really set aside a date/time in my calendar.

Then my mind continued with other possibilities and conspiracies.

Things certainly pop-up and take us off-course.  Since we know this up-front, how should we  professionally approach them?  Is there a creative way to turn these events into our favor?  How can we use these mishaps to actually strength our resolve and integrity of purpose?

In this small example, should we:

  1. Be a little more transparent on what happened?  Telling our audience (or email contacts) some of the details – avoids them imagining their own answers. It also shows our integrity in taking responsibility for fixing the issue.
  2. Actually provide the rescheduled date/time?  This allows people to make note and mark it in their calendar for the future tune-in.
  3. If the future date is unknown, publish the date that the air-date will be known?  Then assure your viewers that you will update them at that time with more information.
  4. Publish this new date/time in your upcoming newsletters and scheduled promotions (now)?
  5. Provide everyone a link to the  sample taped/mp3 version?  This could be a quick summary of what was going to be said on the program, which might help keep people’s interest ignited.  We could also provide an registration page that allows us to notify these particular people of additional news and offers associated with this broadcast.

Conclusion:
Do you know why SNAFU’s and missteps happen all the time? It’s because they are not actually missteps.  Things naturally just happen.  It was our unrealistic expectations that deems the event as a mishap (not the event itself). Once again, the event is merely the event.  It is our expectations that defined it a mishap or mistake.   Therefore, it’s not the ‘mistakes’ that slow us down, but how we interpret and respond to the ‘happened events’.

Homework assignment: Think of some recent mishaps at the office.  What follow-up steps can you do ‘right now’ to turn that into an advantage?

99.98% of all mistakes are actually imagined.  What’s to say that your mistake isn’t one of those imagined?  What’s to say that this event isn’t actually an opportunity for bigger and better?

We talk more about how to incorporate this philosophy into the real-world professional environment in my on-line coaching academy series.  <check out our GoTo Academy: Soft Skills Tools for the GoTo Professional>

Feel free to share this newsletter with your family, friends and colleagues. My business relies on satisfied clients as the primary source of new business, and your referrals are both welcome and most sincerely appreciated!

Why do we interrupt each other?

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 Would you like to know the following 2 secrets?
  • Why do people interrupt (or, rather, why do people who chronically interrupt do it)?
  • 3 Tips you can use to stop a constant interrupter at the office
Quick overview on ‘why’:

On the average, we speak at the rate of 125-150 words per minute. We can comprehend and listen at the rate of 600 words per minute. This means that our minds are underutilized by a factor of 4-5 when listening to others. Therefore, it’s a struggle to keep our minds on topic. Often times, we hear one or two phrases of the conversation and we jump ahead to a solution or experience that happened to us. We’re quick to share our experience and expertise before we realize that this wasn’t really the focus of conversation. Because of our boredom, we inadvertently created a tangent and separate conversation (either in our heads or out loud).

Our society also supports and encourages this lifestyle.
Not only does our minds working at a faster rate, other things are happening so fast these days. With the internet, cell phones, texting, beepers, and instant messaging – information is constantly streaming at us, for us and by us. Even our interruptions are interrupted. For instance you may be working on a task and then you get interrupted by an instance message or “online chat” by someone (or via phone call). While responding to that initial interruption, someone else enters your office. It’s situation normal. We even have a name for it: “multitasking”.

Tips:
The way you conduct yourself can greatly diminish the amount of interruptions you encounter.
1) Spell out your intentions up front.
Example: “Hey, John (the boss). Thanks for agreeing to meet me on this topic. I’m having this problem and I value your opinion on this. There are a lot of different pieces to this explanation; so please bear with me. I want to tell you the entire story. Then I want us to wrap around and get your thoughts on specific details.”
Example: “I really want to keep this meeting on schedule, so I need this meeting to be brief and to the point. The purpose of this meeting is XXX. I ask everyone’s help to keep us on target. I ask everyone for their patience and avoid interrupting each other –with one exception. I ask everyone’s permission to interrupt if I see the meeting go off topic.”
2) Value your time and others will as well.
Make use of your “Do Not Disturb” sign on your cube, phone, chat and instant message for blocks of time when you do not want to be interrupted. OR make use of “open office hours” publishing blocks of time when people can interrupt you.

Example: “Hey, Joe (co-worker). I’m in the middle of a task here. I’ll be done with this at 3:00. Let’s meet in the break room at that time to discuss your idea (or schedule a real meeting to fully discuss it).

Example: “Hey, Joe (boss). That’s a good point. I want to give that issue the proper time and focus. Because I am focused on this right project now, I can’t give it the attention that your topic deserves. Priority wise, do you want me to delay delivery on this and switch to that? Okay — I’ll be done on this by Thursday noon. Let’s schedule a longer discussion for Thursday at 2:00pm.

3) If there is a particular person that is a frequent offender (or perhaps its you), give them an additional role in the meeting. For example:

  • Ask them to be the note-taker.
  • Ask them to keep the Parking Lot list (list of important topics that were discovered but not really on the agenda).
  • Ask them to be the time-keeper

Because interruptions have become so natural, we may not even notice that we’re doing it.
Read the short article: “Interrupting is a 2-way street”

Interested in an online coaching series?  <check out our GoTo Academy: Tools for the GoTo Guy and Gal>

Don’t miss a tip for career and time management:  <Subscribe to the Rose Coaching newsletter here>

Replay with additional proactive techniques

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With some additional proactive (Quadrant 2 preparation — sign up for the online coaching sessions for more information on this technique), you can perform even better.

You get into the office early because you need to review the results of the overnight test run, and mail in the results before the 9:00am meeting.

“Darn, the overnight test failed at stage 6.  Why did that fail?  I need to figure out why it failed and start it back up.
Oh – the error message says that there are too many input files.  It also states that the unit tests were successfully run with 20 files, which suggested that perhaps more files could be run but it wasn’t guaranteed.   I’ll create a batch file that splits these in 20 file chunks that run them in the background.  In the meantime, I’ll manually run stage 6,7 and 8 on the first 20 files.  At least I will have sample report on the data. 
The time Carl took in making these error messages more user-friendly and understandable really paid off.  I’ll make a parking lot note to thank Carl (and copy his manager) for the error message AND suggest automating the 20 file-batch  routine.  I’ll also jot down all my notes and steps.  They will be helpful in his automation of the batch pre and post processing.”

You create a  routine that takes your 1,578 files and parses them into 20 file chunks through stage 6,7 and 8.  Once the first 20 gets through stage 6, they automatically move onto stage 7 and then into stage 8 (while the next 20 are being processed through stage 6, etc).  This way just in case you can’t get through all 1,578 files before the meeting – you’ll still be able to report some preliminary results at the 9:00 meeting.
While those files are running, you create a PowerPoint slide deck on the 20 files that have already completed.  This way, you will only have to update the data, analysis and recommendations at 8:00am.

Co-workers start trickling into the office.  Your tests are still running and your PowerPoint template is complete.  If worse comes to worse, you can present your status with these files.  You take your timer with you to the coffee station and chat with others.  While at the water cooler, you overhear that the email from the executives was just them expressing how appreciative they were of everyone working extra hours to get this product delivery completed.  You were right not to be distracted by those emails — even if they were sent at 2:00am by upper management.

At 8:00am your timer goes off.  You return to your desk to complete your report.  1,000 files fully completed the tests.  You use that data to update your deck.  You take the extra step to create an analysis and next step recommendations.  At 8:30am you see Carl walk down the hall.

               “CARL!”
Carl: “Hey!  How did those tests go?”
“Great!  Do you have a moment to take a look at the results?  I want to bounce off my analysis and recommendations off you….before the meeting.”
Carl:  “Sure!  “

While you and Carl are reviewing the recommendations, the last 578 files complete.  You and Carl contemplate updating the report.  But decide against it.  The results of the last 578 didn’t change your recommendations and would cause unnecessary panic in updating the slides.  You can safely report that all the tests were completed and are in compliance with these recommendations.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

 

Replay with Time-boxing and Parking Lot method.

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Time-boxing is a method which allows you to do everything that you want to do without the above pitfall.

You get into the office early because you need to review the results of the overnight test run, and mail in the results before the 9:00am meeting.

“Darn, the overnight test failed at stage 6.  Why did that fail?  I need to figure out why and start it back up.  I need some version of the report by 8:30am for the 9:00 meeting.  That means I need to start creating the PowerPoint slides at 8:00am.  I’ll set my timer for  8:00am.

Man – the error code is so cryptic.  I don’t know what it means or how to fix it.  I’ll call Carl…it’s his code.  Oh – that’s right.  Carl doesn’t get in the office until 8:30.  But he’s probably awake.  I’ll find his cell number in his last email.”

When you bring up email, you notice several urgent emails from your 2nd line manager.

“Okay – let me jot a note on my parking lot list to review these emails.  The message was sent at 2:00am.  Most people are not into the office this early.  It’s unlikely that the executives expect a response before the 9:00 meeting.  I’ll just make sure to go back to this after the meeting.  And the meeting will probably make these email obsolete anyway.”

You open only Carl’s email for his cell number.

Carl: “Hey, John!  What’s up?”
“Hey Carl.  Sorry to be bothering you at home and so early.”
Carl: “No worries.  I was up getting the family ready for the day.  What can I do for ya?”
“Well, I came in to review the overnight results and it got stuck on stage 6.  Any ideas?
Carl: “mmm… that’s odd.  I ran my unit tests on it and it ran through all 8 stages without a hitch.  How many test inputs did you use?”
“Approximately, 1,578 files.”
Carl: “Approximately, eh?”
“well…ummmm…”
Carl: “Well – I confess that my unit test only ran with 20 input data files.  I ran with all the files you sent me at the time.  It’s always helpful to get samples of the real data that you will be using.”
“Oh!  That’s great.  Let me jot a note to send you these files as well.”
Carl: “Cool.  So — back to today’s issue.  Hopefully it’s running into a data limit and not a data validation issue.  If it’s only a data limit, we can batch the test runs into 20 file limits and it should run fine.  If it’s a data validation issue – that will take some time to debug and diffuse. By you sending me those files, I’ll be able to debug that issue (if that’s the problem) when I get into the office.“
“Okay.  Can you hold on the phone while I run with just 20 files?”
Carl: “Sure… if you don’t mind me and the kids eating cereal while you do that.”
“Sure!  What cereal are we having?”

You run your experiment and get all 20 files through stage 6,7,8
              

“Carl – that seems to work.  I’ll manually segment the rest into 20 files groups.  I’ll pipe as many through I can before the meeting.”
Carl: “That sounds good.  Jot down any other notes and I can automate those modifications directly into the batch runs when I get into the office.  It won’t make them for the 9:00 meeting – but it will help in the future.”
“Can do.  And thanks.”

You create a batch routine that takes your 1,578 files and parses them into 20 file chunks through stage 6,7 and 8.  Once the first 20 gets through stage 6, they automatically move onto stage 7 and then into stage 8 (while the next 20 are being processed through stage 6, etc).  This way just in case you can’t get through all 1,578 files before the meeting – you’ll still be able to report some preliminary results at the 9:00 meeting.
While those files are running, you create a PowerPoint slide deck on the 20 files that have already completed.  This way, you will only have to update the data, analysis and recommendations at 8:00am.  You also jot a parking lot note to send both the batch code and files to Carl.

Co-workers start trickling into the office.  Your tests are still running and your PowerPoint template is complete.  If worse comes to worse, you can present your status with these files.  You take your timer with you to the coffee station and chat with others.
At 8:00am your timer goes off.  You return to your desk to complete your report.  At this point, only 750 files fully completed the tests.  You use that data to update your deck.  You take the extra step to create an analysis and next step recommendations.  At 8:30am you see Carl walk down the hall.

               “CARL!”
Carl: “Hey!  How did those tests go?”
“Great!  Do you have a moment to take a look at the results?  I want to bounce off my analysis and recommendations off you….before the meeting.”
Carl:  “Sure!  “

While you and Carl are reviewing the recommendations, an additional 500 files complete.  You and Carl contemplate updating the report and analysis with these new test results.  You decide against it. It would cause unnecessary panic (and risk of mistakes) in updating the slides right before the meeting.  Instead, you decided to add an extra slide to explain the situation on the final 1000 files (more on the importance of full transparency in my online continuous coaching series).  Since a large percentage of the files are still running (nearly 50%), you state that your recommendations may change.  You add an expectation of completion.  You also share that the next 500 files did complete just a few moments ago and they are still in line with your current analysis and recommendation.
Stay tuned for the next article (Replay with additional proactive techniques) to find out how to handle this situation with additional techniques beyond time-boxing.

Sign up for the online coaching sessions for more information on the above techniques or subscribe to my weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1)      Time management
2)      Career maintenance
3)      Business networking
4)      Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

Want more time? Think inside the box.

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In my GoTo Academy: Tools for the GoTo Guy and Gal continuous online coaching series, I go into Time-boxing and the use of Parking Lot methods in detail.
If you are interested in more training in these areas, please signup for the continuing online coaching series.

Does this scenario sound familiar?

You get into the office early because you need to review the results of the overnight test run, and mail in the results before the 9:00am meeting.

“Darn, the overnight test failed at stage 6. Why did that fail? I need to figure out why and start it back up.
Man – the error code is so cryptic. I don’t know what it means or how to fix it. Carl is a waste. He is always making my job harder. His stuff is never right. I’ll get him to fix it…it’s his code. Oh – that’s right. Carl doesn’t get in the office until 8:30. But he’s probably awake. Even if he isn’t — I don’t care. I’ll find his cell number in his last email.”

When you bring up email, you notice several urgent emails from your 2nd line manager. You open those up and respond to a few other emails. In the meantime, other co-workers start to come in and you chat over some coffee.
8:45 am you see Carl coming down the hall and something triggers.

“I needed Carl for something. Oh darn! CARL!
Carl: “Hey! How are you?”
“Pitiful. The overnight run failed on stage 6 and the test results were due 2 days ago. I was able to get an extension for 9:00am today but ….”
Carl: “Dude – that’s in ten minutes. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Yeah …. I ….”

Although you may not have experienced the exact scenario, but we all have time slip away because of a series of momentary distractions. Although at the time they are occurring they don’t seem sinister, but in a group they can be very destructive.

Stay tuned for the next installment (Replay with Time-boxing and Parking Lot method) to find out how to handle this situation better.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:
1) Time management
2) Career maintenance
3) Business networking
4) Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

Your mission, if you choose to accept it….

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In my GoTo Academy: Tools for the GoTo Guy and Gal class exercises, I ask my students to do the following:

  • First week, I ask my students to list three heroes (dead or alive) that they would like to meet (and why).
  • Every week thereafter,  I give my students a problem or scenario to solve or improve.
  • I then ask them to pretend to be one of their previously listed heroes.  They are to redo the previous exercise with their new mindset.

They are often surprised how their answers differed — even though their knowledge set, their environment, and their resources did not change.  They only thing they changed was their mindset or perspective.

Putting on the robe or attributes of your favorite heroes makes it easier to take that leap.

Your homework, if you choose to accept it:  When faced with a challenge, pretend to be one of your most admired mentors or Brainiacs.  What would they do?  How would they react or respond?  Pretending to be someone else makes it easier to think out of our default ‘box’ and take that leap.  And since we gravitate toward heroes that exhibit more of who we really want to be — we can’t lose.

p.s.  The best part is that no one needs to know that you are doing it.

Let me know what you think.

Effective use of Voice Mail:

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Regardless of which time zones you are working with, answering machines and voice mail has become a part of everyday existence.  Unfortunately, we don’t always make use of the tool effectively.  For instance, I often receive messages like, “Laura, give me a call” without name or contact information in which to call them back.  Or they rapidly mumble the phone number with no hope of duplicating.

Or you call them at a convenient to you but you know it isn’t a convenient to them.  You want to hand-off the information (essentially getting it off your to-do list) but you know that they aren’t going to receive the message right away (because of their time zone or travel schedules).   This is fine to do, but there are some professional things to consider.  See on…

Some things to be aware of

  • State your name and number up-front to avoid running out of time at the end of the message.  Pause and repeat your contact number very slowly to allow folks to jot it down, if need be. By stating the number up-front, we avoid being cut-off at the end.   For instance: We naturally speed our speak toward the end of the message to avoid the “cut-off” phenomenon.  When we speed up, our voices often lower and we mumble  – making us difficult.   Also by placing our name and number up-front, we save them from having to hear the entire message again — just to write down our number.
  • Keep your voice clear and strong throughout the message and repeat any important numbers or ‘call to actions’.
  • If you call this person often, you don’t need to leave your contact information each time.  But if you haven’t spoken to this person in awhile, just refresh their memory.  They might have changed their phones and lost your number.  Or you may have changed your number in-between contact, etc.
  • If you know you are calling them at a bad time, tell them. For instance, “Hey, Sally.  This is Laura. Mr. Favor’s number is 555-123-4567, once again it’s 555-123-4567.    I know you are traveling today.  No need to return this call. I just know that you wanted to talk to Mr. Favor while you were in his town.  Once again Mr. Favor’s number is 555-123-4567.”  This shows Sally that you were not only sensitive to her goals, but that you were listening to her when she was sharing her travel schedule with you.  Otherwise, if you had left a message like: “Sally, I have that number for you.”; she might get flustered and mentally note (although she would be too polite to actually say it), “Gosh darn it, Laura.  I told you I would be busy and on the road today!  Now I have yet another thing to do to follow-up on this.”
  • Be explicit about any deadlines and when you will call them back (and state the reason for your call) so that they can be on the watch for your next call.  Most of the time, when you give an explicit time  when you will call back (and reason for your call), co-workers will connect with the importance of speaking with you.  They often give you a call back immediately with the information that you are requesting.  When you are vague and ambiguous about your intentions, people unconsciously dismiss the message. If you are transparent and explicit in the reason for your call, they are allowed to do some ground-work and are prepared with the answer in time for your next call.
  • Share why it’s important to them to return your call.  Put yourself in their shoes and figure out why they will want to return your call.  If you are leaving a humdrum, uninteresting or even negative message, people will find other things to delay their call-back.  If you state your intentions in the form of a win/win or exciting collaborative way, people are more likely to respond positively.  For example: “Sally,  This is Laura Lee Rose at 919-614-9029, (once again 919-614-9029).  I was thinking about your concerns over XYZ and I think I have the beginnings of a solution.  I’m excited about discussing this idea with you.  I think with some collaborative noodling, it would be a Wi/Win for everyone.  Are you available for a 20 minute call today or tomorrow? Maybe sometime between 3:00pm and 7:00pm?  If not, can you leave me three other dates and times in which we can brainstorm together?”
  • Make your message count.  Always leave a message that takes you one or two steps closer to your target goal.  For instance, if you are calling to setup a meeting, leave 3 different date/times that you are available to meet and what number they can call.  This way, when they return your call (and get your voice mail), they can say, “Yes — I am available on today at X o’clock”.  As you can see, this is much more effective than a message like, “Sally, I need to talk to you.  Give me a call, please.”  or even “Sally, I need to setup a meeting with you.”
  • If you get their voice mail and your are just leaving an FYI …. be explicit with your intentions and release their need to return your call. For example: “Hey, Sally.  This is Laura Rose. Mr. Jones’ number is 555-123-4567 (once again 555-123-4567). Mr. Jones said the delivery is expected on June 15th.  There’s no need to return this call, unless you have further questions.  I’ll be away from the office the rest of the day.  So, if you have any further questions, calling Mr. Jones directly would be more effective.”  This is much more efficient than “Hey, Sally, call me.”
  • Leave your client or co-worker uplifted by your message.  Realize that leaving a voice mail for someone requires additional work on their part.  They have to schedule time to listen to the voice mail, jot down any highlights, notes or numbers, and schedule time to return your call.  Acknowledge and value their time.  Anything you can do to release them of additional tediousness, please consider it.  For instance, “Hey, Sally.  This is Laura.  I’ll send you an email update on this, so that you don’t have to make notes.  Just letting you know that the deal is done.  Papers signed. Fax on it’s way.  I knew this was on your mind.  So now you can relax and have a glorious, care-free vacation.”
  • Although not always necessary, I have a habit of also sending a recap-email of my phone messages and telephone conversations.  This gives me a virtual paper trail of our agreements, action items and deadlines.  It’s not necessary for everything, but does come in handy many times.  Some people have more access to email than to phones and visa-versa.  Incorporating both helps assures your message is getting received and acted upon.

Asking the right question takes skill

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I had a vivid dream last night.  In this dream, a friend was very proud of her published article in a certain magazine.  She asked me to read it.  I was very excited and was looking forward to a pleasant and proud read, “Sure, where is it?”

She hands me the magazine and says, “It’s in there”.

I start thumbing through the magazine.  The type was very small, and all the articles started with the same 6 words, making it:

1)      Very difficult to read, because the type was small and in italics.

2)      Time consuming, because all the article titles started the same.

I was squinting and found myself losing interest the longer I searched.  Then my self-doubt set in.  ‘Maybe I scanned the titles too quickly?  Maybe I misread some of the titles? Maybe I’ve actually passed the article?’  So I confessed, “I can’t seem to find the article in here.”

She quickly said, “It’s in there.”

The more I searched, the more impatient I became.  “I’m not seeing it.”

She was now getting frustrated, “It’s there.  Keep looking”.

By the time I found the article on page 101, I was not in the right frame of mind to read it.  At this moment I woke up with one question in my head: “Why didn’t I ask which page her article was on, in the first place?”

Asking the right question isn’t as easy as it sounds.  First – we need to recognize that an important question needs to be asked.  Second – we need to decide what that ‘important question’ would be.

In my dream, I was so caught up in the ‘action’ of finding the article that I did not pause to recognize my mounting frustration.  Although my initial goal was to pleasantly and proudly read my friend’s published article, it mutated into merely finding the article.  By the time I actually found it, I was neither pleasant nor excited.  Even though I found the article, I didn’t read it (failed at the essence of my goal).

One recommendation is to use your emotional trigger of frustration, or impatience as a sign that a question needs to be asked.

Try that trick and let me know what happens.  My June 5th newsletter article has examples on how to best use questions in your personal, professional and entrepreneurial roles.  Quickly subscribe to my weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/  to get that edition.

If you liked this tips, more can be found at www.lauraleerose.com/blog or subscribe to my weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

The weekly newsletter contains tips on:

  1. Time management
  2. Career maintenance
  3. Business networking
  4. Work life balance strategies

If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

 

Email or not to email – that is the question.

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Have any of these happened to you?

  •  An email is sent at 4:00am to tell you that the 8:00am meeting location (for the same day) has changed.
  • You are waiting for your next private student and they never show.  When you return home, you find an email send 1-hour before the class saying that they will not be able to make it.
  • You need answers to some important project answers.  You continue to send email requests without success.  Your report is late.

Email is very convenient, but it’s not the best way to communicate time sensitive information.  In all three of the above examples, email isn’t the enemy but it contributes to the problem.

Some problems with the above examples:

  • Sending the message doesn’t assure that the message is received.
  • Avoid imposing and passing along your chaotic schedule onto others.  Consider that your late notices are the results of your poor planning, not the person’s that you just passed it along to with a quick email note.  In this example, you essentially “washed-your-hands” of your responsibility for your last minute change and left it up to the other person to manage it.
  • Sometimes emails can be lost and automatically filtered into junk or spam folders.  Don’t automatically assume that they are deliberately ignoring you.
  • Not everyone has email capability strapped to their belt or in their purse.  It may be several hours or until the next day before the message is actually received.

Many times we use this method to avoid conflict or embarrassment for something we are uncomfortable saying in person.  Many times we use email to simply cross a to-do item off our list.  The mistake is that we feel that once we “send” we are done.    As you can see from the above examples, that is not always the case.  Communication is (at minimum) a two-way street.   Your initiated email or text simply doesn’t complete the circuit.

An good way to avoid a mistake with email is to:  review why you are sending this message and what you hope to accomplish with it.  What is your goal?  Is the goal for them to actually receive the message and take some type of action?  Or are you merely giving some background information or reference material for later use?

Also consider:

  •  Would you be inconvenienced if they don’t get this message?
  • Would they be inconvenienced if they didn’t get this message?
  • Are you sending this email to avoid talking to them in person?
  • Are you deliberately ignoring their request for response to avoid conflict?

None of these are very good uses of email alone.

But how does one know when it’s appropriate to send an email message and when it’s not enough?  Some things to consider is the type of message, urgency and amount of lead time available.

Some good general communication rules:

  • Provide the recipient enough lead time to actually receive and respond (at least 2 business days).   If less than 2 days, call instead.
  • If 2 days passes without a response, switch to another (more urgent) form of communication preferably a phone call or a meeting.  This way you can get your response immediately through that interaction.  Both email and text is a delayed form of communication ( i.e:  send a one-way communication and wait minutes, hours, days, weeks for a response).
  • If you are not interested in continuing the relationship, respond “I’m not interested; please remove me from your subscription list; please remove me from this project; etc”.  Ignoring their emails in hopes that they will get the message is neither considerate nor effective.  They may be giving you the benefit of the doubt and are assuming that you are not receiving the communications.   Once you have explicitly stated that you are not interested and asked for them to stop all communication, and then most reasonable people will take you off their project status list.

Conclusion:

Take the time to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.  If your positions were reversed, how you would like someone to notify you about a last moment change; how much time lead time would you like before you reschedule and rearrange your day;  how would you like the other person to deal with a difficult situation?

Why put off until tomorrow, if you don’t have to?

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I just had a glorious conversation with a great friend.  We were chatting about sales and marketing opportunities that would benefit both our business goals.  We were using Skype.com to video chat via iphone and computer.  She was in Rhode Island on vacation and I in North Carolina.  It was amazing.

At the end of the conversation, I asked permission to call her next week to get status on some of these action items we had been discussing.  Her response was, “Absolutely, but can you email me instead?”

My response, “Absolutely.”

When I hung up, I immediately brought up my email, itemized our action items and wrote my “next-week’s Check-up” email requesting status.   I then hit my “send-later” button and scheduled the delivery for next week (cc-ing myself in the process).

Conclusion:  I certainly could have opened my calendar and noted a reminder to  “email Jane Doe about status” on the proper day.  But then there would still be something left for me to do on that action item.   This way, it’s off my plate and my mind.

Check into the tools that you are already using.  See if there are any features that you can take advantage of like:

  • scheduled reminders;
  • send later;
  • auto-responders;
  • auto-filing
  • and auto-deleting.

Taking advantage of some of these features will save you time and give you peace of mind.

If you need help in deciding how to best handle some of these issues, please consider using your free introductory success coaching session.