1568: Four Steps Toward Developing a Culture of Prioritization AND Team Productivity and Digital Detox by Laura Stack

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily. First Things First, Four Steps Toward Developing a Culture of Prioritization by Laura Stack of theproductivitypro.com. We all know the expression first things first, but what's a high priority to one person may have low value to another, so it takes time to get everyone on a team on the same page with projects and deadlines.

[00:00:22] Effective prioritization requires teamwork, training and trust for it to become automatic. Your team may not have arrived there yet as it requires what the military calls time in grade. Military tactics, lingo, philosophy and process have filtered into modern business culture for good reason. Business is almost a kind of warfare in these days of constant change, even though you may never find yourself on the front line.

[00:00:46] Organizing masses of people for dead serious competition is something business and the military have in common, and both require prioritization strategies to function. Military organizations even prioritize and triage battlefield casualties according to specific levels. In business, we prioritize and triage according to urgency and importance.

[00:01:06] I won't go into that in detail here, it's in my books, but obviously priority one is anything immediately life-threatening, either literally on the battlefield or figuratively for your organization. Your team may have a prioritization plan already, but does it work? If not, if you're floundering in a sea of tasks and projects where priority isn't a priority, then sit down and work out a culture of prioritization you can agree on, and use, to maximize your individual and collective productivity.

[00:01:34] It's not just a good idea, it may save your team and your jobs. Here's what I suggest you do first. 1. Define High Value Come to a mutual understanding of how your team defines top priority and high value, which probably won't be your personal favorite or pet projects. The old saying about eating a live frog applies here, though you don't always have to eat it first thing in the morning.

[00:01:57] The point of this metaphor, as popularized by my colleague Brian Tracy, is to identify the hard tasks you may want to put off and do them anyway. For most of us, the best plan is to do them right when we decide we don't want to. When you're done, everything else goes so much easier, even if it takes half the day to eat a frog. 2. Set Levels of Precedence Clarify your strategic priorities and where they fit in your new let's-get-things-done hierarchy.

[00:02:25] Important and urgent items, for example, replacing a firewall that just failed before someone steals all your data, should sit at the top of the list, followed by important but non-urgent items, say replacing your enterprise software eventually, or doing your daily backups. Pretty much everything else can become second things never, per Conlon. At most, you handle them when you have downtime and cash. 3. Establish a Facilitator to Monitor the Process

[00:02:52] You don't need a micromanager to hover over your shoulder watching you like a hawk, but you also don't want to just let go of the priority maintenance until it's back to pet projects and easy stuff. Have someone on the team function as project or team manager where they check priorities against the big picture every few days to make sure the team priorities remain on track, or institute a simple team-wide project tracking software feature that alerts you when things go astray, such as Slack, Asana, or Basecamp.

[00:03:21] 4. Follow Through and Adjust Schedule short, regular team meetings to ensure you remain on the straight and narrow. At longer intervals, review your definition of high level and your precedence levels. As your business changes in response to societal changes or consumer demands, your priorities will change. I doubt Jacks or Marbles are high-priority projects in most toy companies now, but once they were big deals. 5. Hit the Heights

[00:03:48] The projects and tasks you and your team are most comfortable with probably aren't the ones that bring in the biggest bucks, keep your business running smoothly, or best align with your organizational goals. But you must make the hard changes or lose your jobs. No one really wants to work in the sewers either, but if no one did, every toilet in America would back up eventually. There are tough, boring, but crucial jobs in every business, and it's up to you and your team to get together and do them.

[00:04:19] Team Productivity and Digital Detox by Laura Stack of theproductivitypro.com I love technology. Up to a point. There's no doubt electronic technology in particular has boosted our productivity to remarkable levels. But at the same time, electronics appeals so much to some of us that we waste time doing things we shouldn't at work.

[00:04:41] I've known internet addicts who couldn't go an hour without checking their favorite websites, and there are legions of workers who babysit their inboxes all day long. If technology has slowed you down, why not try a digital detox to get you and your team back on track? You don't have to get rid of anything, just discipline yourself to use your tools as your inventors intended. Talk about ideas in your next staff meeting and see how you could support one another. For example,

[00:05:07] 1. Leave personal calls for the evening. There used to be rules about receiving personal calls at work, but now people give out their cell phone numbers for work purposes. Tell family members and friends you'll call them back this evening so they get used to leaving you alone during work hours unless it's an emergency.

[00:05:24] 2. Block a no-tech time. Designate 90 minutes each day for the team to work. No tech. No meetings, no calls, no walk-in interruptions. Think of this as core working hours. Put your phone on airplane mode. Forward the office phone to voicemail. Shut down email. Don't pop in on your coworkers. And block your calendar with a recurring appointment. Just work.

[00:05:47] 3. Check email just a few times a day. Rather than responding instantly when you get an email, shattering your focus and concentration, turn off your alerts and answer email only a few times a day. Three to five inbox-clearing sessions a day using my 6D system should do it. 4. Cut yourself off from the internet. Perhaps you're feeling a need to unplug from the internet for a period of time each day. Monitoring software for the internet has existed almost as long as the internet itself.

[00:06:14] 5. Now there are some great software programs that can help you achieve this goal, such as rescue time, freedom, or self-control. 6. Self-discipline isn't so difficult when you know the consequences. If you want to be a strategic enabler of business, you have to find time to be strategic and think. Adults should be able to slip the electronic leash. 7. Overuse of electronics represents a huge time waster and can dull your senses, something no team can afford today, where sharp, agile response is a must.

[00:06:47] 7. You just listened to the posts titled, Four Steps Toward Developing a Culture of Prioritization, and Team Productivity and Digital Detox, both by Laura Stack of theproductivitypro.com. 7. And please check out Laura Stack's website, theproductivitypro.com. She's got books, quizzes, a blog, a newsletter, a lot of content there at the website. Again, that's theproductivitypro.com.

[00:07:13] And I think that's going to do it for today. Thanks, as always, for being a subscriber and for listening all the way through. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you back here tomorrow, as usual. That's where your optimal life awaits. 8. And if you're not going to be a subscriber, I'll see you back here. Thank you.