Too Busy for Your Own Good (18 page)

Getting a handle on your in(sane)-box, practicing anti-instant messaging, and following some basic guidelines on your outgoing e-mail can be big steps to bringing peace to your busyness at work and home.

Practice what you preach
. When sending e-mail to others, keep it simple, essential, and valuable. If you don't like receiving forwards (and if you want to de-busify, you probably shouldn't), don't forward e-mail to long lists of friends. If you must send mass e-mails, make them useful or meaningful. For example, you need to get out important information to all members of a project, need to update a group on a colleague's illness or tragedy, your contact info has changed, or you want to provide a URL for a website with a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section.

Subject line
. These should always precisely explain the reason for the message. “Meeting on Thursday morning changed” or “We can make the appointment” are great examples. Watch out for too many “Re: Re: Re:” pileups. These can bounce your e-mail into an intended recipient's spam folder or make you look lazy.

Humor
. Be careful with attempts at humor in your e-mails. Sarcasm works best in oral form. Writing a sarcastic message, you risk the reader taking it literally
and considering what you said to be an outright nasty remark. Everyone's humor is specific, and you never know when you'll touch a nerve.

Politics
. See humor.

Cut emoticons
. Those cute little symbols showing emotions don't work. Instead, write what you mean: “I'm happy that,” “It saddens me that,” “I'm confused,” “Please help me understand,” “I like that you,” “I'm disappointed,” etc. Save the emoticons for text messaging with your kids. :-)

How many times have you been cut off while leaving a voice-mail message? It's technology's way of telling you to “get to the point.” Whether or not that seems rude, the quick cutoff ensures that callers will eventually learn to leave brief, informative messages. Don't wait until you get cut off before learning to keep it simple!

Tighten Your Message
. Jot down a few drafts on scratch paper to keep you focused. More executives these days are only returning calls, not accepting them. Often your only hope of talking in person is to leave a compelling message. “I need to get your opinion on . . . ,” “Can you make the session?” and “Please send me the contract” are all good examples of succinct messages.

Make a Script
. Craft it, don't wing it. If you're going to be saying the same thing over and over on a sales call or a similar endeavor, writing a script will keep you fresh and on track. As you leave more messages, the script will naturally evolve until you have the perfect version locked down. At my therapeutic horseback riding center, we have volunteer calling parties to contact donors just to say, “thank you, we
appreciate your support.” We know that we'll mostly reach voice mail, so we craft our own script. Even if we happen to reach a real person, the script helps us stay on point—that this is purely an appreciation call, not a solicitation. In no time we've got a rockin' rhythm, and less than an hour later, a handful of us can leave hundreds of “you're great, and we love you” messages.

Ask Permission
. This is just a matter of plain old good manners. When you get a human on the phone, ask, “Is this a good time?” They will usually tell you, then you can be assured of their attention or get a dedicated appointment later. Either way, it's a more civil way to initiate a conversation that may go a few minutes, and people like you to acknowledge that their time is valuable. Don't you?

Set Time Limits
. When you receive a call, get the agenda up front. After the opening pleasantries, ask callers what you can do for them. They'll get to the point, and you can respond right away or reschedule the call. Not only will you save yourself time by doing this, but you will save callers time too (whether they realize this or not), and they just might appreciate it.

Quiet Times
. If you're working on a project that needs focus, turn off your ringer—just like you should be doing with your e-mail alert! After a while, you'll be able to relax more knowing that you won't be interrupted, and you'll start instantly getting more done.

If the word “deadline” causes you to go into overdrive and the thought of prioritizing tasks makes you wonder where to begin, read on. It's easier than you think. Following are
tried-and-true everyday work habits that will increase your work confidence and decrease your busyness.

Make a list of every project or important client you're working on right now—long-term and short-term. Use simple statements: “new marketing plan,” “close ABC transaction,” “make partner,” “remodel storage area.” Keep this on your desk so you can be brought back to the big picture anytime your busyness threatens to spin out of control. This is your master to-do list.

Keep with you a notebook or daily planner that holds your master list, broken down into yearly/monthly/daily goals to accomplish and frequently used phone numbers. Put goals and to-dos on small sticky notes. Pare down your “have-to-dos” each day. It's easy to move the notes around as your priorities change. Without dozens of loose notes floating around, you'll feel less hassled when the unexpected event eats up your day.

Before you leave work each day, refer to your master list and plan the most important tasks for the next day. Make notes of the things you did today—your accomplishments, large and small—right on your day planner or put a check by the tasks you accomplished. Move your sticky notes with goals and to-dos around on your day planner and arrange tasks in order of priority.

Carving out a continuous chunk of time to finish a project goes a long way toward reducing your stress. The time you
save and the quality of the work you do when you power through to the finish far exceed any perceived benefits of continuous multitasking. You need to clearly establish a way to let people know that you can't be disturbed when you're in “the zone,” especially if you work at home and family members tend to pop in and out: a sign on the door, wearing your lucky ball cap, a toy pit bull on the floor, etc.

Make an appointment with yourself, just like any other important meeting, and go into hiding.

Put on a headset or earbuds and play “thinking” music. The best for thinking is sixty beats per minute, no talking, such as Pachelbel's Canon in D. (I like Italian arias since they are soothing and my mind doesn't sing along.)

Power through the project, and celebrate when you're done.