Today marks a milestone - 1500 blog posts since I started this experiment of what it would be like to blog daily here at the Teams365. On reflection, it's been amazing to see the thousands of readers who have joined us through posts on team building, coaching, leadership, virtual teams and virtual facilitation. As we continue to move through this 5th year of daily blog posts I look forward to continuing to bring you posts which can support you in your every day conversations.

​Today's post is Team Building Tip #168, our regular Thursday series. The question for you as a team to consider today is "What does productivity mean for you as a team?". 

​I hope that you will take some time this week to discuss this question, along with these related ones:

• ​What are the activities which are giving you your greatest impact?
• What are the things that are creating results as a team?
• ​What are the habits which are helping you?

Have a great Thursday,
​Jennifer

It's time for another Sunday Teams365 video, and in the spirit of this month's theme here at the Teams365 blog of goals, today's post brings to life Teams365 post #629 on Managing Interruptions.

Notice how many interruptions you face this week at work. What are some strategies you would like to employ in managing interruptions?

Have a great Sunday,
Jennifer

Most teams are fully getting back to work this week and it may be apparent how much time is being spent in minimizing distractions. As  I wrote in one of the Teams365 blog posts last year, studies by Gloria Mark have found that it can take up to 23 minutes and 15 seconds to return to a focused state. 

​Distractions abound in today's workplace from:
​Open concept work areas where visual distractions abound
​Regular bings from email arrival, updates, Instant Messaging 
​Being called into meetings which may not be as effective as necessary

​All three of these areas can be quickly assessed if you are committed to minimizing distractions for you and your team.

​Some initial ideas to minimize distractions may include:
​Creating "focused work" periods. Whether it's 30 or 60 minutes a day, focused times, which have no immediate distraction allow us to get things done. Many studies find that our immediate productivity can be boosted by giving projects time windows and a time frames. The Pomodoro technique is one example of accelerating productivity. It posits that focused activity for 25 minutes can be followed by a 5 minute break. Read more about the Pomodoro Technique from its' creator here.

Become ruthless with meetings. Moving the needle on meetings may be a goal for many teams today. If you have not yet downloaded a copy of my bookmark for my newest book - Effective Virtual Conversations - on making virtual meetings more effective, download it here. It includes 8 Questions you will want to ask yourself before every meeting. 
An initial question to ask your self this year is "is a meeting the best way to communicate this information or is there a better way?

Closing email and other app windows at different parts of the day. While it may not always be possible to turn off email for extended periods, it is important to have blocks of time where we are able to focus solely on the task at hand. Providing small work areas for individual and/or groups to meet in for the important pieces of work are critical. It may take a few minutes to get into the flow of these projects, and scheduling in time on a regular basis to have focused work time, is useful in breaking the cycle of ongoing disruption.

​Ask yourself if you need to interrupt someone before you immediately hit send on an email which could be delayed, or bundled with some of the other questions you have. 

Where does your team get distracted at present? What small, but consistent changes would make a difference to the way you are working?

​Stay tuned throughout the year for more productivity tips.

Best
Jennifer

If you haven't been here recently, I hope that you'll check out the first 8 days of 2018 posts - the Kickstart Your 2018 posts, a series of reflective questions to get you started for 2018. Check them out here.
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Time is a non-renewable resource. We can’t get it back when it is gone. Think about last year and how much time was spent in tasks which didn’t add the value you wanted. This might include things like – ineffective meetings, email chains which could have been more effectively dealt with.

Consider these questions for today’s prompts:

1.  Where are you spending the bulk of your time? (If you haven’t done so, track your time using a Time Tracker. Contact me to receive a template around this so you can track your time for a week and see where your time really goes)
2.  As you notice your time usage, what are the patterns you see?
3. What are the activities that are truly giving you the results you want in your work? Note these down.
4.  What activities are not giving impact? What do you want to do with these?
5.   What are any items you can delegate and/or share with others?
6.   What are the activities you need to start saying no to?
7.   What resources could help you get things done quicker, differently or more efficiently?
8.   What do you notice about the time you are spending on proactive and strategic issues (i.e. relationship building, personal development, team development, other)?
9.   What amount of time are you spending on yourself?
10.   What is the one thing you want to commit to doing this year around time? This could be something you continue to do or do differently?
    

Time management and personal productivity is an area I continue to provide teams and individuals support in. Take a look at the past Teams365 posts related to this topic.

This week's quote comes from Chris Bailey, the author of The Productivity Project. He writes "Working deliberatively and purposefully throughout the day can make or break how productive you are".

This week I was traveling and popped Chris' book in my briefcase before heading out. I really enjoyed reading it and appreciate the practical exercises he suggests for readers to undertake as they explore their own productivity experiments. As someone who regularly gets requests to speak on issues related to time management and personal productivity, this is going to be a new book addition to my suggested reading list!

What's important for you to notice about your time, productivity and energy this week? What needs to get done before the holidays? What will you be doing to renew when the holidays come?

Have a terrific weekend,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

​You can grab a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon. You can also purchase an autographed copy direct from our site

Yesterday we explored part one of time management and personal productivity - prioritization using the urgent/important matrix which Covey made famous. Today we are exploring another popular framework which can help virtual teams focus in on what's important to them. As we know virtual teams today are buffeted by pushes and pulls for everything to be important and done now.

Tool #2 – Pareto Principle
Helping team members focus into what’s important as what gives them the greatest impact is another conversation which can be important to have. In order to explore this, take a look at the Pareto Principle. Here’s what I also wrote in that same Teams365 #941 post:
The Pareto principle, most commonly known as the 80/20 rule is also another useful framework to have in mind when you are considering prioritization. The 80/20 rule asserts that we get 80% of our results from 20% of our activities. 

Teams can benefit from undertaking some analysis of where they are getting the bulk of their impact (whether it is sales, key relationships, customer service etc). Getting clear on these will help us to prioritize them in the larger scheme of things.
 
Questions to have the team consider are:
What are the activities they are spending 80% of their time on?
What are the activities the activities that are giving them most of the results?
What amount of time are they spending on these?
What do they want their 80/20 to look like?
What activities are going to give them the best focus?

Have a great week,
Jennifer


 

For many, this is the first week back to work, post-summer holidays. Here's a quick checklist to take the pulse on the types of habits you want to cultivate post-summer holiday. I hope that you'll take 5-10 minutes today to think about what habits you want to create in each of these areas until the end of the year, or into 2018. As we've said for decades in the area of project management - 10 minutes of planning a day, saves 1 hour of unfocused effort. Here are 10 areas to think about in terms of your back to work routines:

1. Meetings - There's an opportunity this fall to get more strategic with our meetings. Saying yes to more productive meetings, and being selective with ones that may not be as efficient. In my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, I cover 8 Essential Questions to Ask Before Your next Virtual Meeting. I put them into a bookmark which you can download here, just so they are always top of mind. Want a hard copy? Email me with your mailing address and I will pop one in the mail to you! (First 100 who do!)

2. Staying on top of email - While it may take a little more time that just one day, this week survey the types of emails you receive. Are you on a number of mailing lists that you can unsubscribe from? How many times are you touching email? More than once? Consider what's going to help you stay on top of email and not let it leak all over. I heard a recent statistic that most workers are receiving 150 emails a day - I have to fact check this but I'm sure if you are like me you will see the value in potentially corralling your inbox.

3. Managing Interruptions - there are dozens of interruptions we face every day - from the ding of an email to someone dropping by. What's going to help keep you focused? Some work time spent out of the office (whether at home or a library?). One study found that it takes 23 minutes to recover from an interruption.

4. One-on-ones - If you are a leader, one on one time with each staff pays off in spades. What is the routine you want to adopt in this area this fall? How will you track it? What type of one-on-ones do people prefer (face to face, phone time, length, structure?). Take a few minutes to take the pulse on your one-on-ones. You may also want to check out some of the past posts I have written on this topic as well.

5. Getting away from your desk at lunch - a recent CBC poll here in Canada found that 39% of employees surveyed eat their lunch at their desk. You can read it here. 
Stepping away from our desks at regular intervals is good to let our brains relax as well as enabling our body to move. While some might advocate that it gets you out the door earlier at night, what's going to be realistic around taking lunch away from your desk each week?

6. Clearing the clutter - Whether it's clutter on the desk, in the car, briefcase of home, clutter can weigh us down over time. What's the regular routine you want to get into this fall around clearing the clutter. Perhaps it is dedicating 10 minutes a day or several times a week to clearing clutter in a different place. Set your timer and see how much of an impact it makes!

7. Leaving time for exercise - Exercise provides us with a recharge to our body as well as our mind. What routine do you want to adopt for exercise this fall. Is there a class you have always wanted to take? Exercise is one of those things we may not do unless we schedule it in. Take a few minutes today to schedule in your exercise routine.

8. Taking time to cultivate important relationships - Another area that often gets short changed is spending time fostering peer relationships. Whether it's connecting with your boss, your peers, or other stakeholders, what needs attention this fall? Take a few minutes today to note this, and schedule it in. As Peter Drucker said, "What doesn't get scheduled, doesn't get done!"


9. Tackling that one project that's been hanging over your head, or finally saying no to it. Most of us have one project that's been on the back burner, or side burner or front burner and just isn't going anywhere. What can you do to finally finish this or say no to it. Take a few minutes this week to get this one moving to completion, or deletion.

10. Spending time on your development - In today's VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambigous), our continued development is paramount. Business changes in an instance. What professional, and personal, development will keep you growing and learning? Take a few minutes to note and schedule what you want to do for yourself this fall.

And of course, spending time with loved ones. At the end of the day, does anyone remember how much time at work or do they remember us for the time we have spent with them.

I hope that you'll take a few minutes today, or this week, to reflect on these areas as you get back to work.

Today's quote comes from Author George Eliot - "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together".

As you think about 2016 and your successes, how has this quote held true? What were the series of small things that enabled you to get great things done this year?

I hope that as you go to do your planning for 2017 and 2018 you keep this in mind, especially if the sense of overwhelm or where do we start creeps in.  This may be the time of year that you are also undertaking your reviews with staff members. It may be interesting to get them to think about what were those steps and success factors which led to their greatest achievements.

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009)
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326

In keeping aligned with this week's back to work rountines, my weekly  lLinked In post was entitled "Getting Ready for Back to Work Routines: Four Focus Areas" . You can read it here.

​This week's focus at the blog has also included these posts on gearing up for the fall back to work and school routines:

​Teams365 #980 - Six Back to Work Routine Areas You'll Want to Keep an Eye on. Read it here.

​Teams365 #981: Four Ways to Focus Your Back to Work and School Goals. Read it here.

​Teams365 #979; Gearing up for back to work. Read it here.

​Have a great weekend, getting back to the late summer routine of things!

Best
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Check out our newest on-demand course: Teams365 Teamwork Foundations
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Join us this fall for a 15 hour Virtual Train-the-trainer in the Virtual Facilitation Skills Intensive program. We'll be covering the best practices of designing and leading virtual calls. The program will be held on Fridays from 3 - 4:30 pm ET starting September 23. Click here to learn more and reserve your spot