Your Outbox Could Be Sabotaging Your Productivity
Author: Len Merson
Date: April 19, 2010
Do you have items in your outbox that keeps whispering “Hey, don’t you need to take me somewhere?”
While there is a great likelihood that this little voice is going unheeded, there lurks a problem that actually goes as far as outright productivity sabotage.
Leaving items in your outbox awaiting transport is likely having someone else’s in box tapping its feet with anxiety awaiting this information. By following my guidelines and taking just 10 seconds to manage your outbox you will reduce chaos and increase your productivity.
It only takes an average of 10 seconds to return one of your files into its respective home in your own work domain, factoring in that the file’s home is even in your file cabinet, nine feet away. The problem is that you now have an hour (or hours) of ‘ten second’ filing to do. You always have 10 seconds, no matter how busy you happen to be; you don’t have hours.
Here’s a very likely scenario:
You are the sales manager who has been working with Gidget, one of your salespeople, on a very large proposal that Gidget will be presenting to the Board of directors of Acme Freight Company.
Yesterday you left the office at 5:15 P.M. At 5:30 Gidget placed the latest draft of the proposal into your in box for you to review tomorrow morning. Well, morning arrived and so did you. You reviewed Gidget’s work on this proposal, however immediately after dropping it into your outbox, hell broke loose. Brushfires, crises, emergency meetings, phone calls, etcetera. You didn’t come up for air until the afternoon (even missing lunch!). You returned the proposal to Gidget at 3:30 that afternoon. Gidget was finishing up what she had been working on by 4:00 P.M. Now she was left with her portion of the proposal to complete.
NOTE- When you finally returned your input on the proposal to Gidget, she had four hours of work to do in order to have the proposal readied for her presentation at 8:00 A.M. TOMORROW MORNING! Recognizing that there was this four more hours of work remaining on the proposal, Gidget now gets on the phone—
“George, hi Honey, it’s me. I know that I had said this morning that we would all have dinner together this evening, however something has come up and I won’t be home until close to 9:00 tonight. By the way, is Margaret there? Please hand her the phone. ‘Margaret, I know that I told you last night that I would help you with your school project tonight, however something has come up and I won’t be able to after all. I apologize to you Sweetheart.’”
If you believe, even for a moment, that this is some fantasy that has been created, then we live on two different planets. What has happened is blatant sabotage which you, as Gidget’s sales manager, has done to not only her but to her husband George and to her daughter, Margaret. The justification of-“But I didn’t do this intentionally.” does not go far. (Like this is supposed to make you feel better!)
Question: Do you know what the difference is between voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter?
Answer: NOTHING TO THE GUY WHO’S DEAD!!!
To remedy this from any chance of you being either the “sabotagor” or the “sabotagee”, follow this simple guideline:
Just as you always have 10 seconds to put away a file, you have the minute, even with an emergency looming, to get the proposal to Gidget by 8:15 that morning. Had you done this, Gidget would have had the proposal readied by noon and been home for dinner with her family.
NOTE- This sabotage happens with failure to see what has been placed in your in box as well.
IT IS NOT THE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT GETS US CRAZY;
IT IS THE MIS-MANAGEMENT OF THE WORK OR THE LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE WORK THAT GETS US CRAZY.
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