Elon Musk has a process he uses for manufacturing. What if we applied these to knowledge work processes?
Reduce Meetings by Implementing Teired Meetings Brainstorming
We have too many meetings and emails because tier meetings are not working. I want to fix this in my organization and this is a bit of a brainstorming post to solve this. Tiered meetings can significantly improve the productivity of an organization as long as they are implemented correctly and the standard process fits…
We Need to Get Better at Measuring Knowledge-Work Productivity
How do you know if you are doing enough at work? How are you doing compared to your peers? I wish I had an effective way to measure our productivity in knowledge work but this is a very hard problem to solve. Though, as managers, I don’t think we have really tried to figure this…
Sometimes We Need Meetings, Sometimes We Don’t
We have too many meetings but every meeting is created to meet a need. Often, we don’t define the need (or purpose) of the meeting before setting it or consider that there may be a better way to meet that need. Acceptable Purposes for Meetings: Not so Acceptable Purposes (some may be acceptable for the…
I Believe Work Can Be Better
This is not the most coherent post but a collection of thoughts to help explain why I am interested in how we work. I am not interested in getting more done. It just happens to be the byproduct of making work suck less. I don’t like being stressed out about work, being hurried, and pestered…
Get More Done With Less Stress by Choosing The Communication Method
At some point, organizations determined that faster communication would mean more work accomplished. This assumed that the bottleneck was the time it took us to communicate. The true bottleneck to getting more done is undistracted time to complete critical tasks. To reduce distraction in the workplace here is a communication best practice. Maybe you can…
Feel Like You Have Accomplished Enough Every Day
How do you feel at the end of a day of work? Do you feel like you accomplished enough? In the current work environment, more tasks are created than the capacity for the individuals to complete. This makes us feel like we need to do more, work longer days, check one more email before we…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 4
Getting Started Step 4 The last step is planning and setting aside time to work on your planned tasks avoiding stress-based prioritization. You have tasks that occur on a repeated basis. Go into your calendar and block out time to work on these tasks. I call this your standard work. For instance, I have 45…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 3
The primary step here is to get to inbox zero. I target a completely empty inbox at least once a week. This will remove that feeling that you are missing something and ensure incoming tasks and information will not be lost. Finally, you will save time so you don’t have to regularly wade through a…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 2
Now that you have reduced distractions by following step 1 you need to develop a system to capture all tasks and information. Your tasks can come from emails, meetings, discussions, phone calls, and messages. When a task is created you need to determine the due date. If it is not related to your current goals…
Josh’s Crazy Productivity System Step 1
If you work with me for any length of time you will learn that I have a very rigorous (maybe crazy) productivity system that I have been refining since 2007. I share my system with anybody who will listen like a drug dealer trying to get others hooked. Coming into this system cold can be…
Free Taters in Tennessee
As a leader (you are likely a leader in some aspects even if you don’t have it in your title) you need to be aware that when some people are given a benefit, even in extreme circumstances, they may expect it to continue. I used to work at an aluminum smelter in Tennessee. There were…
Why do you work?
I like to explicitly state the reason we do many things at work. It allows me to determine if the goal is being met and it keeps me from doing things because of momentum. For instance, by defining the goals of a meeting you can then determine if the meeting is meeting that goal. Why…
Projects Need Time to Breathe
Recently I was leading a brainstorming session to downselect improvement projects we will take on. There was a lot of discussion and meandering around the related topics. By the end of the meeting, we had only reviewed about a quarter of the projects. When the meeting concluded one of the participants asked if we could…
Are We Rewarding a Behavior We Don’t Want
“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome,” -Charlie Munger When there is a problem it is great how teams can come together and solve that problem. It is exciting to be part of a team to resolve the crisis and it feels good to receive recognition from senior leadership. In the long…
Halfs and Doubles
When you make a plan for what you want to accomplish today, cut it in half. You can always pull in more tasks if you get it all done. When planning the time it takes to complete a project make your determination then double it. Stop white-knuckling your projects.
Why are we so hurried?
I used to work at a company that supplied engineering services to refineries. One of the engineers told a story comparing a refinery start-up in America to another country where the refinery was on an island. In an American refinery start-up, they would work extra hours to complete the start-up in time but on the…
You Need to Calculate Your Real Hourly Wage
I am intrigued by the FIRE movement where people work to get expenses as low as possible to retire early. I don’t adhere to the practices but some concepts can be borrowed from the movement. When considering changes related to our careers we tend to rely on vague criteria to determine if we should take…
Frustrating Work
The hard part of the job is the job. You were not hired for it to be easy.
Delayed Improvements
When does a delay in an improvement (like a software upgrade) at a company hurt the company?