Writing an agenda in advance forces you to determine which items you want to cover. You can also use the agenda to communicate to participants what they will be considering and what is expected of them. An agenda helps create order and control at the meeting. Ideally, those attending should have a copy in advance.

If you are not in charge, approach the chair beforehand to make sure there is an agenda and that your items are on the list for discussion.

The most important item on the agenda is the purpose of the meeting. You should be able to state it in one succinct sentence, such as, “To review and approve details of the annual budget.” Keep the list of items to be covered specific and focused. Ask yourself what you expect to happen after each item is finished.

Of course, the agenda needs to include the time, the place, and the names of those who will be attending and the start and end times. End times are rarely included, but when they are, you can bring some urgency to the meeting by counting down the time remaining, especially when items run long.

Consider starting meetings at unconventional times. Time study research that we conducted indicates that meetings tend to start more on time on the half hour, rather than on the hour. Also, if you want a short meeting, schedule it for later in the day. Our time studies show that meetings are shorter later in the day. Business has a tendency to move quickly as five o’clock approaches.

A few days before the meeting, send out the meeting invitation and agenda.  Some people wonder whether they should send a follow up confirmation – often this is just a waste of valuable time.

If you’re unable to circulate an agenda in advance, write it on a flip chart or white board before participants arrive. Or give everyone a printed copy.

Meetings become dysfunctional when homework has not been done in advance. Attendees debate issues back and forth based on their impressions, feelings, biases, recollections, and quite often their loud voices. Instead, they need to come to the meeting armed with reports, research, recommendations, surveys, and conclusions from prior discussions. So as chair, encourage attendees to do this work in advance. Then, the meeting agenda will accept reports and recommendations rather than trying to formulate them. “Rubber stamping” a recommendation is not a bad thing. It works effectively when adequate homework has been done.

The investment you take to plan meetings thoroughly will result in meetings that people want to attend. Your time is worth it.

 - – - – - – - 

Before we begin this story, perhaps we should go back to the beginning: birth. Sylvia Slattery’s entry into this world was certainly not without incident. In fact, it was quite a dilly.

Prior to the long-anticipated event, the as-yet-unnamed Sylvia had become quite accustomed to the warm, cozy environment inside her mother’s womb. She really wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Someday soon, she would get around to it. Meanwhile, she spent many a happy hour kicking the inside of her comfortable nesting place and planning a few changes to the upholstery. The color scheme just didn’t work. And those walls would have to go.

Eventually Sylvia was born. Her arrival, about three weeks overdue, was a taste of many things to come. Perhaps it was an omen that the onslaught of her mother’s labor had coincided with the return of an overdue library book, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.

While an infant, Sylvia quickly learned the art of procrastination. Oddly timed feeding sessions were not just a daily habit, they became an obsession. Just as mom was ready, Sylvia wasn’t. Sylvia preferred to gurgle incoherently—the sort of behavior normally associated with city councillors.

A few years later, on the first day of kindergarten, Sylvia waited until the second day to show up.

Show-and-Tell sessions proved an exemplary introduction to the fine art of excuse making. One day when it was Sylvia’s turn, she got up empty handed and recited a lengthy apology that displayed a level of intelligence and obfuscation well beyond her years: “With regard to the subject at hand, the aforementioned demonstration of personal artifacts, a temporary deferral is requested until a full and complete presentation is available…” Subjected to this speech, some of the kids screwed up their faces in revulsion, as if they were being offered a bowl of cold rice pudding tainted with Brussels sprouts and chicken liver. Most of them just took a nap. Sylvia’s loquacious style was to haunt her on a fateful November day years later, but more about that later.

In grade nine, Sylvia developed a new series of excuses for failing to complete projects on time. By then her teachers learned that her mother had died six times, her house had burned down on three different occasions, she had been through fourteen different grandparents and her pet dog was run over on a monthly basis. Sylvia’s penchant for exaggeration once got her caught. The dog gave it away.

Of course, when she grew up, Sylvia’s problems were of a quite different nature, but more about those later.

University life presented a whole new set of deadlines and, thus, ever more elaborate excuses for not meeting them. She was known to hand in essays at 7:00 a.m. which were due the day before. She would slip them under a professor’s door, with a predated note. One time, a professor who got wise to her methods called her to assign a mid-term report. “OK Sylvia, I’m assigning you ‘The Effect of Yodeling on Eighteenth-Century Scandinavian Pottery Making: A Comparative Analysis.’ Please call me if you have any questions. And by the way, it’s due yesterday.”

Without even thinking, Sylvia asked, “Can I get a two-week extension?”

“Oh, I suppose,” answered the all-too-wise professor. “I’ll see you two weeks from yesterday then.”

Certain events in one’s life mark a turning point. These significant occasions change us from the way we were to the way we are: the first kiss, graduation from high school, becoming engaged. For Sylvia, it was the discovery of postdated checks.

But that was surpassed by another event of monumental importance. Halfway through her last semester at university, she burst into her roommate’s room. It was a roomy room, exactly the sort of room a roommate would normally room in. Sylvia had a look of ecstasy on her face. “Guess what?” she exclaimed.

Her roommate Ignazia, who had been sleeping, feigned enthusiasm. “A new boyfriend? You got an A on that yodeling thing?”

“No, silly! I just found out you can buy stuff now and pay later! Isn’t that amazing?” The world had rarely seen better days.

Later that year, Sylvia became a charter member of the Last Minute Club. And it was no surprise that her favorite song was “Tomorrow,” her favorite mini-series was The Day After and her favorite play was Same Time Next Year.

Some people set their watches ahead to make sure they’re not late. Sylvia set her calendar ahead, though not always to great success. As a result, she once celebrated Christmas in late February.

When she reached adulthood, Sylvia refined the art of keeping up with yesterday. Her idea of a pleasant Saturday morning took place on Sunday afternoon, sitting on the front porch she hadn’t got around to repairing, sipping warmed-over coffee from the day before, reading the previous Sunday’s New York Times.

But her dilatory tactics eventually would come back to haunt her. The details can now be revealed. It was a usual day at the office, as Sylvia spent the early part of the morning starting to catch up on various tasks she had put off from the day before. As she was reading her mail, a sudden revelation of grave importance was revealed to her, as revelations normally are. Unfortunately, space is limited and so details cannot be provided. Suffice to say that whatever it was would just have to wait for another day.

from the book,  ”A Complete Waste of Time” by Mark Ellwood

One subset of employees that we regularly study is sales reps. Their main job function is to call on prospects and customers, aiming to increase sales and service existing needs. On a weekly basis, their planning time typically takes up 4.8 hours per week, or 10 % of a 47 hour work week. Planning activities are what we refer to as “A priorities” These are activities that affect one’s results a month or more in the future.

Included in these activities are determining long term strategies, territory management, account planning, deciding which customers to contact and presentation preparation. It also includes team meetings to plan strategies and share information, plus planning one’s daily to-do list.

Within the 4.8 hours per week on planning, most sales reps spend about 2 hours planning their daily schedule and activities. Another hour is spent in presentation preparation, and just under an hour in team meetings. The remainder is other planning activities, listed above.

So what do we know about planning and results? Are time management trainers correct to encourage you to do more planning? The answer is yes, to a degree. There is in fact a correlation between daily planning and time spent directly selling to prospects. (Selling time includes making presentations, calling, and sending emails.) The chart below shows four groups of sales reps, distinguished by how much daily planning they do each week.

Those who plan more are able create more time for selling – but only to an extent. Spending 2-3 hours per week, or 24 to 36 minutes per day results in 12.5 hours for selling. This represents 26% of the time. However, too much time spent doing daily planning (over 3 hours per week) becomes counterproductive and as a result, selling time decreases, as shown in the bar on the far right.

So be sure to invest the time to plan well. It’s easy to procrastinate, or to let interruptions get in the way. Instead, take the time to focus on your goals. But don’t go overboard. Your time is worth it.

I presented the findings in Oxford last summer, talking about the effects of overtime hours on other areas outside of work.

The Globe and Mail picked up the study and reported on it today.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/morning-manager/tv-time-outstrips-family-time-canadian-survey-finds/article2246080/

In the survey, employees reported work hours of 45 hours per week. This closely matches data from our own time and motion study projects from the last 22 years. Our data shows the average work week is 47 hours, including breaks.

The key finding from the Microsoft study that causes alarm is that employees consider about 17 hours per week to be unproductive. That’s more than a third of the work week!

Some of the common “productivity pitfalls” that were reported include unclear objectives, lack of team communication, ineffective meetings, unclear priorities, and procrastination.

Microsoft is in the technology business, and no doubt a couple of its survey questions were designed to support its mission. Sure enough, 55 percent of respondents said they relate their productivity directly to their software. Not surprising. But wait. That leaves 45% who relate productivity to something else. Whatever that is, it is not about technology. It’s likely that employees are thinking about soft skills that enable them to run better meetings, overcome procrastination, set priorities, and enhance other time management skills.

Those are the skills that get overlooked. An on-line service called Google Trends shows relative search volumes over the past few years – what terms people are interested in. A search on “training” shows a decline from a score of 1.5 in 2004 to a score of about .75 in late 2011. Meanwhile “smart phone” skyrocketed from 1.0 to over 2.0 between 2009 and late 2011. Clearly, smart phones today have a greater appeal than training.

Yet what if everyone who lined up for hours to buy the latest version of a smart phone spent their money on training instead? Something needs to be done to address all those unproductive hours. As we study the use of time, our data confirms that employees are not becoming any more productive in achieving their highest priorities than they were twenty years ago. Much has improved about how we do our work, but there is farther to go. Do we need the latest app? Or should we invest in new training methods to improve personal productivity?

The reality is quite different. For instance, our work measurement studies show that employees spend 3.2 hours per week reading miscellaneous emails that have nothing to do with their main activities. And many employees spend 30 minutes per week fixing technology problems.

The film omits these and other technological glitches that are part of daily life. When it comes to time management, technology can often hinder as much as it can help. Consider this list of hassles that no one predicted:

• Spam
• Voice mail jail
• Unnecessary emails
• Dropped cell phone calls
• Unwanted telemarketing calls
• Car crashes caused by texting
• Drained batteries
• Ringing phones at movies
• Phone interruptions at restaurants
• Broken web site links
• Computer viruses
• Costly smart phone apps
• Expensive downloading costs
• Identity theft
• Billing problems from service providers
• Help desks that offer no help
• Inadvertent pocket dialing
• Hackers
• Blackberry service interruptions
• Social media obligations
• Advertising everywhere

If the world of today includes all of these things that no one predicted twenty years ago, then the world of the future is just as likely to be fraught with frustrations.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what will make life interesting.

Feel free to add comments with your own hassles.

Sometimes it is difficult to say no. An urgent request comes your way and it has to get done. Right now. Yesterday if possible. If you could say no and turn down the request, you’d have more time for the things that count. But the situation demands action and you can’t refuse. You’re not too happy about it. In that case, you might just have to say yes. But when you do, take control of the situation rather than letting it take control of you. Provide suggestions or alternatives to the person making the request. “I can help you by finding out who really should be doing this,” or, “How about if I show you how to do that and then you’ll be all set to go.”

Or, agree to the request this time. But ask how the two of you might plan better to avoid a rush the next time.

Another strategy is to tell the person “yes”, but remind them that they owe you one. For example, if you have to fill in for them at work, they might reciprocate by covering you for a shift the next time you need time off.

You can’t always say no, but you can you can take control by setting the timetable on your own terms. For instance say, “OK, I think I can squeeze that in. I expect I’ll be able to get it to you by four o’clock today. Does that work?” Set the schedule rather than letting someone set it for you.

Finally, consider putting a tough condition on your agreement. “If it would only take an hour, I’d be able to help, but I can’t give you more than that.” When in doubt, it’s easier to say no now, and then change your mind to a yes later, rather than the other way around.

So take control and manage those interuptions.  After all, your time is worth it.

Now, about that period of silence. A while back, the gap between the last short beep and the long beep was ten seconds. That’s what the announcer said. “The beginning of the long dash, following ten seconds of silence, marks 1:00 p.m., eastern standard time.” And during those ten seconds, nothing happened. No commercials. No light music. No ticking. Just silence.

But in May of this year, quite suddenly, the silence was shortened. There is no longer a ten-second void between the end of the short beeps and the beginning of the long beep. Now, it’s just six. Yes, only six seconds to savor a quiet, uncluttered, noiseless universe. It doesn’t take a sophisticated time study to conclude that four seconds have been lost forever.

Why the change? More time for radio programming perhaps. But what’s the rush? In our push to speed things up, to squeeze out every bit of valuable time, what happened to silence? Where did the time go for reflection, for calm, for thought?

So now it is time to take back your time. The next time you get a chance, perhaps right now, just take a moment. Better yet, take ten moments. One after the other. And do nothing. Don’t feel the urge to fill the silence with noise. Just sit. Wait. Contemplate. Listen. And enjoy the silence.

Your time is worth it.

(You can hear the old version of the countdown here: )

http://archives.cbc.ca/science_technology/technology/clips/5772/

The pie chart below is based on our time and motion studies of 565 different activities measured by managers since 1990. These activities are combined into 12 major categories.

The participants are managers from 38 different job types; sales managers, bank managers, vice presidents, construction supervisors and others. All of them are responsible for managing people.

These managers each tracked about 15-25 activities, corresponding with alphabet letters on our proprietary TimeCorder device. Each manager typically conducted a time and motion study of his or her own time for two weeks. The categories that appear on the pie chart each consist of a number of individual activities.

Ask managers what they do, and they will tell you that they need to be coaching, supervising, managing operations, planning for the long term, etc. These high priority activities fall into the first 7 categories clockwise (people management, strategy / analysis, planning, selling, customer administration, customer service, and operations)

Altogether, these pie segments show that only 59% of a manager’s time is spent on activities that add value. The rest are administrative, internal, travel, training (oneself) travel, personal time and miscellaneous activities. These do not directly add value to the organization.

Companies need to recognize that operating at 100% efficiency or 100% capacity is simply not feasible. Time for long term priorities and daily responsibilities is limited. Numerous “requirements” or burdensome tasks will inevitably eat up time that managers would like to allocate to their priorities.

These job “requirements” are the unwritten or administrative tasks that are a necessary part of being an employee in the organization or that must get done eventually. These include administration, training, travel, personal time and miscellaneous activities. For managers, they can account for up to 41% of the time!

Managers should maximize their productive efforts by first understanding how they allocate their efforts through a time and motion study. Then they should look to improve processes, delegate tasks, automate, and get training on how to maximize productivity.

Following are brief descriptions of the main categories:

• Planning – Activities oriented towards developing new products / services / clients, etc.
• Strategy / analysis – Reviewing business results to aid in planning
• Selling – Direct contact with prospects or customers to obtain additional business
• Customer Administration – Internal activities that support sales and service
• Service – Responding to customer requests or provision of products and services
• Administration – Required internal activities not connected with main priorities
• Internal Operations – Internal work that keeps the organization running
• Training – Personal and professional development done on work time
• Travel – Travel to customers, other offices, but not commuting
• Personal time – Lunch, breaks, calls to spouse, short medical appointments, etc.
• Miscelleneous – Activities not covered elsewhere

The classical definition of the organizational manager is one who plans, organizes, coordinates and controls. However, the reality is that there are numerous, mundane activities that take up a manager’s time – some of which actually impede his or her productivity. Many of these non-priority tasks are unavoidable; they come with the job, but are never written in the job description. Managers try to focus on their priorities, but often get bogged down in the requirements of the job.

Administrative tasks are an unavoidable reality of work. In our time and motion study consulting projects, we define administrative tasks as those that don’t necessarily advance work toward achieving its major objectives, nor directly support these activities. Instead, they are necessary requirements of the job. They might support the operations of the organization, such as filling out time sheets, reports, and paperwork. They might support the dissemination of information, through internal, non-planning meetings. Or they might support other workers, providing assistance by answering questions or filling in for others.

The irony is that since we began conducting our time studies using the TimeCorder device in 1990, technology continues to proliferate; yet there is no reduction in administrative tasks. This is because for the manager, the computer is not an automation tool; it is an information-processing tool. With the increasing number of tools, or programs available, from word processing to spreadsheet analysis and presentation software, options have also increased. Now, more scenarios can be checked, more reports can be printed, and more data needs to be inputted.

As shown in the table below, the administrative burden is massive and takes up 11.6 hours of the manager’s work week. This is 25% of his or her time. The activities in this category are also very interruptive; 43 of them occur each week lasting 16 minutes each.

Administration is also an area where managers would like to spend considerably less time than they do. Managers spend 11.6 hours in administration time, but would ideally only like to spend 7.3 hours doing these activities. No one likes doing paperwork.

Administration time increases as one moves higher in the organization (see table below). Some of the time in this category is simply staying in touch through networking, writing and responding to e-mails or communicating with head office. Nonetheless, even when communication activities are excluded (some of which are routine and some of which are people management), administration for presidents is still 11.7 hours per week or 18% of the time.