Slow Down to Speed Up

Focus Newsletter, Spring 2007

Are you surrounded by lower priorities? Are you shuffling through papers and email that you haven’t decided what to do with yet, but you’ll have to come back them later?

I find that many of my clients are moving too fast and don’t take the 30 seconds or the 1-2 minutes to review something and really think about what it is and where it should go next. If you slow down to make some solid decisions, then your productivity can speed up as a result.

There are only so many things that can be done with bits of information. For instance, referring to an earlier article I wrote about how ‘Organizing is GRREAT,’ this acronym stands for the 6 things you can do with paper, files, email, etc. You can Give it away/delegate it, Reference it/file it, Read it, Act on it, Enter it in the computer or Toss it. This doesn’t mean you have to DO everything in 2 minutes, but at least get everything one step closer to ‘done’ by placing each thing in the proper location in your office and decide what process it will follow . You may also find you can use the “T” a lot, which helps lighten the load.

If you think that skipping over lower priorities is saving you time, think again. It will cost you time and productivity later when you have to come back to address them. So slow down a little bit to speed up your productivity by reviewing what you have and make decisions about what each thing is and where it will go next. Don’t wait for extra time someday to address these items. You may be waiting a while. Instead, do this all day, every day. Someday starts today…