Zena Everett

Crazy Busy: Do Better Work in Less Time

When do you have time to yourself? To pause, think strategically, take a step back, focus on what’s important or do some deep work?

That’s easier said than done when it feels like everyone needs a bit of your attention. How many times are you interrupted every day? We switch from one task to another, like a never-ending game of Whack A Mole. We have far too many meetings, and work is eating into our personal time.

24/7 digital connectedness doesn’t help and nor do the 300 billion emails sent every single day. This highly practical and very interactive session will give you some evidence based models to help you feel more in control of your time. It’s all about ruthless prioritisation, learning to say no well, disconnecting, and knowing when good enough is better than perfect.

OBJECTIVES:

• Ensure your schedule matches your values and priorities (antelopes, not fieldmice).
• Eliminate roadblocks to personal and team productivity.
• Prioritising tasks with the greatest payoff for success and happiness.

INCLUDES:

• More effective meetings, emails, IM and social media use.
• Stop ‘switch-tasking’ (what you thought was multi-tasking) and get into flow.
• Focus your time on tasks that move the needle, without procrastinating.

Productivity Drag & How to Clear It

Why are some companies more productive than others and have higher profit margins per head? It’s how these businesses manage time, energy and talent that makes the difference. Top performers deal better with what researchers call ‘productivity drag’. This is the chronic friction that compounds to slow down operations, such as inefficient meetings, low-value tasks that bulk up workloads, lengthy decision-making, and endless digital interruptions. No wonder we feel wired and tired.

Research shows we waste as much as 25% of our time this way: at least a lost day per week. We’d never waste any other resource like this. We hire the best talent, then get in their way.

Removing productivity drag is the vital bridge between strategy and execution. This lively masterclass is full of practical tools and research to help you clear productivity drag and increase productivity, wellbeing and engagement.

OBJECTIVES:

• Speed up workflow by removing the causes of drag.
• Enhance project management and prioritisation skills.
• Clear complexity and add energy.
• Improve communication and collaboration whilst removing complexity.
• Increase motivation and retention.

INCLUDES:

• Better email and meeting management.
• Sequencing of tasks and improved planning.
• Cut back on switch tasking and synchronous working.
• Headspace model for time audit.
• Managing the workflow, not the workers.
• Building in time to think strategically.

Brains, Resilience & High Performance

Crazy Busy: Team & Personal Productivity

Do you feel like a slave to your inbox and your smartphone? Overwhelmed? Do you go home after a too long day, feeling exhausted, but frustrated that you have made very little progress?

Most of us spend our days responding to urgent needs … other people’s urgent needs. Our priorities are ruled by our in-box, not the other way round. We respond to what (or who) is screaming in front of us, not what we know we should really be doing in order to achieve our own objectives.

We are Crazy Busy. We confuse being efficient with being effective.

In a ten-year study conducted by McKinsey, executives reported that they were five times more productive when they worked in a state of optimal concentration called flow. That means that they could get as much done by the end of Monday than their steady-state peers did in a whole week.

McKinsey said that if we could all just increase the time we spend in flow by 15 – 20%, overall workplace productivity would almost double. When did you last do some deep thinking, highly productive and uninterrupted tasks?

Outcomes:

• More control over how to achieve your priority tasks (such as planning, winning business, building relationships).
• Better communication with internal stakeholders to get more important things done more quickly.
• Less procrastination, perfectionism and people pleasing.
• Improved personal effectiveness, energy and wellbeing.
• Shorter internal meetings (feedback is that my techniques have cut them short by an average, one third).
• Techniques to manage your inbox so it doesn’t manage you.
• Go home earlier, with more stuff done and learn to switch off.
• Be five times more productive than you are now – so five times more successful.