As innovation and better communication accelerate the pace of change, how do you survive and even thrive? To find the answer, first recognize that programs (specific approaches) change, but principles (fundamental truths packaged for application) remain more-or-less invariant. Look for correct principles and live by them.

Here’s one powerful principle for success in a sea of change.

Golden Opportunities, Sudden Threats

Donald Sull’s 2005 Harvard Business Review article (”Strategy as Active Waiting“) points out that golden opportunities are essential to success. However, they come rarely and you can’t force them. You can only 1) watch for them, actively scanning the horizon, 2) prepare so you have resources to seize them as they arise, then 3) commit those resources at the right moment.

Simple, powerful, relaxed strategy. However, timing is everything. Windows of opportunity open and close quickly, so you have to be ready, you have to act fast, and you also have to choose your opportunities carefully.

Donald also points out that sudden threats also arise and have to be addressed head on or else. In my experience, threats and opportunities appear simultaneously with increasing frequency. Innovate or languish. Apply now or other job candidates will do it instead. That’s the nature of competition, and competition, in business, creates a better world for everyone. Compare the level of service you receive from many government agencies with the level of service you receive from companies in highly competitive markets. Which do you prefer?

So how do you prepare and respond to these opportunities and threats?

Marshall Your Resources: Time, Not Just Money

When in active waiting mode, you don’t just mark time and hope to win the lottery. It doesn’t work that way. Instead, you must organize and accumulate your resources so you can bring them to bear at the critical moment.

Businesses talk of accumulating a “war chest” of funds they can tap into when opportunities become apparent. True, access to funds is important, since that gives companies staying power. However, I think the greatest resource is often overlooked. Time—or rather, how we choose to use the time we have—is critical. Windows of opportunity open and close quickly. Since we all have the same 168 hours per week per person, you need 1) visibility on your commitments and opportunities (so you know the opportunity costs of moving in a new direction, or in other words, what it costs you to not do things you could do or have been doing), and 2) the ability to instantly change directions when the right opportunity opens up without fear of what might happen.

That’s one huge benefit of Priacta’s Total, Relaxed Organization task and time management training. With all your commitments (tasks) and opportunities (someday/maybes) poised and ready for action, you have ideal visibility on everything in your world. You naturally make faster, informed decisions about the costs of seizing a new opportunity and whether you have sufficient time resources to make the move. You minimize the fear of things that won’t get done by having visibility on them, so you move forward with confidence. Your sense of relaxed control gives you uncanny calmness in the face of rapid course changes. It’s incredibly empowering. In fact, it’s downright fun.

Priacta’s Opportunities

Priacta is living this approach. We’re always watching for new opportunities. We have the advantage of agility—we can move on a dime because we are smaller and have less infrastructure to maintain. Our company uses a distributed model so we can hire almost anywhere in the country or world on short notice, making use of the latest Web technologies to keep effective channels of communication open.

All this makes it easier to weather storms like the US recession. In fact, a recession is really a huge opportunity for a company like Priacta. In a steady-state environment, larger, long-established companies might have an edge. However, when people and businesses feel a pinch, they have to look for alternatives to stay afloat. The trick is seeing what you really have to offer and how it can really help resolve your world’s pain. With that clearly in focus, then the golden opportunities become apparent, and it’s decision time. Change or status quo? Go for it or not?

We decided to go for it a couple of months ago. We’re pioneering new business models. We’re tapping into some incredibly cool new markets. The opportunity cost? Trog Bar development slowed during this time as we reassigned resources to build key infrastructure for these new strategic systems. Blogging diminished. That’s a good thing, not a bad one, because you can only use your time for one thing at a time, and you need to allocate it to your Most Profitable Activities to get the greatest result. Seizing golden opportunities is definitely an MPA.

The benefits will soon far outweigh the cost, both for us, for you, for the productivity industry in general, and even for Trog Bar. What we’re doing will truly be a win-win arrangement, which is exciting for us because that’s our #1 core value.

Your Opportunities

Start watching and preparing now for those golden opportunities of your own. It’s a rewarding, exhilarating, fun approach to strategy and change. You and the rest of the world will be better for it.

Coach Answer: Although you do need to identify and write down life goals, you need more than that to really move forward. The easier the approach, the more likely your success—if your approach is sound. With Total, Relaxed Organization training (which simplifies and improves on basic GTD principles) you just need to add two simple things to start realizing the progress and accomplishment you’re missing. Here they are.

Step One: Create a Strategic Calendar

Have you established a “strategic calendar”? (See chapters 21-22  of the TRO Field Guide or this quick online summary.)

Time is the capital of life. Progress requires time—there is no other way—and we become who we become according to where we actually spend our time. Allocate adequate time for each area that is important to you. This is your “time budget” to keep your life balanced and on track.

These life areas and time allocations are really 50,000-foot goals—views from a high-flying airplane, to use David Allen’s metaphor. Inside those life areas you will eventually focus on much more specific goals that inspire and motivate you.

If you don’t yet have a strategic calendar, create a task in your task list to set one up. (For one thing, it will make Trog Bar more intelligent in its task recommendations if you use that tool, which means your task list will reinforce your general life goals automatically.)

Step Two: Establish Projects for Your Goals

Have you decided what your goals are in each area? (This isn’t a vague, feel-good statement about goal-setting! Read on.) To get what you want, first you have to decide what you want. Then “collect” those wishes/goals into a trustworthy system that will actually lead you forward.

Once proper tasks/projects are collected, achieving those goals with your system is as simple as: 1) deciding/scheduling the next step (processing); and 2) honoring your appointments on those next steps. When you’re following your system (and with TRO it’s easy), steady progress is as inevitable as waking up each morning. TRO makes your progress more certain because your next steps are appropriately scheduled without burdening you.

Tip Number 1: Next steps for critical, carefully-selected life goals qualify as “hot” items and need realistic “hard” dates. (This terminology is explained in the TRO Field Guide.) Otherwise they may slip indefinitely. When you honor those dates, your progress on those goals is inevitable. Once you put something firmly on its “conveyor belt of destiny“ it moves forward inexorably, one “next step” at a time. You make progress without even realizing it. Once a month, during your monthly review, you’ll assess your progress in just a few minutes.

Tip Number 2: What if you don’t know what your goal is in some life area like “Career”? The answer is to create a general project called “Career goals”, then think about your long-term goals, brainstorm possible goals, or even do a little research to help you decide. Record that brainstorming or research as the next step for that project and schedule it like any other next step.

Tip Number 3: Be sure to identify the correct next step. If you hesitate to move forward on a goal, you’ve got a vague or incorrect next step that needs to be changed.

With these pieces in place, you will naturally focus and act on the goals that mean the most in your life. The conveyor belt of your trusted system will move you steadily forward, automatically, until your goals fulfil their purpose.

A: Before I explain how to do it, let me caution you as a productivity coach. Just making a task show up in someone’s task list isn’t always the best idea. It’s usually best to forward the email and ask them to accept the assignment.

If you’re not getting good results that way, then their email handling and/or workflow management may need help, and I’d recommend TRO training for them. TRO is a highly simplified yet more powerful approach to GTD principles, and it’s as little as $59. See Tim Kwiatkowski’s great review of TRO for an overview.

So what exactly are the problems with auto-assigning tasks to people, and how do you tell when it might work for you?

The Principles (and When Isn’t it Appropriate?)

1) Delegation requires asking. Good delegation means you ask them if they’ll do it and they agree. You get buy-in that way. If you just forward something and it shows up in their task list, buy-in is bypassed and performance suffers. Exception: This may work when the essence of their job is to do whatever you assign to them, like a dedicated admin, AND this delegation approach is discussed and agreed to in advance (”blanket” buy-in).

2) Accountability means personal interaction. When you personally ask someone to do something, even via email, their sense of accountability is much higher. Just sending tasks into a pool bypasses this important motivator. Exception: When the task pool is carefully managed and metrics are used to gauge overall, individual work performance with personal accountability.

3) Communication is the basic element of leadership. If you just forward an email as a task, they have to pick up the phone or craft a new email to get clarification. It’s harder, so they’re less likely to ask and quality will suffer. Plus, a fresh email lacks the prior discussion thread (unlike a “Reply”), so you may not even know what they’re asking about when they do email you! If you want effective communication—and as a leader that’s your first job—then you’ve gotta make it easy. Sending an email facilitates communication. Exception: If you both use Trog Bar software, a little advance setup lets you pass on the email as a task, yet they can still hit Reply as a normal email for clarification. See details below.

4) Effective work requires good “processing”. To work effectively, all incoming tasks really need to be “processed” by the recipient so they are poised and ready for action at the right time, grouped with similar tasks in similar work contexts. When tasks just show up in lists it creates havoc in their workload. Exception: Forwarding to a task Inbox is not a problem if the recipient is living a good workflow system like Total, Relaxed Organization or David Allen’s GTD.

5) Every “Delegate” OUT is a “Report Back” IN. If you delegate something, the assignee needs to report back when done, or better still, at regular intervals. Having a true email makes reporting back as easy as the “Reply” button. Exception: It’s better to get most reports at regular meetings rather than one at a time. It’s a higher level of initiative and it minimizes interruptions. Making assignments via tasks instead of emails is just fine if they report back this way.

How to Do It When It Is Appropriate

If you decide it’s appropriate to send tasks (or send emails as tasks), here’s how to do it.

1) With Trog Bar. If both you and your recipient have Trog Bar software, just copy the email into an “Actionable Email” folder in their Outlook folders and Trog handles the rest. From there they can process it and/or click Open and hit Reply as a regular email. First create a folder (usually called “[Action]”) in their Outlook folders. Then tell Trog about this folder by clicking the [+] options button, selecting Profile and Folder Options, and assigning the “Actionable Email” category to it. Then set things up you you can put emails into their folder using one of these methods:

a) Exchange Server or shared Outlook folders. If you share folders over Exchange Server or some other way, you can assign tasks to them by dragging and dropping emails into their shared folder. Trog displays them in the Unprocessed Tasks list automatically. With Exchange Server, share the folder per the detailed instructions here.

b) And/Or Outlook Rules. For a lower-tech approach, hit Reply and add a “(W/F:Sue)” tag to the end of the Subject line. This says “I’m delegating this to Sue, and I’m Waiting For a reply.” Beforehand, set up a rule in Sue’s copy of Outlook to move all INCOMING emails with “(W/F:Sue)” in the subject into her [Action] folder. On your side, set up a rule to move a copy of all OUTGOING emails with “(W/F” in the subject into your own [Action] folder. This automatically puts a “Waiting For” task in your Unprocessed Tasks list if you delegate via email to anyone. Way cool.

2) With Outlook alone. You can follow the steps for #1 above in Outlook without the Trog Bar. Instead of dragging the email into a shared [Action] folder, drag it into a shared task list. The created task wil have no categories, which means it still needs to be processed.

3) With other tools. Remember the Milk supports Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) and lets you send tasks into another person’s Inbox. See here for instructions on sending tasks to your RTM contacts. A version of the TRO Field Guide for Remember the Milk is due out shortly, with detailed self-training and coach-assisted training instructions, so stay tuned. Some other tools have similar features, especially if they support autoprocessing of emails into tasks. See the GTD Software Comparison Table and search for the word “autoprocess” on the page (hit Ctrl+F to search) to find those apps.

The Bottom Line

Yes, it’s definitely possible to send tasks to others. Just make sure it’s a good idea for your work situation. If you decide to use this approach, let us know how it is working for you in your organization.

So how can you conquer these distractions? I’ll share a couple suggestions in this and future posts.

Focused Social Bookmarking with del.icio.us

Use a social bookmarking tool, and pick one that focuses you instead of distracting. Used properly, these can be a great help, but stay away from any that draw attention to videos or other links. I recommend del.icio.us because of its no-frills, low-distraction approach.

Besides organizing your links, you can use the simple interface of del.icio.us to maintain laser-sharp focus while browsing. Here’s how.

1) Install the del.icio.us add-ins for your favorite browsers.

2) When you see something interesting, quickly post it to you del.icio.us list with a tag of S/M. Do not add additional tags at this time. That last part is important.

3) When you have spare time, check out your S/M list. Visit the sites that still seem interesting to you, and move them out of S/M by replacing that tag with one or two others. Delete any sites you no longer want to visit.

With this method, you are really creating a Someday/Maybe browsing list. Much of your impulse browsing will simply disappear, yet sites you really want to visit will not be lost.

Questions? Post a comment. Please feel free to tell us your experience with this approach.

Image by Gabriella Fabbri.

First, remember that Total, Relaxed Organization and GTD teach you to assign contexts and/or categories to your tasks when you process them. We refer to this as tagging. With that in mind, we’re ready for the rules for agendas in Trog Bar.

Rules for Automatic Agendas

Tag Alike. To make automatic agendas work in Trog, tag appointments and their related tasks with the same context or category. This tells Trog that you want to see those tasks with that appointment. This works for all tasks and appointments in both regular and strategic calendars, regardless of what other categories are assigned to the task.

View Agendas. To see an agenda for a meeting, you have a few options:

1. Use TaskSense Now. This task list view constantly gives you an intelligent list of recommended tasks to work on at the moment. As the meeting approaches, your agenda will appear automatically.
2. Click Next Appointment or Prev Appointment. Click the Next Appointment or Prev Appointment buttons in the task toolbar (middle of Trog Bar). This shifts your tasks to a list tailored to a specific time slot. Keep clicking until you reach the right meeting. This lets you preview the agenda before the meeting or lock it in when a meeting runs over.
3. Show Related Tasks. You can also right click in the appointment list or pop-out calendar bar and choose Show Related Tasks. This immediately focuses the task list on items for that meeting or appointment.
4. Show Meeting Category. At any time, you can click the Task List Selection button (just below the task toolbar in the middle of Trog Bar), hover over Categories, and select a meeting category. All active agenda items for the meeting will be displayed.

Understand the Agenda Category Rule. The Agenda Category Rule appears on the Trog Bar options screen. (Click[+] near the upper right corner.) Tasks tagged with any category matching the Agenda Category Rule are suppressed from general lists until the appointment approaches. This keeps them out of your way until needed. (Agenda items are things you’ve essentially scheduled into regular, recurring meetings, so there is no need to see them until then. However, you always have the option of seeing that list ahead of time, whenever you want. See above.) Agenda items are always displayed in the All Tasks list and when searching the TaskSense list, regardless of the Agenda Category Rule.

BTW, the asterisk (*) in the Agenda Category Rule just means “any characters.” Therefore, a rule of “~*” means “any category starting with ~ is an agenda category.”

NOTE: For GTDers, we recommend an Agenda Category rule like ~* or #*, anything OTHER THAN @* (which conflicts with David Allen’s recommended context names).

Many of my coaching clients are floored when I show them how to create tasks from email in Outlook. They say, “Wow, that was worth the whole $900 [cost of Premium Remote Coaching]” or “Nobody in our organization knew how to do that!” That last one came from a brilliant guy in a huge firm with a lot of IT support staff. It seems easy to some, but others don’t know it’s even possible.

Honestly, tips like this help, but they aren’t the real point of Priacta’s coaching and training. Principles, like those we teach in Total, Relaxed Organization, are invariant and apply anywhere. Tools, on the other hand, are just helps for applying principles effectively, and tips are usually just smart ways to use tools. Tools change, but principles are permanent. (See our 4-faceted training model for an idea of how they interrelate.)

So here’s the free, $900* answer. Hopefully this tip will help you work faster, so you can focus on more important things, like really getting control of your time and tasks.

Click, Drag, Hover, Drop

Creating tasks from emails in Outlook is as simple as:

• Click. Click on the email. (You can also right click and get more options. See below.)
• Drag. Hold the mouse button down and drag the email to the Tasks icon in the navigation bar (usually at the left). You can also drag it to the Tasks window button in the Windows task bar if you have a separate Tasks window open.
• Hover. Without releasing the mouse button, hover a couple of seconds until the Tasks window opens.
• Drop. Let go of the mouse button. A new task is created. (If you want to create the new task in a specific task list, move the cursor over that task list first.)

You just “collected” a task from an email. Easy.

Variation: Right Click

If you right click when dragging instead of the usual left click, you get a context menu with some cool options. Here’s what they let you do:

• Copy Here as Task with Text. Creates a new task. The full contents of the email are saved as text in the task Notes. You can read it easily but cannot open the email and Reply or Forward. Email attachments are not copied into the task.
• Copy Here as Task with Attachment. Creates a new task. The email appears as an attachment in the task Notes. Double-click the email to read, reply, or forward. All email attachments appear in the saved email.
• Move Here as Task with Attachment. Moves the email and converts it to a task. The original email is appears as an attachment in the task Notes. Double-click the email to read, reply, or forward. All email attachments appear inside the email.

Even Easier: Trog Bar

If you’re using Priacta’s Trog Bar software, it’s even easier. You simply drag and drop the task into Trog Bar and a window pops out for immediate processing. Or drag and drop it into your Action email folder and the email appears in Trog Bar as an unprocessed task. No conversion to a task is necessary, since Trog manages emails as tasks automatically.

Enjoy.

Your Tips and Suggestions?

What shortcuts and tricks help you in the tools you use?

*Prices are subject to change without notice.

Run, don’t walk, and install RescueTime now. I mean it.

Advantages

The tag line for RescueTime is “Ridiculously Easy Time Management and Analytics.” They aren’t lying. If you use a Windows PC or Mac, you can install and get running in a couple of minutes. The reports, with no tweaking, give immediate feedback and instant motivation to focus on more important activities.

That’s just the beginning. You can establish goals and automatically see your progress. You can associate tags with applications and web sites, so your time in those places is automatically classified. You can establish and share group time use reports while maintaining privacy, so the progress of the group improves. Way cool.

Why It Works: Accountability

If you really want to make a change, accountability is critical. Think about the word “accountability” and you’ll see important connotations. You have to measure something, and you have to reconcile expected and actual performance. What we measure, improves; when that improvement is reported and reviewed, the pace of change accelerates. This is true whether you’re accountable to yourself or to someone else.

However, accountability to others is profoundly more effective than accountability to ourselves. RescueTime makes it easy to be accountable to your boss, productivity coach, mentor, or peer. Just add them to your group and/or share your weekly productivity report with them (it’s an automatic option), and voila! Instant accountability.

Any Drawbacks?

I was concerned that RescueTime might chew up system resources, but not to worry. It only used between 1 and 5 MB of RAM on my system, adjusting memory use rapidly to keep its footprint to a minimum. Still, the first few minutes my system did run notably slower. Trog Bar struggled to slide out, so something was taxing the CPU. Windows Task Manager said Firefox was the culprit, but I had never seen this behavior before RescueTime. Fortunately, the slowdown subsided within minutes and never returned.
I’ve chalked it up to initial indexing and housekeeping.

RescueTime’s biggest weakness is also its strength: time use is automatically calculated by application or web site. Sometimes that just isn’t granular enough. For example, what does “1 hour of Outlook use” mean when you use Outlook as your task list and email client? Were you fiddling with tasks, composing new emails for important sales clients, or reading fluffy “forward this to everyone” emails? RescueTime can’t tell the difference—yet. Give them time.

Feature Suggestions

I’d like to see a widget that lets you tag the current chunk of time for the current app. A feature like that could automatically recommend tags based on which application is running and which tags are most recent or common for that app. They’re working on a public API and developer tools and encourage community development, so this may be doable for anyone motivated and tech-savvy. A few widgets have already been created, including one for OSX that lets you log phone calls and meetings.

The Bottom Line

RescueTime is free for individuals and groups of 1 to 5 people. Larger teams pay a modest monthly fee ($7.95 each) for everyone after the 5th group member, so this targets the corporate world.

My bottom line recommendation: You can’t afford to not install this tool.

Kevin Crenshaw
Productivity Coach, Priacta, Inc.

If tasks are constantly on your mind or cause stress, your time management system needs adjustment. Tasks weigh on your mind when you aren’t confident that you will be reminded at the right time. In GTD or TRO parlance, that particular task still isn’t collected or processed adequately. What can you do about it?

You don’t need to fear losing things in your lists! A trusted system like GTD helps. However, for completely stress-free thinking, you need correct habits and the added benefits of an approach like Total, Relaxed Organization. When you handle those tasks properly, with appropriate tools, everything will finally be off your mind.

Peace of Mind

A client once asked:

A “mental piranha” weighs on my mind—a bill that’s not due for at least another month (business needs). I have regular “Bill paying” time scheduled and a “Bills” desk tray to hold those items. However, I’m afraid of putting it in the “Bills” tray and still not paying it on time. I’m also afraid I could lose sight of where I put it as I get used to the system with “Bills” tray and a “Deferred” tray. Any suggestions?

Answer: To keep the “mental piranhas” at bay, you have to have absolute confidence that the task won’t slip through the cracks in any way. In your case:

1) You already have Bills time scheduled in your calendar. Good. Make sure it is scheduled with a Reminder.

2) In addition, add a specific task for that special bill in your task list.

3) Fully process that task when you add it, setting a “hard” date for it. (This is a “must-do” date. TRO allows you to do that.)

4) Check the Reminder Alarm box on the task for an advisory reminder on the “must-do” date.

5) In the Notes, jot down where the paperwork was filed.

This keeps all those fears at bay. If all your “Bills” appointments get canceled and you don’t work that item from your lists, the Reminder will still trigger another Bills appointment, or you’ll pay that one bill on that scheduled day. The Notes keep track of which slot holds the paperwork. The task will even show up in your Weekly Reviews, which are under 10 minutes using Total, Relaxed Organization so they are more likely to happen.

So what can you do with it? While Evernote can be used for GTD, its GTD support is very basic—just a notch above the lowest possible support to qualify as GTD-compatible in our GTD Software Comparison Table. However, it does allow multiple tags/contexts per item and syncs on a wide range of platforms (Web, Windows, Mac, and WinMobile capture-only, with more platforms coming). It also supports read-only public sharing of “notebooks,” and custom searches can be saved. No dates or priorities are supported. Because it lacks any kind of task prioritization, it can’t be used for labor-reducing GTD extensions like Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) or Total Workday Control.

Who should use Evernote? Because of the limited task management support, I recommend this tool for people needing only basic GTD (not many tasks or projects), or for TROers and power-GTDers needing a fast, searchable way to grab resource items. For the latter, use Evernote only to manage online notes and reference material, not as a second task list. (You’re only one person, you have only one timeline, have only one calendar; your task list is an extension of that calendar.)

Evernote Corp. says that they’re moving to a free/premium version approach. The exact mix of free and paid features hasn’t been determined yet. I’m betting you’ll see advertising as part of the free model in the not-too-distant future. Still, it’s a good, free tool for capturing and managing resource information for your tasks and projects.

However, it’s common to read David Allen’s great book, collect everything to a massive “Inbox,” and get stuck. This can also happen to TRO trainees if their Self Training is interrupted or technical glitches crop up.

Whether it’s due to uncertainty or interruptions, that huge pile looms and weighs on your mind. What do you do?

Real Life Situation

One client wrote:

I have been using a loosely GTD-oriented philosophy that doesn’t work. The fact that I have adult ADD makes external organization critical. My work is highly interrupt oriented and customer/management driven with both day and overnight travel.

I purchased Total, Relaxed Organization self-training with 21 Day coaching and downloaded the Quick Start. I knew from the start that even the 3 Day Training schedule (2-3 hours per day) was ambitious. However, with a break in my schedule (I thought), I scheduled it.

Unexpected interruptions and job overruns prevented me from finishing. It is now a week after I should have finished, but I have only worked up to Chapter 8. There are still some shelves, drawers and file cabinets that I believe have 98% reference material that should be cleaned or “collected” but the basic collection work outlined in Ch 6, 7 is done.

Now I have new travel scheduled, so it looks like the next “free” day I will have to work on the Training is several weeks away. What can you suggest to boost both my morale and my productivity? And thanks. (Details revised for privacy.)

As a coach, I asked a few questions about this client’s work situation. Her boss is generally supportive, but re-channeling her workload isn’t an option. Bottom line: she needs a way to finish in spite of the interruptions.

Relax, It’s Not a Big Problem

Fortunately, a temporary impasse doesn’t have to be catastrophic.

Good news #1: With appropriate, step-by-step details you can easily set down TRO training (or even a GTD transition) and pick it back up. You just have to follow a few simple guidelines.

Good news #2: Expert backup is available on short notice. In other words, you can always “call in the cavalry” to save the day. Read on.

General Guidelines

First, the guidelines you need to follow to get through a stalled training:

Guideline #1: Eliminate uncertainty with clear, step-by-step details. Many books lack the complete blueprint. How do you process a file cabinet of mixed resource items and potential tasks? You need to know, either from a guidebook or an expert. The TRO Field Guide is one good solution for GTDers and TROers. A good coach will do the same.

Guideline #2: Get everything poised and ready to go. Set up your file systems, office supplies, etc. This prepares you for progress in spite of interruptions. If you’re using the TRO Field Guide this is found in Chapters 1-8. You can chip away at this in small chunks until you are ready.

Guideline #3: All stuff is not created equal. Don’t collect it into one big pile when you first start out! Place in a separate pile what you need to handle in the short term (2-3 weeks). Work out of that pile using your old habits until you can finish learning your new “processing” habits.

Guideline #4: When you learn your “processing” habits, start with the short-term pile. This gets the time-critical items on your lists first. The whole learning process becomes less stressful.

With this foundation firmly in place, you can forge a battle plan to finish your training.

Specific Options

Choose All that Apply

This client’s job takes her out of the office frequently. This may actually help! What does she do in the off hours while she’s on the road?

Option #1: Do it on the road. Do you do all your “processing” inside your regular office? Is your PC portable (a laptop)? If so, establish a portable office and do your work on the road (or some of it). This lets you do the paper and electronic processing where you won’t be interrupted. See Chapter 18 in the Field Guide for details on setting up your portable office. The recommended plastic project folders replace your desk trays, or are temporary extensions of them. This gives you everything you need to “process” while you’re away.

The next option is possible because clear, step-by-step instructions make training more interruptible. You can always bookmark your place and continue later:

Option #2: Do it at work anyway, but in smaller chunks. When the first lull of 45 minutes or more comes at work, dive in. With step-by-step instructions and concrete examples to follow (as you have in the Field Guide), getting interrupted in the training isn’t a big deal. (”Processing” takes under two minutes per item when you’ve got it down, so it is inherently interruptible.) Still, try to manage those interruptions as best you can. When you start your “processing” practice sessions, try to keep the first 90 minutes of that session intact. This helps good habits develop from the start.

Finally, this client’s personal schedule has some evening down time, and self-help is a relaxing hobby. That can be used to your advantage:

Option #3: Bite the bullet and let the training extend into nights and weekends. Can you be at work during those times? Since you’re off the clock, you should be able to insist on no interruptions during those hours.

Or Call in the Cavalry

If it still seems daunting or won’t work, your best option is actually the easiest and fastest:

Option #4: Take vacation time and rely on expert help. Schedule one day of vacation time or a half day plus an evening and get an expert coach on board. It’s cheaper than you might think. Effective coaches can adjust their schedule to yours, and they can go right to the heart of what you need to learn in your current situation. With the right coach, fast training is assured, the approach is customized for you, and intense technical support may even be included to deal with device and software issues so you concentrate on learning your new habits. No further preparation or study is necessary when you bring in an effective coach.

Coaching Methods

Remote Training happens via phone, Internet remote connect, and digital pictures of your office, and it puts you in control with minimal preparation (just Chapters 1-4 of the Field Guide). Since executives and professionals can’t afford days of preparation and down time, On-Site Training happens in 7 hours in your own office.

Both methods include 21 working days of coach accountability and follow-up after the initial training, via email and phone. This ensures correct, permanent habits.

Relief Is Inevitable

Whichever option(s) you choose, relax and enjoy the journey. It is still doable! Follow sound principles, make a plan that fits your situation, persevere, and your time and task relief is inevitable.

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