Month: October 2016

The Three List Assessment

The Three List Assessment

The leaves are changing colors. Football is being played across the country. Signs of the upcoming holiday season are popping up everywhere and then you suddenly realize that there are only a few weeks left in the year. It’s the perfect time to assess progress against your personal resolutions and business performance goals.

What did you set out to do this year? How are you faring against those goals? Do you even remember them? At the end of the year, many employers ask you to assess your own performance as an input to year-end reviews which may impact bonuses or salary increases. Take the time NOW to see how you’ve done so far and what you can do over the next two months to make sure you hit all of your goals.

First, figure out where you stand against your goals. Then, use this easy exercise to make any needed adjustments: simply identify the top three things you should STOP, START or CONTINUE doing. Periodically I use this three list methodology to assess progress against an individual deliverable, team project or a personal goal.

STOP

Start here because this is the hardest but most critical piece. Think about which activities take up a lot of time but are not helping you achieve your goals. Consider time spent in meetings, writing reports, responding to emails or time spent with a particularly needy colleague. You will quickly realize many of these can be eliminated, delayed or delegated. Pick three of these that you can stop doing without impacting your goals.

START

With the time you have just freed up, what three things can you start doing that will help you achieve your goals. Did you resolve to exercise more, try skipping a meeting a week and get outside and walk during that time. Instead of responding to every email, is there some research or other deep work that you can focus on doing instead? Come up with three solid tasks that will get you closer to achieving your goals and prioritize them over everything else for the next two months.

CONTINUE

What have you been doing that has been successful in helping you achieve your goals. Make sure you identify three productive activities and keep doing them. Being aware of these will help you to continue to make time and prioritize these activities. You may even think of ways to increase or improve these tasks.

TRY THIS OUT: How have you done achieving your resolutions or goals?  If you’ve been keeping a Done list, this will be easy to assess. Once you understand the gap and know what is left to do, schedule an hour this week to create your STOP, START and CONTINUE LISTS. Once you have created these lists, make sure you adjust your calendar to eliminate the things you are going to STOP and schedule in the ones you are going to START.

Making Meetings Work Again

Making Meetings Work Again

I hate meetings. There, I said it. It’s out there. Mostly I hate meetings because the vast majority are a simple and utter waste of everyone’s time. In companies across the country and around the world, employees attend 62 meetings per month and at least half of those meetings are considered “time wasted.” Employees spend hours and hours in meeting rooms talking and discussing without a clear objective. Nobody knows why they are there, what they are supposed to do and what should happen after the meeting – except to have yet another meeting.

Meetings are currently one of the most unproductive elements of our day but they don’t have to be. With some simple tweaks and some discipline, meetings can be quite efficient and effective and actually even quite satisfying.  Here’s how you can make your meetings work again:

  • Schedule meetings in advance and think critically about the amount of time that’s needed. All meetings do not need to be an hour. Most can be handled in 15-30 minutes.
  • Be thoughtful about who is invited to attend and what their specific role is in the meeting. Try hard to limit the number of attendees and remember you only need to invite one person to represent each department or group.
  • Set a clear objective for the meeting. Identify and communicate the specific goal and expected outcome of the meeting.
  • Outline an agenda including topics with time allocations and send it to meeting participants in advance so they are prepared.
  • Start meetings on time and end 5-10 minutes early to allow people to regroup and get to their next meeting on time.
  • Identify a record keeper to take notes, document decisions and record action items which should be assigned to specific people with deadlines.
  • Ask participants to put away their phones and laptops for the duration of the meeting or if they have something more pressing to take care of they should feel free to leave the meeting and catch up through the meeting notes.
  • Ensure the discussion and all comments are on topic and relevant. If other topics arise, suggest scheduling a separate time to discuss that and encourage everyone to get back to the topic at hand by reminding them of the objective.
  • As soon as the meeting ends, add any action items you may have been assigned to your to-do list so you don’t forget about them.
  • Send meeting notes to meeting participants within 24 hours of the meeting including key decisions, action items and next steps.

TRY THIS OUT: Before you schedule your next meeting, stop and review this list. Pick three of these things to implement and see how it works and what reaction you get. Keep what works and throw out what doesn’t. Then pick three more to test for your next meeting. You can be a leader in your organization by leading effective meetings.