Productivity costs

So, I was reading “Average weekly pay now $1166” in the business section of the Australian newspaper and thought I’d just run a quick calculation based on my favourite email productivity statistic which is:

In a study last year, Dr. Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by e-mail. So people who check their e-mail every five minutes waste 8 1/2 hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before.

If we assume a 44 hour week (normal 40 hours + 4 extra hours i.e. 10% = 44 hours per week average, which I reckon is high on average anyway). That means the average earnings per hour are $26.50.

So, if 8.5 hours are lost per week to email interruption that’s worth $ 225.25 per week and $10,812 per annum (assuming 48 work weeks a year) PER EMPLOYEE. Now if the “average” number of employees is say 10, that’s $108,120 per annum lost in productivity simply due to email interruption. ON AVERAGE, per business!

That’s almost the cost of two people on the average wage (which comes out to $111,936 based on the same assumptions). It certainly indicates that by simply being more efficient with the ubiquitous technology like email and preventing interruptions, perhaps businesses could maybe save two full time jobs.

It might not sound like a lot when you look at lost productivity per person, per day but add it up over a year, over all employees and I think you’ll start to understand that poor email behaviour is money down the drain. Who can afford to throw away that sort of cash these days?

For more information about improving productivity don’t forget to visit www.doemailless.com.

Paralysed by Twitter

I was reading “Politicians twitter throughout address to Congress like bored schoolchildren”, and liked the following observation:

It’s bad enough that Americans are paralysed by economic jitters. Now the President has to deal with politicians paralysed by Twitter. At a time of national emergency, when America needs the focused attention of contemplative and reflective lawmakers, they are dispatching rapid-fire thoughts in 140 characters or fewer.

How can we expect our politicians to be any different from the general population when it comes to technology distraction? We can’t. Again from the article:

But to view the hodgepodge of messages sent from the House floor during the speech, it seemed as if Obama were presiding over a support group for adults with attention deficit disorder.

On many previous occasions I have wondered about the business benefits of Twitter. Used incorrectly, like email, it is simply another way that we are giving away our time and attention for free. It amazes me that anything gets done these days with all the distractions we have allowed to pollute our lives. Strangely enough people are complaining even more loudly that they don’t have enough time to do things. HELLO? Can’t you see the linkage here? if you spend all your time Twittering what you do every five minutes how the hell can you expect to get anything done?

Technology like email and Twitter have their place and can be used effectively but you have to know how to use them effectively. Most people simply do it because ‘everyone else is doing it’. They don’t take the time to learn and understand where the technology can be applied and where it provides the most leverage.

Unfortunately, it seems like the majority of our population is doomed to be constantly distracted by technology. If you don’t want to be one of those people and you want to have a real life then maybe you should look at some of the training that I offer to help you become more productive. Have a look at www.doemailless.com and http://www.ciaops.com/smarterproducivity/index.htm for more information.

Serios

What’s a Serio? It’s an imaginary email currency that helps you prioritize the value of emails you send and receive. It is available from a company called Seriosity who provide a plug for Outlook that allocates you so many Serios which you apply to outbound emails. As the system learns about your contacts and they start using Serios as well you can establish costs for sending each other emails about certain topics. So, to prevent lots of trivial replies or CC’s you simply hike up the cost for people to send you email on that topic.

There’s a neat little video on the site that takes you through all the major aspects. The product is in beta so you can download it and try it out.

Personally, I’m a little sceptical because it really requires for your major contacts to opt in. I can see how it would work in a large corporate but on the general Internet, ummmmm, I kinda don’t think so because it seems to require extra effort and people aren’t into that are they? I also think that in some ways it really doesn’t change people’s bad email habits but it would certainly make them think more about sending emails if they only had a limited supply of Serio currency.

I applaud Serioisty for the idea and their development which has a very sound base. If every email you sent cost you 1 cent (like a postage stamp) then we’d certainly have a lot less spam for starters and perhaps less frivolous emails as well. Such an idea has always fallen down because it is firstly too hard to get all the software people to agree on how to implement it and second who collects all the money you pay for sending emails? Great concept, tough implementation.

Maybe Seriosity, their software and imaginary Serio currency can solve these issues. I wish them every luck because it would certainly help reduce the overload most people face.

Email addiction

Here’s an interesting article about what people are actually doing when they attend conferences.

The survey found that three quarters (75%) of all participants ignored requests to switch off their mobile devices during sessions. Of this 75%, a further 40% admitted to checking PDAs, BlackBerrys, iPhones and mobile phones at least every 30 minutes; and 10% said that they check their phones every 10 minutes.

and

More worryingly, 91% of those who check their phones every 10 to 30 minutes said that they felt anxious when unable to access emails.

How unproductive is that if you are checking email every 10 minutes when you are supposed to listening to a conference that someone has paid good to attend? Imagine what the routine of these people must be like in the office. How would they get anything done? You have to ask yourself whether emails are that important that they need to be checked every 10 minutes!

It is interesting that we carry around mobile phones that allow anyone to interrupt us at any time. Now that they are also email-enable we are also allowing any email to interrupt us at any time. It is a wonder that anyone gets anything done these days.

Take control of your mobile device. Turn it off and get some work done.

Tim Ferris interview

Here’s a nice interview with Tim Ferris who is the author of the Four Hour Work Week. In short the book shows you how to ‘do more with less’ and design a life of your own desires. Sounds cliché but I can attest that it has some really mind blowing concepts, so if you haven’t read the book then you should.

http://vimeo.com/3184873

It is interesting in the interview that Tim mentions how much more interest he is seeing around the concepts of the Four Hour Work Week. The simple reason is that everyone is trying to get by on less and here’s a framework on how that can be achieved.

So watch out for the updated edition of the Four Hour Work Week that includes over 30 more pages of information and updates. If you are serious about enjoying life then this book is a must read.

Labour vs work

Have you ever taken the time to examine how much time you spend doing tasks? Do you actually plan what you are going to do or do you just ‘do it’? The answer to these questions should be considered in light of whether you do labour or work.

Typically labour is low value with little control over the process. I think that most people spend most of their day doing ‘labour’. They get up, come into work and try and simply wade through everything. Conversely, work is about producing high value output by being discerning about what effort is expended to produce a result. The difference comes down to planning.

How much time do you take to plan what you actually do? Do you also take time to review what you have achieved and determine whether in fact it can be done more effectively or efficiently? Doing work is about thinking not merely about doing.

Once again a good example is the way that most people tackle their emails. It is simply a labour that they go through. They have no system to maximizing their return. They simply plough into their inbox each and everyday in a vain attempt to control the information overload. Rarely would they consider taking the time to learn how to use their email program better. This effectively limits their ability to be productive and can place a significant amount of stress on their workday.

We almost all have access to the most powerful technology available today, so why do most continue to struggle? Like everyone else your time is limited by a set number of hours per day. If you want to achieve more you need to stop doing the low value items and do more of the high value items. Technology can certainly assist you but it requires you ‘work’ rather than merely ‘labour’ to understand it.

To achieve more out of everyday stop doing labour and start working.

Do email less

I thought that I’d let everyone know that I’ve registered the domain www.doemailless.com as a method of focusing attention on our productivity improvement training. The domain points to our normal email productivity page that includes the free document The problems with emails document as well as links to our Overcoming email frustrations books for Outlook 2003 and 2007. Finally, you’ll also find a brochure on our productivity seminars.

Our productivity seminars can be customized to suit any business environment and include your own internal policies and procedures. However, the main message still remains that most businesses are losing at least 1 hour per day, per employee to inefficient email use. When you start adding up the cost to business we believe our seminars more than pay for themselves.

Email is not the only part of the smarter productivity services we can offer. We can show you how to streamline your existing business practices, integrate low cost technologies such as OneNote and SharePoint to really save money and get things done. We even offer higher level training and mentoring to ensure that the critical components of your business are working most effectively.

For more information about our services simply contact me via director@ciaops.com.

GTD with Twitter

Now I’m still not convinced about the business value of Twitter. It know it is big the US but not so much here in the land of Oz. Aside from my scepticism I’m keeping my toe in the Twitter water just to see what develops and to understand the technology better.

As you can see I don’t have a lot of followers or follow a lot of people. As I said I am still very sceptical of this a business tool for helping get things done (that’s what GTD is short for by the way). That was until I came across the following blog post How to get things done with Twitter.

Here you’ll find some great suggestions on how to use Twitter as a reminder service and to link it with your Google calendar amongst other things. Handy.

I’m still not convinced but via some of the suggestions in this post I am beginning to see that maybe used correctly there can be business benefits. However, it does rely on you building a fairly extensive network of contacts and then keeping up to date with them. Is that amount of work worth the potential payoff? I’m still deciding.