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January 15, 2008
Balancing proactive vs. reactive
Someone recently asked me, "How do you manage your day so that you are proactive versus reactive? I assume you have lots of people/projects pulling for your time -- how do you stay focused?"
Here was my response:
There's always a blend of proactive versus reactive in everyone's day. The best mix of those will be different for everyone, based on what your job and personal life require. In the GTD book, this is described as the 3-Fold Nature of Work (p.50). For me, I build in plenty of my own proactive time so that when I do get pulled in new directions, I'll be ready for that and my own work won't suffer. I give myself my own defining work time in the morning and evening just to collect, process & organize. Many days I'm reacting to things I had no idea would show up--which is not always a bad thing. It's a balance and an intuitive judgment call that only you know works or not.
I'm guessing interruptions are a big part of you not staying focused as much as you'd like. Get rid of the easy ones like turning off the email notifiers for every new email. If you're working with people who are pulling on your time more than you like, then set boundaries. People are likely interrupting you because you've trained them it's OK to do that. If you work in a culture of interruptions, you've got a bigger challenge to deflect the interruptions without offending and alienating. Give people options. For example, if someone comes to your door and says, "Got a minute," and you really don't, give them a time you can chat. If you get a project delegated to you that will blow your other priorities out of the water, it's up to you to decide whether that's a good thing for you or not. Communication is key. There's a good chance that when someone delegates something to me, they don't have a clue what else that affects. It's up to me to know what will not get done, if I say yes to this new thing coming in. Having my project and action lists current definitely makes it easier to change directions and shift priorities more easily. Then it's just a balancing game.
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Posted by Kelly at January 15, 2008 03:40 PM
Comments
Excellent topic and great response. I think a key point is the need to know what your priorities and updated task lists look like so you can communicate effectively with both your supervisor and direct reports. I have found that people are fine when I tell them that I am busy preparing for a meeting, but will gladly discuss it at __ time.
Thanks for blogging. I have found it very helpful and already linked to your site a few times.
Posted by: Uncle Joe at January 15, 2008 08:36 PM
Hi, Kelly. Great post! One of the challenges I face is that I am a firefighter and I never know when the emergency pager is going to sound and call me to go to the fire house to answer the emergency. I have had to learn to snatch time to review my lists and calendar in the early morning hours and the late evening so that when the calls come in, I'll know that all is well with my work until I return.
Posted by: Dean at January 16, 2008 04:19 PM
