We’ve all heard the advice: if you want to be more productive, cut out the TV and Facebook binges, and you can miraculously have five to 10 hours of your life back each week

That is a preposterous suggestion for hard-charging professionals

We’ve already eliminated the fat from our schedules. We listen to audiobooks while washing the dishes, answer emails while standing in line at the grocery store, and return voicemails while driving home from work. There are no more efficiencies left to wring from the edges of our days.

So if we truly want to level up our productivity, there’s only one solution — and it’s painful. We have to learn how to say no to good things.

Saying no to a hopeful and expectant person can be challenging. But it’s a lot easier when the offer is unappealing: an unpaid speech in Buffalo in February, or yet another latte in exchange for an hourlong “brain picking.” It’s extraordinarily painful to say no to wonderful opportunities that you would very much like to do…except for the fact that they’re not the priorities you intentionally set.

I recently had to write an email that made me flinch. I turned down a speaking engagement on Grand Cayman that was offered to me by a longtime friend. In the past, there’s no question I would have jumped on it. “Caribbean + money + friend” would have proven irresistible. But I said no, and I’m glad I did, because it gave me more time to pursue the meaningful, long-term goals I set for myself.

That might be an extreme example, but I suspect you are also probably faced with a steady stream of good opportunities and you just don’t have time to say yes to all of them, or maybe even most of them. Here’s how you can find the strength to say no, and the questions you can ask yourself to stay focused.

What are your top professional priorities? It’s exciting to jump on new opportunities that present themselves, but not if they’re at the expense of the plan you’ve carefully laid out. What are your top two or three goals this year? For me, it’s researching and writing a new book, launching an online course, and earning money through speaking and consulting. (The island adventure would have paid far less than my usual rate — so while it would have been fun, it would have cut into the time I’d set aside for my first two goals.)

 

What is the total commitment? It’s easy to focus on the “shiny” part of the offer, even if that’s only the ego-boosting effects of being invited to do something. But find out what’s really involved. In addition to the commitment itself, is there planning or prep work to do? What’s the travel time? Will there be follow-up calls? Thinking this through will make the ROI (or lack thereof) clearer. Make sure you’re taking all aspects of the opportunity into account before you say yes. Agreeing to present on a webinar, for instance, might sound like a one-hour commitment. But actually it often means preparing slides, editing them based on feedback, holding prep calls with stakeholders, and doing a technical run-through several days before, amounting to several additional hours of “hidden” work.

What is the opportunity cost? One of my coaching clients told me recently about the acute pain he felt when he agreed to do a pro bono talk because he had nothing on the calendar, only to receive a paid speaking invitation for the same date that he now had to decline. It’s important to remember that by saying no you’re leaving yourself open to other possibilities that might offer higher pay, provide equal or more interesting connections, or be more in line with your goals this year. Even if nothing else comes along, you’ll have protected the time you need to work on your key priorities.

What is the physical/emotional cost? Finally, money and alignment with professional goals aren’t the only reasons to say no to an otherwise good opportunity. It’s also important to safeguard your health — something it’s easy to overlook. In 2015, I gave 74 talks on four continents. After being felled by a particularly vicious flu on the way back from an international engagement, I vowed to be clearer and more selective in the choices I made. If the talk didn’t meet my strategic objectives or my price point, I would need to decline. It was the only way, I realized, that I could keep myself in good shape for the right invitations.

Intellectually, we all understand the importance of focus. We know we can’t hope to make progress on our most meaningful long-term goals if we don’t carve out specific development time. And yet saying no to good opportunities feels terrible. Most people, in fact, can’t bear to do it, so they overcommit, run themselves ragged, and feel resentful in the end. And most of us succeed earlier in our careers by saying yes to almost everything. But there is strength in learning to say no. It’s the only way to reach the level of focus and productivity that allows you to become great.

If you’ve found yourself putting off important tasks over and over again, you’re not alone. In fact, many people procrastinate to some degree – but some are so chronically affected by procrastination that it stops them fulfilling their potential and disrupts their careers.

The key to controlling this destructive habit is to recognize when you start procrastinating, understand why it happens (even to the best of us), and take active steps to manage your time and outcomes better.

What is Procrastination?

In a nutshell, you procrastinate when you put off things that you should be focusing on right now, usually in favor of doing something that is more enjoyable or that you’re more comfortable doing.

According to psychologist Professor Clarry Lay, a prominent writer on the subject, procrastination occurs when there’s “a temporal gap between intended behavior and enacted behavior.” That is, when there’s a significant time period between when people intend to do a job, and when they actually do it.

How to Overcome Procrastination

Follow these steps to deal with and control procrastination:

Step 1: Recognize That You’re Procrastinating

If you’re honest with yourself, you probably know when you’re procrastinating. But to be sure, take our Are You a Procrastinator? self test.

Here are some useful indicators that will help you know when you’re procrastinating:

Filling your day with low priority tasks from your To Do List.

Reading e-mails several times without starting work on them or deciding what you’re going to do with them.

Sitting down to start a high-priority task, and almost immediately going off to make a cup of coffee.

Leaving an item on your To Do list for a long time, even though you know it’s important.

Regularly saying “Yes” to unimportant tasks that others ask you to do, and filling your time with these instead of getting on with the important tasks already on your list.

Waiting for the “right mood” or the “right time” to tackle the important task at hand.

Step 2: Work Out WHY You’re Procrastinating

This can depend on both you and the task. But it’s important to understand which of the two is relevant in a given situation, so that you can select the best approach for overcoming your reluctance to get going.

One reason is that people find a particular job unpleasant, and try to avoid it because of that. Most jobs have unpleasant or boring aspects to them, and often the best way of dealing with these is to get them over and done with quickly, so that you can focus on the more enjoyable aspects of the job.

Another cause is that people are disorganized. Organized people manage to fend off the temptation, because they will have things like prioritized to-do lists and schedules which emphasize how important the piece work is, and identify precisely when it’s due. They’ll also have planned how long a task will take to do, and will have worked back from that point to identify when they need to get started in order to avoid it being late. Organized people are also better placed to avoid procrastination, because they know how to break the work down into manageable “next steps”.

Even if you’re organized, you can feel overwhelmed by the task. You may doubt that you have the skills or resources you think you need, so you seek comfort in doing tasks you know you’re capable of completing. Unfortunately, the big task isn’t going to go away – truly important tasks rarely do. You may also fear success as much as failure. For example, you may think that success will lead to you being swamped with more requests to do this type of task, or that you’ll be pushed to take on things that you feel are beyond you.

Step 3: Adopt Anti-Procrastination Strategies

Procrastination is a habit – a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior. That means that you won’t just break it overnight. Habits only stop being habits when you have persistently stopped practising them, so use as many approaches as possible to maximize your chances of beating them. Some tips will work better for some people than for others, and for some tasks than others. And, sometimes, you may simply need to try a fresh approach to beat the “procrastination peril”!

These general tips will help motivate you to get moving:

Make up your own rewards. For example, promise yourself a piece of tasty flapjack at lunchtime if you’ve completed a certain task. And make sure you notice how good it feels to finish things!

Ask someone else to check up on you. Peer pressure works! This is the principle behind slimming and other self-help groups, and it is widely recognized as a highly effective approach.

Identify the unpleasant consequences of NOT doing the task.

Work out the cost of your time to your employer. As your employers are paying you to do the things that they think are important, you’re not delivering value for money if you’re not doing those things. Shame yourself into getting going!

Aim to “eat an elephant beetle” first thing, every day!

If you’re procrastinating because you’re disorganized, here’s how to get organized!

Keep a To-Do list so that you can’t “conveniently” forget about unpleasant or overwhelming tasks.

Use Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle to help prioritize your To-Do List so that you cannot try to kid yourself that it would be acceptable to put off doing something on the grounds that it is unimportant, or that you have many urgent things which ought to be done first when, in reality, you’re procrastinating.

Become a master of scheduling and project planning, so that you know when to start those all-important projects.

Set yourself time-bound goals : that way, you’ll have no time for procrastination!

Focus on one task at a time.

If you’re putting off starting a project because you find it overwhelming, you need to take a different approach. Here are some tips:

Break the project into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks. You may find it helpful to create an action plan .

Start with some quick, small tasks if you can, even if these aren’t the logical first actions. You’ll feel that you’re achieving things, and so perhaps the whole project won’t be so overwhelming after all.

If you’re doing it because you find the task unpleasant:

Many procrastinators overestimate the unpleasantness of a task. So give it a try! You may find that it’s not as bad as you thought!

Hold the unpleasant consequences of not doing the work at the front of your mind.

Reward yourself for doing the task.

Finally, if your problem is that you can’t decide what action to take, and are putting off making a decision because you’re nervous about making the wrong choice, see our decision-making section. This teaches a range of powerful and effective decision-making techniques.

Remember: the longer you can spend without procrastinating, the greater your chances of breaking this destructive habit for good!

The past decade has seen rapid development and adoption of technologies that change the way we live. But which technologies will have a similarly transformative impact on health and care?

The King’s Fund has looked at some examples of innovative technology-enabled care that are already being deployed in the NHS and internationally to transform care. Now, we examine the technologies most likely to change health and care over the next few years.

Some of the technologies we discuss are on the horizon – others are already in our pockets, our local surgeries and hospitals. But none are systematically deployed in our health and care system. Each could represent an opportunity to achieve better outcomes or more efficient care.

Read more.

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/eight-technologies-will-change-health-and-care

By Mark Britnell

In six years of working across 60 countries in search of the perfect health system, I have been fascinated by the fact that every country wants to deliver safe, consistently good, financially sustainable health care, but no one has been able to do it. At the heart of this problem is a paradox: transformation in health care can only be achieved by continuity and consistency.

Health systems the world over list a strikingly similar set of ambitions: moving to value-based care that improves outcomes, reduces costs, and increases patients’ satisfaction; turning hospitals into health systems; focusing more on preventing ill health rather than treating it; implementing technology to make care more efficient; and empowering patients. But no country is delivering these transformational changes. Instead of rewarding leaders for transforming health care, our systems reward leaders for making narrow improvements within them.

I have seen examples of great health care all over the world, but too often the inspiring individuals delivering this care have been impeded, rather than helped, by the system in which they are working. Imagine the global potential if these local pockets of excellence could be harnessed for the benefit of whole populations. Read More

 

https://hbr.org/2015/12/transforming-health-care-takes-continuity-and-consistency

It can be a real pleasure working in a friendly environment, where people greet one another with warm smiles and show genuine interest in colleagues’ wellbeing. And sometimes all it takes to create that positive atmosphere is a few “random acts of kindness.”

It’s entirely possible to have a productive and hardworking team in a workplace that is efficient, but “cold” and impersonal. Perhaps you work in an industry where staff turnover is high and it is difficult for people to get to know one another. But you and your team can make things much better if you share a little kindness!

In this article, we explore what is meant by random acts of kindness, and we see how they can benefit you and your team. We also suggest some simple ones you can try!

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/random-acts-of-kindness.htm?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mtpage