Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Quality vs. Quantity

One of my leaders, Jon, shared this interesting post with me, "Simple Guidelines for Workday Quality Over Quantity."

How would this schedule change the way you do student ministry?

QUALITY vs quantity, UX process.
Check email ONLY:
  • 10AM
  • 1PM
  • 4PM

Send any time
Set email to check every 3 hours.
NO email on evenings.
NO email on weekends.
EMERGENCY? = Use phone.

FOCUS 1-3 Activities max/day
LOG 1-3 Succinct status bullets every day on team wiki

MINIMIZE chat
MAXIMIZE single-tasking

OUT by 5:30PM
~No excuses~

5 comments:

Ant said...

WOW. A bit extreme for me (I'm a telecommuter, so basically ALL of my work is via email), but it's definitely intriguing ...

Out of curiosity, have you tried it?

Dan Luebcke said...

Howdy again!

I completely agree with your take. I haven't tried everything. I don't think I could. I meet with a lot of people. Lots of moving parts.

The one thing I tried this week was single tasking and have found it very helpful to completing what I've started.

I minimized chat months ago. I would climb on Facebook and within 3 minutes have 6 chats going. I thank God everyday for the offline tab.

What are your thoughts?

Ant said...

I agree with you about chat -- I turned that off the day they turned it on on FB. I don't have gmail chat turned on either. There were already too many things interrupting me during the day! I have chat turned on at work because it's the quickest way to reach a lot of people, and we're supposed to be logged in all day. I still find it kind of irritating :)

I like the idea of single-tasking, but have yet to try it wholeheartedly. Actually, I think a lot of this makes a lot of sense, but am unwilling to commit to trying it myself. Couldn't tell you why that is!

The other thing -- at least at work -- that makes it hard to focus is the version of Outlook we're on now. Do you have the version with the "SpeedScreen" thing? It's the thing where a new email comes in and you get a pop-up in the bottom corner of the first few lines of the message. Some people find it helpful. I find it counter-productive. It's not like incoming emails aren't already intrusive enough as it is, right?!

Ant said...

One other thought, and this actually has helped my productivity (not to mention, my work ethic) -- I try not to use FB during the work day. I suppose if I were just using it to say "Happy Birthday" and check in with someone the same as I would via email, that wouldn't be so bad. But the fact is that once you get on FB, it's a whole lot easier to stay on and dink around.

The other reason I try not to use it during the day is that if I weren't a telecommuter, I wouldn't be able to -- we have it blocked from access in our home offices in NY/NJ.

I realize that your job is about 80 or 90% relational, so it actually might be more of a connection tool for you, but that's one small way I try to stay focused during the work day :)

Anonymous said...

I don't understand your talk of relational...maybe you could explain it to me Cheetoh...anyway, let me know. I am waiting on pins and needles!

Lover