What to do when everything is
Important and Urgent
Jon Colman
What to do when everything is Important and Urgent
Content
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Grids
Managing and agreeing expectations early
Cost Benefit Analysis
Staying flexible whilst having a plan
Taking Precious Time Out
Notes, Ideas and Feedback
What to do when everything is Important and Urgent
1. Not a time management course
2. Some techniques may be more relevant to
your role than other techniques
3. The techniques link together
4. Opportunity to work on your own and also
share ideas and suggestions
What to do when everything is Important and Urgent
1. Ask Questions
2. Challenge
3. Interrupt
What
to do when everything
is Important
and Urgent
Introductions
and
Aspirations
1. Name, organisation and job role
2. Anything particular you’d like to achieve this
morning?
3. Don’t feel obliged to have a specific objective
Meet their Needs
Key Player
Highest Priority
Least Important
Show Consideration
Lowest Priority
Low
Stakeholder Influence and Power
High
What to doStakeholder
when everything isAnalysis
Important and Urgent
Low
Stakeholder Interest
High
What
to doofwhen
is Important
Urgent
The role
youreverything
team colleagues
and and
manager
• Ask your manager to decide priorities
• Consult with your manager about your priority
decisions – give options
• Ask for other people’s views on how you are
prioritising
• Ask colleagues to help you complete some tasks
• Delegate where possible
Low Stakeholder Achieving Their Objectives
High
What
to do when everything
is Important and
Urgent
Stakeholder
Relationship
Grid
Giving Relationship
You Lose-They Win
True Partnership
Win-Win
Negative Relationship
Lose-Lose
Receiving Relationship
You Win-They Lose
Low
Achieving Your Objectives
High
What to do Stop
when everything
is Important and Urgent
Start Continue
You
Actions that I would like to
ask you to take would help
me.
Stop
Things to stop
doing or do less of
Start
Things to start
doing or do more
of
Continue
Things to continue
doing as they work
wel
Me
Actions that you would like me
to take to help you
Managing and agreeing expectations, early
• Customer Journey: A method of looking at a customer’s
experience from start to end.
Start
Middle
End
• How effectively do you manage your stakeholders’ expectations at
the start, middle and end of a process?
• Would setting expectations help address any workload issues?
• Do you publish information that helps manage people’s
expectations? Getting the Best Results
The Customer Journey
Start
Middle
Set
Manage
expectations
expectations
at the start of during journey
the journey
End
Check
expectations
were met at
the end
11
Under Promise and Over Deliver
Over
Deliver
Under
Promise
12
Managing Expectations and the Customer Journey
We’ll get back
to you as soon
as possible
I’m just going to
put you on hold
for a moment
I’ll email the
information to
you by the
end of the day
Managing Expectations and the Customer Journey
We’ll get back
to you as soon
as possible
May I put you
on hold, it
could be for up
to a minute?
I’ll email the
information to
you by the
end of the day
Managing Expectations and the Customer Journey
We’ll get back
to you as soon
as possible
May I put you
on hold, it
could be for up
to a minute?
I’ll email the
information to
you by 5.00pm
today. Would
that be ok?
Managing Expectations and the Customer Journey
We’ll get back
to you within 3
working days
May I put you
on hold, it
could be for up
to a minute?
I’ll email the
information to
you by 5.00pm
today. Would
that be ok?
Under Promise and Over Deliver
Your promise to the customer
What you deliver
I’ll email you the information
within 3 working days
You send an email within 2
working days
Can I ring you back in about 30
minutes?
You ring the person back within
20 minutes
We take 5 days to process your
request
You usually take 3 days to
process requests
17
Touchpoints
• Touchpoints are all the situations where
customers come into contact with you and
your team or organisation.
• Customer journey mapping can be used to
identify all the touchpoints that your
customers have.
Touchpoints
•
•
•
•
•
Face to face
Telephone
Email
Website
Social Media
Moments of Truth
•
Interactions that are especially important to customers
•
Interactions that create a relatively high positive or negative emotional
response
•
Research suggests ‘Emotionally charged’ moments of truth are linked
to purchasing decisions
What’s important
to you in your
interactions with
us?
•
What do we do that
you particularly
like/dislike?
Ask customers “what are your ‘Moments of Truth’?”
What to doThe
whenPlanning
everything is Important
Fallacyand Urgent
• Predictions about how much time will be needed
to complete a task underestimate the time
needed: optimism bias.
• Optimism bias - regardless of knowledge that past
tasks of a similar nature have taken longer to
complete than generally planned.
• Bias only affects predictions about one's own
tasks.
• When outside observers predict task completion
times, they show a pessimistic bias,
overestimating the time needed.
What to doThe
whenPlanning
everything is Important
Fallacyand Urgent
1. Are you over-optimistic about how long a task
will take?
2. Does this over-optimism contribute to
challenging workloads?
3. What could you do differently?
What to doCost
when everything
Important and Urgent
BenefitisAnalysis
1. If you can’t do everything
2. Analyse the cost and benefit of completing tasks
What to doCost
when everything
Important and Urgent
BenefitisAnalysis
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
Task A Deadline
Cost of NOT
completing Task A
Task B Deadline
Cost of NOT
completing Task B
What The
to do when
everything
is Important
and Urgent
Planning
Fallacy
Again
• 2003 definition of the Planning Fallacy as:
• The tendency to underestimate the time, costs,
and risks of future actions whilst overestimating
the benefits
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
• David Allen published his book Getting Things
Done in 2001 It is often referred to as GTD.
•
•
•
•
•
Record planned tasks and projects
This moves tasks and projects out of the mind
Break tasks and projects into actions
This helps focus attention on taking action
Reduces or avoids stress from recalling actions
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
• 20 Second Introductory Video of Getting
Things Done
https://www.wrike.com/blog/david-allen-gtd-20-second-version/
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
Capture
'Stuff' that
needs
attention
Clarify
What you need
to do with stuff
Organise
Put stuff
where it
belongs
Reflect
Review
frequently
Engage
Do the actions
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
In Tray
Notepad
Digital list
Apps
Capture
'Stuff' that
needs
attention
Clarify
What you need
to do with stuff
Organise
Put stuff
where it
belongs
Reflect
Review
frequently
Engage
Do the actions
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
Capture
'Stuff' that
needs
attention
Clarify
What you need
to do with stuff
Organise
Put stuff
where it
belongs
Actionable?
No? delete, incubate, file for reference
Yes? Decide next action required or if brief,
do it.
Reflect
Review
frequently
Engage
Do the actions
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
Put action reminders on the right lists.
List what needs to happen when
Capture
'Stuff' that
needs
attention
Clarify
What you need
to do with stuff
Organise
Put stuff
where it
belongs
Reflect
Review
frequently
Engage
Do the actions
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
Capture
'Stuff' that
needs
attention
Clarify
What you need
to do with stuff
Organise
Put stuff
where it
belongs
Reflect
Review
frequently
Engage
Do the actions
Review and update daily or weekly.
Weekly review will help you clear completed tasks, make lists
current, get creative
What
to do when
everything
is Important
Urgent
Staying
flexible
whilst
havingand
a plan
Use the lists to take actions,
rather than to
worry/think/stress about
what actions to take
Capture
'Stuff' that
needs
attention
Clarify
What you need
to do with stuff
Organise
Put stuff
where it
belongs
Reflect
Review
frequently
Engage
Do the actions
WhatThe
to doDiscernment
when everything is Important
and Urgent
Force Field
•
•
•
•
Requests come at us from all angles
We are unprepared to discern between them
We start saying yes to them without really thinking
This fuels a busyness cycle where the more we
take on the less time we have to discern what we
should take on
• Our discernment force field becomes weak
• Our choices become a function of other people's
agendas
Adapted from: How To Prioritize When Everything is a Priority
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240082
Greg McKeown November 2014
What to
do when Precious
everything is Important
and Urgent
Taking
Time Out
Weak ‘Discernment
Force field’
Ideas
Your Projects
Requests
Stakeholders’ Projects
Emails
Adapted from: How To Prioritize When Everything is a Priority
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240082
Greg McKeown November 2014
What to
do when Precious
everything is Important
and Urgent
Taking
Time Out
Strong
‘Discernment Force
field’
Ideas
Your Projects
Requests
Stakeholders’ Projects
Emails
Adapted from: How To Prioritize When Everything is a Priority
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240082
Greg McKeown November 2014
What to
do when Precious
everything is Important
and Urgent
Taking
Time Out
• “I recommend every 90 days you take a day to go
somewhere away from the deafening digital noise
and usual routine of your busy life and reflect on
what really matters”
• Do you already do this?
• Could you do this?
• Would it make a difference?
What to
do when Precious
everything is Important
and Urgent
Taking
Time Out
• Go ‘off site’ to:
•
•
•
•
Review and update stakeholder analysis
Have discussions with your manager or a friend
Have discussions with team colleagues
Work on Stop Start Continue
What to
do when Precious
everything is Important
and Urgent
Taking
Time Out
• Go ‘away from your desk’:
• To consider Costs and Benefits of actions
• To undertake a weekly review of your Getting
Things Done lists.
What Power
to do whenOf
everything
is Important and Urgent
The Pompordoro
• https://www.focusboosterapp.com/thepomodoro-technique
• https://tomato-timer.com/