Personal Effectiveness in 3 Diagrams

Given that whole books have been written on personal effectiveness, 3 diagrams may sound a tall order, but bear with me and see what you think.

For the purposes of this article I am going to assume that your ladder is standing against the right wall. How to find out which wall to stand your ladder against is a whole different conversation and one which I cover elsewhere.

We can start with the diagram at the top of the page. The energy that we bring to work will typically be less than our energy budget because of all manner of external factors that eat into it, including screen time, other addictions, debt, challenging relationships, a long commute. Sometimes external circumstances can drain so much of our emotional energy — consider for example the loss of a partner — that we have nothing left for work.

‘Cleaning out our closet’ as Eminem put it, is important to our effective functioning: we should seek to resolve some of the issues outside of work that are draining us. Sometimes coaching, therapy, mentoring or other forms of helping relationship can assist with this.

Subsequently the energy that we apply to work will tend to be less than the energy we bring to work because of stressors associated with the work environment, such as role ambiguity, a feeling of injustice or unfairness that is unresolved, having to await the outworking of a change programme.

Another factor that may impact on our available energy is the emotions transmitted to us by colleagues. There is such a thing as the mood of a team and anxiety is one of the most contagious of human emotions. If the team leader is anxious over this month’s numbers then soon her whole team will be, irrespective of whether anything has been said.

If we are to be productive then we need to figure out how many of these stressors are within our locus of control. If you are a manager, you can do a lot for your team’s productivity by clarifying roles, being prepared to work through interpersonal issues that have arisen and staying positive.

This brings us to the question of which activities we apply our remaining energy to. You may recognise the next diagram as Stephen Covey’s ‘time management matrix’ from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Covey classified work activities in four ways: I) urgent and important, II) not urgent but important, III) urgent and not important and IV) not urgent and not important. He observed that many people are stuck in quadrants I and III.

Whilst we can’t avoid addressing the pressing problems within quadrant I, a lot of quadrant II work is the sort that if you left it in your in-tray for a week you would find it was no longer required when you returned to it (you might try this as an experiment if you don’t do so already).

Depending on our job, we should be looking to spend 20% to 50% of our time in quadrant II; reflecting, learning, planning, chasing new opportunities, building relationships and renewing ourselves. It was Abraham Lincoln who said “ Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Quadrant II contains the activities that build our productive capacity. However, from a psychological point of view there are plenty of reasons we may prefer I, III or even IV:

• We may be addicted to the drama associated with the crises in quadrant I;
• If we have a need to please people then we may find a home from home in quadrant III, attending pointless meetings, preparing reports that no-one reads, emailing advice that no-one wants, and tolerating interruptions for trivia;
• If you find it hard to put down your smartphone (and Silicon Valley employs an army of psychologists to make it as difficult as possible for all of us to do this) then quadrant IV is for you.

For reasons such as these, directing our focus to quadrant II and a deep commitment to our long-term productive capacity may not come easily. Once again, coaching or therapy may help.

My third diagram is the starting point of many textbooks on personal effectiveness and time management (though I hope I have illustrated that two steps further back is a better idea).

The timing is indicative so don’t worry too much about that. I am trying to convey four distinctive ideas here.

Firstly, set yourself up for the day. Tim Ferriss, for example, has a morning ritual that comprises bed making, meditation (10–20 mins), physical activity (20 mins), breakfast and journaling (5–10 minutes). You might want to throw in a spot of yoga, some prayer, some envisioning. Tony Robbins has his “3 minutes of gratitude” — Marcus Aurelius wrote “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

I would encourage you to find something that works for you but that is more than coffee and a croissant. Look to engage your mind and body in a combination of activities that a) leave you energised and in a positive state of mind for the day, and b) are transformational in the long run.

Next, plan the day — depending on the time horizon of your job, you may have to earmark certain days to make plans that extend over a longer period than this. Why is “fail to plan, plan to fail” such a reliable maxim? Because planning involves thinking through our priorities and then making a commitment to action. Both of these help us to avoid being hijacked by pleasant activities during the day.

In your planning consider not just the content of the task but where you might obtain help to accelerate its execution— a mentor, a previous example, an online resource, training etc. This too will enhance your personal effectiveness.

Hopefully you will have listed out no more than three strategic projects. This is the work that you will apply yourself to during the morning, one task at a time and screening out interruptions. It’s not that the brain can’t multitask — it can. But firstly it is generally more effective to apply 100% of the brain to the task in hand than 50% (assuming you are trying to do two things at once and not more) and secondly because we can only direct our attention to one thing at at time there is an attention switching cost associated with trying to do more than one thing.

After lunch you can focus on quadrant I. At lunchtime try to stay away from your desk and phone. Use the time to regenerate yourself physically and mentally.

Finally make time at the end of the day for reflection. Ask yourself “What is the most important thing(s) I learned during the day and which accomplishment am I most pleased with?” This will help you retain your learning and put the day into perspective.

There we are. I hope that my 3 diagrams have served to illustrate that personal effectiveness is not all about time management. There are plenty of calls on your emotional energy before you even make it to your workplace. Once you are at your desk the work environment itself can act to drain your energy. And what is left is all too easily diverted to pleasing others and trivia rather than truly useful work.

If we want to increase our personal effectiveness, we need first to think about what we can do to waste less emotional energy in and out of work. Secondly we need to think about the practices we can embed in our day that leverage our productivity: make time to set ourselves up for the day, plan the day, ringfence strategic projects and afterwards reflect.