Are you crunched for time? Want to be more productive? What call center manager doesn’t need more time in their day.

Here is an article from Chris Crouch that you may find helpful in your quest for higher productivity.

What?

Allow me to get a bit Joyce Kilmer-ish for a moment: “I think that I shall never see, a number as beautiful as a 3.”

I don’t think Joyce would mind me borrowing a line from his poem about trees to help introduce the idea that the number “3″ is important to people who feel overwhelmed. Three is a useful number if you are a busy person, a digestible number…it’s anti-overwhelming.

Three has long been an important number among religious teachers and public speakers, it is important in the fields of art and entertainment, and it is important to people who are struggling with their workload.

My friend, who is a retired minister, told me that he was taught in seminary to design sermons using the ‘three points and a poem’ format. Great speakers have long known the value of designing speeches with three main points. And many movies, TV sitcoms and plays use a three-part or three-act story line format. Seinfield often launched three stories in the beginning of each episode and tied them all together by the end of the show. And, of course, there are the Three Bears, the Three Little Pigs, the Three Stooges, the Three Musketeers, the Three Blind Mice, the Three Laws of Robotics (if you are a science-fiction and Isaac Asimov fan), and then there’s the big three in school…reading, writing and arithmetic. The list goes on and on…and on.

In terms of triage, the medical practice of properly sorting or categorizing incoming patients in a massive emergency where the lifesaving resources exceed the number of patients needing attention, the number 3 has the potential to save your life. There are many forms of triage that vary slightly. For purposes of this discussion, let’s assume the triage physician has been taught to categorize incoming patients as follows:

1. Will not survive even if treated immediately.

2. Will survive even if they are not treated immediately.

3. Will only survive if they are treated immediately.

In case you haven’t already guessed, here’s where I am going with all this talk about the number 3. Frequently perform triage on your workload; design most of your days so you will get the three most important things you need to get done each day completed before noon.

So What?

Let’s talk about the simple psychology related to this strategy. Using this triage technique makes it much easier to decide what to do next. If you have a multitude of things on your mind and a work environment full of projects circling your desk waiting to land, you can easily succumb to the negative effects of choice overload. Here’s a relevant quote from Barry Schwartz, author of the book The Paradox of Choice:

“As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begins to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.”

Barry’s comments also apply to you and your workload. You can become debilitated by choice overload whether you are trying to buy a new pair of jeans, a camera or a car, or trying to decide what to do next at work.

Now What?

Use the triage technique to design your morning activities and then shift down one more gear and get into a binary decision-making mode (the opposite of choice overload). The term binary means, “consisting of two parts or two separate elements.” If it is before noon, you simply compare any potential distraction - e-mails, phone calls, drop-in visitors, etc. - with the most important unfinished item on your list of three important things to get done for the day. It is much easier to compare competing demands on your time and make a decision if you are comparing two things, rather than trying to constantly juggle a multitude of things. This system also allows for the fact that something may come up that is more important than any of the three things you thought were most important. If that should happen, ignore the original three items until you complete the unexpected important task. Only become concerned about doing this if you begin to notice a pattern of frequent, unexpected items. Repeat the process in the afternoon or work in a totally unstructured manner. Do whatever works best for you. I personally think there is a lot of value in having plenty of unstructured time.

Consider setting up a “triage” hanging file in your desk drawer - take three minutes at the end of each day to jot down the three most important things you have to do the next day, and then drop the list of three items into the triage file and go home.

You may think getting three things done each day is a bit wimpy. However, I didn’t say you only had to do three things a day. I am simply suggesting that, at a minimum, you get three very important things done each day before you allow other less important forces to take control of your behavior. Ideally, by concentrating, focusing and minimizing distractions early in the day, you will finish your triage items and have plenty of time to continue your focused efforts. Or, you can join the masses in the world of the overwhelmed, if that is your preference.

I’ll admit, when I get my triage items done some days, I like to screw around awhile and piddle with the work equivalent of shiny objects that attract my attention. However, I find that if I am honest and rational about what I put on my triage list, I feel very good about what I accomplish most days. For example, I am almost finished writing this article and it’s not even time for lunch yet. Finishing this article ended up on my triage list since one of the roles I have defined for myself is being an author.

This brings up another important issue related to joyful and productive living. Maintain a long-term vision and a short-term focus. My long-term vision is to publish and sell books. My short-term focus related to that vision is to write one thing at a time and turn it over to my publisher to see if she can turn it into something with a cover, pages and a price tag. This short-term focus stuff won’t work too well if you don’t have a clue about your long-term vision.

In a way, writers are lucky. When you define yourself as a writer, your long-term vision and short-term focus are easy to determine. Writers write. If you don’t write most days, you are probably not really a writer. Now that I think about it, it is probably a pretty good idea to see if you can come up with a one-word description of your main focus. That would mean that sellers sell, managers manage, leaders lead, teachers teach, inventors invent, and so forth and so on. Using sellers as an example doesn’t mean they sell all the time. However, it does mean they sell most of the time and, hopefully, they sell some each day. It also means that activities related to selling should be the kind of items most frequently dropped in their triage file.

I know life is not always this simple, but keeping things simple is a good idea when you are trying to establish a reasonable level of order in your life. In reality, some days I am a teacher and items related to teaching belong in my triage file. Some days I am a vacationing spouse and parent. On those days, items related to watching the sunset from the beach, eating shrimp and taking my daughter to get Hawaiian Shaved Ice belong in my triage file. Life balance is the ultimate trump card when considering your triage list.

That’s all for now on this topic. Admit it, some of you didn’t know Joyce Kilmer was a guy, did you?

You can receive regular tips on how to live a more productive and joyful life by subscribing to Chris’ blog at http://www.chriscrouch.typepad.com

Source: http://www.callcentercafe.com/2009/02/05/improving-productivity-the-big-three/