Training

1. General Concepts on Time Management

What is the Problem You Want to Address?

o People usually don’t have a proper time management method. They believe they can
multitask but they actually don’t multitask, they switch task quickly. A lot of research
demonstrated that multitasking doesn’t work and cost productivity (up to 40%) – G.A.
Miller. “The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits of our capacity for
processing information.” John Medina. Brain Rules. J.S.Rubinstein, D.E. Meyer and J.E.
Evans. “Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching.”
o People are also quickly and easily distracted either by their colleagues
(managers/peers/direct reports) or by themselves (smartphones) via email notification,
skype pop up or phone call. Research demonstrated that it takes more than 20 minutes
to get back to work after an interruption (Gloria Mark)
o If you ask people how is work, chance is very high that they answer they are busy, not
that they are efficient in delivering results
o They are plenty of training, but people don’t really apply the techniques they learn. In
order to learn, they need to practice. It is said that to manage something properly, you
need to practice it at least 20 hours.
o As a result:
 People work longer hours
 They feel tired and when they come back at home, they have difficulty to
engage with their personal life.
 They don’t sleep well
 They lose motivation, disengage and are less productive

2. Emails and Mailbox Management

Subject:

- New email:

- Existing email:

o Edit or not the subject is not formatted as expected

Content:

- Brief summary when the email is longer than 5 rows: It would probably be good to find
out. (example)

- Highlight the name of person who has complete an action. The action ownership and
deadline should have been agreed by phone before the email is sent to larger population.
Signature:

- Add your signature to your email according to the best practice of your department:
Agree on the format and add it in the training

Think Twice Before You Send an Email:

The sender of the email is responsible for the email he sends since the recipient can’t know the
content of the email. It is the responsibility of the sender to limit the number of emails he sends.

When to send an email and When not to send an email according to Who you are communicating with:

Are sending this email to ask for information? Can you ask verbally or by skype? If yes, get the
answer and reply to all with the answer highlighting who provided you the answer. Imagine an email chain
with 10 people. The question and answer by email will mean 20 emails, emails to process by different
people when you could have had half of it by calling a colleague.

Special Situations:

- How to deal with chasers:

- How to deal with difficult emails: On top of giving advice on how to manage desire to fire
a bullet, I would recommend to delay the submission of emails (of maybe 1 minute
) to let people time to stop the sending in-case it is necessary

Outlook useful tips:

3. Meeting

Meeting that you organize:

- Reason of organizing a meeting

o Status update: Can the meeting be replaced by an email with the support be
enough
o Is the meeting a team meeting: Does the content of the meeting requires to
schedule a weekly or can the meeting happen only bi-weekly
o Ad hoc meeting vs. standing meeting
o Magic Time: Instead of having team meeting weekly (standing meeting), change
the frequency to bi-weekly. Every other week, when the meeting does not
 actually take place, the slot is maintained for people to work. The slot can be used
in case of emergency since al team members are available.

- Meeting Agenda:

o Did you prepare an agenda for the meeting?

o Is the agenda clear?

- Meeting Attendees:

o How many invitees in your meeting?

o What is the role of the invitees?
o Did you invite the right attendees?

- Meeting minutes

o Did you plan to write or appoint someone to write minutes of the meeting?

- Duration:

o Default meeting should be booked for 45 minutes meeting instead of 1 hour

o Meeting cascade: No meeting should be organized back to back