{"id":4024,"date":"2010-03-29T21:20:56","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T04:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2010-03-29T21:20:56","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T04:20:56","slug":"are-you-managing-your-projects-or-is-your-e-mail-managing-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4024","title":{"rendered":"Are You Managing Your Projects, or Is Your E-mail Managing You?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"http:\/\/www.randalldean.com\"<\/a>
I love using technology to save time!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"45<\/a>
Randy is the author of this 2009 Amazon E-mail Bestseller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Daily \u201cStart-Up\u201d Routine to Guarantee Project Priorities Trump E-mail Urgency<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m frequently approached by project and people managers in my speaking and training programs on e-mail and Outlook management on how to reconcile the massive flow of e-mail many people are receiving with their need\/desire to get more project-based work done and meet critical deadlines.\u00a0 Whenever this discussion comes up, I always like to ask where they put their focus first thing in the morning?\u00a0 Do they review their project plans\/task list\/calendar first, or do they open and check their e-mail first?\u00a0 If you are checking your e-mail first, you may be falling prey to \u201ccrisis du jour\u201d planning, which can significantly impact your ability to meet your long-frame project goals\/deadlines.<\/p>\n

I’ve been recommending to key project management clients that they follow a fairly specific regimen at the start of the day that helps keep them from falling prey to \u201curgency planning\u201d.\u00a0 This regimen will get your personal focus on your bigger project priorities first every day, allowing you to then integrate your e-mail-based tasks rather than inappropriately prioritizing those e-mail tasks to the detriment of your project plans\/milestones. Here is that more prioritized start-of-the-day regimen:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First, check your calendar, not just for today, but for the next 1-2 weeks.\u00a0 Your primary goal is to get a good feel for how many time commitments you are facing not only today but also in the next several days.\u00a0 You also want to simultaneously know how much \u201copen block\u201d time \u2013 time for project-based management and accomplishment, is available today specifically.\u00a0 This is a critical frame of mind starting every day, as you have multiple priorities, tasks, people, and plans to manage, and you have to figure out how to make them all fit in a limited amount of time.<\/li>\n
  2. Next, refer to your primary project plan(s) \u2013 if you are actively managing a project(s), now, refer to those project plans, and pull individual action items from those plans \u2013 not only those that you need to accomplish personally, but also the follow-up and follow-through activities you need to take with others to keep your project assets (staff, contractors, vendors) on task and schedule. Put those active task items for today on today’s individual task list, be that on paper, in MS Outlook or MS Project, or any other planning software tool.<\/li>\n
  3. Check your task list for sanity.\u00a0 Now, you know how much \u201copen block\u201d time you have for project-based accomplishment today and the next several days, as well as the key items on your task list from your key projects.\u00a0 Does your available time match your task list, or is your task list looking like something for an 18-hour day?\u00a0 This is the time to re-prioritize your task list for sanity \u2013 are there any low-level\/priority tasks that can simply be moved to a later date?\u00a0 I call this \u201ceffective procrastination\u201d \u2013 identifying tasks every day that are not mission critical, and, if you are overloaded, you can move to a later-yet-still-actionable date.\u00a0 By doing this, you are actually reducing \u201cstress\u201d in your personal system, by getting your daily task list to a realistic, actionable level.\u00a0 Also, by using effective procrastination, you are actually increasing the available time for accomplishing truly high-priority activities.\u00a0 This is also the time to call on additional resources if you realize that your project-critical tasks for this day (and coming days) go beyond your personal ability to manage\/accomplish.\u00a0 Do you need to outsource tasks internally or externally to keep everything on plan?<\/li>\n
  4. NOW, check your e-mail (voice mail, text messages, etc.) \u2013 Note that I strongly prefer you not even check your e-mail until you’ve checked calendar, checked your project plans, and refined\/revised your daily task list.\u00a0 This forces you to get your longer-frame, big-picture priorities straight before checking your e-mail and letting the \u201ccrisis of the day\u201d change your focus to the very short-term activities and tasks.\u00a0 Of course, your e-mail and other forms of current information (voice mail, faxes, text messages, etc.) are going to contain messages with updates, tasks, and information that will impact the prioritized action plan you have built for the day, and you do need to acknowledge them, but not to the detriment of your long-frame plans and activities.\u00a0 This leads to step 5:<\/li>\n
  5. Recalibrate Task List one last time before starting to take action.\u00a0 Some of these new pieces of information will contain updates that will directly affect your project plans, critical path, and resource needs.\u00a0 Make the adjustments in your prioritized project\/task plan and required follow-ups\/ follow-throughs on your delegated tasks & deliverables, to adjust your daily plan to accommodate real urgency and changes.\u00a0 And then sanity check this adjusted task list one last time to make sure it is a realistic list for your available \u201copen block\u201d time per steps 1-3.<\/li>\n
  6. Take action.\u00a0 Now, after going through steps 1-5, assuming you are not in a meeting, it is time to start knocking down that task list.\u00a0 I’d recommend following through with your delegated resources first before taking any individual actions of your own (an early reminder effectively gives that resource a whole additional day to accomplish the task).\u00a0 Once your delegation reminders are completed, your goal is to now knock out your personal prioritized task list for the day, and keep your project-based work moving appropriately, balancing true urgency with prioritized, proactive project management.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Obviously, this may require for you to get in the office to have time for this daily \u201cmorning routine\u201d before the phone, e-mail, and fax machine start going crazy, and\/or you head into \u201cmeeting insanity\u201d!\u00a0 I always try to get into the office about 30-45 minutes prior to the majority of staff in my office so I can get this critical daily planning routine completed before everyone starts taking action and changing my plans. (Yes, being a morning person is greatly helpful as a project manager!)<\/p>\n

    And throughout the day, I’d recommend checking this daily task list both before and after checking your e-mail each and every time you do check e-mail.\u00a0 This will keep the focus of your project management consistently at the big-picture, proactive level it needs to be to meet the long-frame requirements of effective project management, while also accommodating the to-be-expected daily urgency.\u00a0 And it will keep your e-mail and other sources of \u201cinformation overload\u201d in the proper frame of true importance, so that you are managing it, rather than it managing you.<\/p>\n

    In my next entry, I’ll explain to you my recommended strategies for managing your e-mail each and every time you check<\/em> your e-mail, allowing you to keep up with \u201cquick items\u201d, as well as properly dealing with both urgent and important items in those e-mails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This post features a recommended “daily start-up” routine that will keep you focused on your key projects and priorities rather than being driven by your e-mail and the “crisis du jour” on a daily basis, by Randy Dean, the author of the recent Amazon E-mail Bestseller, Taming the E-mail Beast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,5,1],"tags":[39,696,698,694,1373,84,699,42,181,695,38,825,700,697,1371],"class_list":["post-4024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-goals","category-priorities-2","category-time-management","category-miscellaneous","tag-best-practices","tag-calendar","tag-crisis-planning","tag-e-mail","tag-goals","tag-management","tag-morning-routine","tag-priorities","tag-process","tag-procrastination","tag-project-management","tag-reddit","tag-sanity","tag-task-list","tag-time-management"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}