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CHAPTER
PRODUCTIVITY

Illusions of agreement

The business world is littered with dead documents that do nothing but waste people’s time. Reports no one reads, diagrams no one looks at, and specs that never resemble the finished product. These things take forever to make but only seconds to forget.

If you need to explain something, try getting real with it. Instead of describing what something looks like, draw it. Instead of explaining what something sounds like, hum it. Do everything you can to remove layers of abstraction.

The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement. A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they’re imagining a hundred different things.

That’s why you want to get to something real right away. That’s when you get true understanding. It’s like when we read about characters in a book—we each picture them differently in our heads. But when we actually
see
people, we all know exactly what they look like.

When the team at Alaska Airlines wanted to build a new Airport of the Future, they didn’t rely on blueprints and sketches. They got a warehouse and built mock-ups using cardboard boxes for podiums, kiosks, and belts. The team then built a small prototype in Anchorage to test systems with real passengers and employees. The design that resulted from this getting-real process has significantly reduced wait times and increased agent productivity.
^*

Widely admired furniture craftsman Sam Maloof felt it was impossible to make a working drawing to show all the intricate and fine details that go into a chair or stool. “Many times I do not know how a certain area is to be done until I start working with a chisel, rasp, or whatever tool is needed for that particular job,” he said.
^†

That’s the path we all should take. Get the chisel out and start making something real. Anything else is just a distraction.

Reasons to quit

It’s easy to put your head down and just work on what you
think
needs to be done. It’s a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why. Here are some important questions to ask yourself to ensure you’re doing work that matters:

Why are you doing this?
Ever find yourself working on something without knowing exactly why? Someone just told you to do it. It’s pretty common, actually. That’s why it’s important to ask why you’reworking on______. What is this for? Who benefits? What’s the motivation behind it? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you better understand the work itself.

What problem are you solving?
What’s the problem? Are customers confused? Are you confused? Is something not clear enough? Was something not possible before that should be possible now? Sometimes when you ask these questions, you’ll find you’re solving an
imaginary
problem. That’s when it’s time to stop and reevaluate what the hell you’re doing.

Is this actually useful?
Are you making something useful or just making something? It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness. Sometimes it’s fine to play a bit and build something cool. But eventually you’ve got to stop and ask yourself if it’s useful, too. Cool wears off. Useful never does.

Are you adding value?
Adding something is easy; adding
value
is hard. Is this thing you’re working on actually making your product more valuable for customers? Can they get more out of it than they did before? Sometimes things you think are adding value actually subtract from it. Too much ketchup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance.

Will this change behavior?
Is what you’re working on really going to change anything? Don’t add something unless it has a real impact on how people use your product.

Is there an easier way?
Whenever you’re working on something, ask, “Is there an easier way?” You’ll often find this easy way is more than good enough for now. Problems are usually pretty simple. We just imagine that they require hard solutions.

What could you be doing instead?
What can’t you do because you’re doing this? This is especially important for small teams with constrained resources. That’s when prioritization is even more important. If you work on A, can you still do B and C before April? If not, would you rather have B and C instead of A? If you’re stuck on something for a long period of time, that means there are other things you’re not getting done.

Is it really worth it?
Is what you’re doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling six people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight, or could you just finish it up tomorrow? Is it worth getting all stressed out over a press release from a competitor? Is it worth spending your money on advertising? Determine the real value of what you’re about to do before taking the plunge.

Keep asking yourself (and others) the questions listed above. You don’t need to make it a formal process, but don’t let it slide, either.

Also, don’t be timid about your conclusions. Sometimes abandoning what you’re working on is the right move, even if you’ve already put in a lot of effort. Don’t throw good time after bad work.

Interruption is the enemy
of productivity

If you’re constantly staying late and working weekends, it’s not because there’s too much work to be done. It’s because you’re not getting enough done at work. And the reason is interruptions.

Think about it: When do you get most of your work done? If you’re like most people, it’s at night or early in the morning. It’s no coincidence that these are the times when nobody else is around.

At 2 p.m., people are usually in a meeting or answering e-mail or chatting with colleagues. Those taps on the shoulder and little impromptu get-togethers may seem harmless, but they’re actually corrosive to productivity. Interruption is not collaboration, it’s just interruption. And when you’re interrupted, you’re not getting work done.

Interruptions break your workday into a series of work moments. Forty-five minutes and then you have a call. Fifteen minutes and then you have lunch. An hour later, you have an afternoon meeting. Before you know it, it’s five o’clock, and you’ve only had a couple uninterrupted hours to get your work done. You can’t get meaningful things done when you’re constantly going start, stop, start, stop.

Instead, you should get in the alone zone. Long stretches of alone time are when you’re most productive. When you don’t have to mind-shift between various tasks, you get a boatload done. (Ever notice how much work you get done on a plane since you’re offline and there are zero outside distractions?)

Getting into that zone takes time and requires avoiding interruptions. It’s like REM sleep: You don’t just go directly into REM sleep. You go to sleep first and then make your way to REM. Any interruptions force you to start over. And just as REM is when the real sleep magic happens, the alone zone is where the real productivity magic happens.

Your alone zone doesn’t have to be in the wee hours, though. You can set up a rule at work that half the day is set aside for alone time. Decree that from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., people can’t talk to each other (except during lunch). Or make the first or last half of the day
your
alone-time period. Or instead of casual Fridays, try no-talk Thursdays. Just make sure this period is unbroken in order to avoid productivity-zapping interruptions.

And go all the way with it. A successful alone-time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messages, phone calls, e-mail, and meetings. Just shut up and get to work. You’ll be surprised how much more you get done.

Also, when you do collaborate, try to use passive communication tools, like e-mail, that don’t require an instant reply, instead of interruptive ones, like phone calls and face-to-face meetings. That way people can respond when it’s convenient for them, instead of being forced to drop everything right away.

Your day is under siege by interruptions. It’s on you to fight back.

Meetings are toxic

The worst interruptions of all are meetings. Here’s why:

• They’re usually about words and abstract concepts, not real things.
  

• They usually convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute.
  

• They drift off-subject easier than a Chicago cab in a snowstorm.
  

• They require thorough preparation that most people don’t have time for.
  

• They frequently have agendas so vague that nobody is really sure of the goal.
  

• They often include at least one moron who inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense.
  

• Meetings procreate. One meeting leads to another meeting leads to another …
  

It’s also unfortunate that meetings are typically scheduled like TV shows. You set aside thirty minutes or an hour because that’s how scheduling software works (you’ll never see anyone schedule a seven-minute meeting with Outlook). Too bad. If it only takes seven minutes to accomplish a meeting’s goal, then that’s all the time you should spend. Don’t stretch seven into thirty.

When you think about it, the true cost of meetings is staggering. Let’s say you’re going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour, and you invite ten people to attend. That’s actually a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting. You’re trading ten hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. And it’s probably more like fifteen hours, because there are mental switching costs that come with stopping what you’re doing, going somewhere else to meet, and then resuming what you were doing beforehand.

Is it ever OK to trade ten or fifteen hours of productivity for one hour of meeting? Sometimes, maybe. But that’s a pretty hefty price to pay. Judged on a pure cost basis, meetings of this size quickly become liabilities, not assets. Think about the time you’re actually losing and ask yourself if it’s really worth it.

If you decide you absolutely
must
get together, try to make your meeting a productive one by sticking to these simple rules:

• Set a timer. When it rings, meeting’s over. Period.
  

• Invite as few people as possible.
  

• Always have a clear agenda.
  

• Begin with a specific problem.
  

• Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest real changes.
  

• End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementing it.