Prescription Instructions

1. The magic pill must be taken, by managers, once per week, on Monday.
2. The magic pill has no effect on the manager during the week until 40 work hours have been logged.
3. Once 40 work hours have been logged, the magic pill prevents the manager from thinking about work activities.
4. Blackberries and remote email are considered work activities by the magic pill.
5. If the manager persists in thinking about work activities, the magic pill will shut down conscious thought and make the subject sleep for a temporary period (naptime).
6. In most cases, the magic pill has been shown to change the work habits of managers, who now know they must be effective within 40 work hours per week.
7. In clinical trials, in some cases, side effects of the magic pill have improved family and social activities.

Think about this magic pill. If you took the magic pill, what habits would you change to become more effective?

"I know planning is important, but I have so much to do today," Lauren explained, hoping I would let her off the hook.

I nodded my head. "I know you have a lot to do, today. How much of what you do today will be effective?" I asked.

"What do you mean? I have phone calls to return, emails to answer, meetings to go to. I have a couple of employees I have to speak to about things they were supposed to take care. I have two projects that are behind schedule. A lot of things piled up over the past week."

"How much of what you do today will be effective?" I repeated.

"Well." Lauren stopped. "I know some things are more important than other things."

"And, how do you make that decision? How do you know what you do is effective? How do you know what you do is important?" Lauren's posture shifted. She backed off the table between us. She was listening. "I will venture that 80 percent of what you do today will be wasted time and only 20 percent of what you do will be effective. How will you know you are working on the 20 percent?"

"Last week, you assigned this task to Dale, but you ended up doing it," I observed. I could tell Sondra was very pleased with the project result, but miffed that she spent the weekend working when Dale had all of last week to work on it.

"I thought about, what you said, being more explicit about my deadline. Next time, I will try to remember that," Sondra replied.

"More than that, the target completion time is essential to the task assignment. Dale gets all kinds of assignments. To complete them, he has to use his own discretion, primarily about pace and quality. Most of the decisions he makes are about pace and quality. Without a target completion time, he has no frame of reference in which to make his decisions. His ASAP will ALWAYS be different than your ASAP. ASAP is not a target completion time."

Sondra smiled. I took a look at her project. It was really very good. She will make her client meeting today and life will go on.

"The point of the vacation exercise is not to pretend that every week is the week before vacation, but to look at the difference between that week and any other week," I explained.

"That's good news, because if I worked as hard every week as I do the week before vacation, I would go nuts. It's bad enough the way it is. Almost makes going on vacation not worth the all the trouble," Marissa replied.

"So, what is different about that week from any other week," I asked.

"Well, I have to get more stuff done, so I just do whatever it takes. Some days I work longer, but mostly I prioritize and delegate. And you are right, some things simply become unimportant, so they don't get done at all."

"So, you have just learned about Parkinson's Law. Work expands (or contracts) to the time allotted."

How many hours a day do you sit in front of a computer, responding to email?

In my father's day, it was called correspondence. He would receive letters, reports in large brown envelopes and he would dictate his response to a secretary. The secretary would type the response and leave it in his INBOX for signature. This was correspondence.

And I am certain that my father blocked off a portion each day for correspondence.

That word, correspondence, has been lost, but the activity, albeit electronic, is likely to consume more of your day than in my father's day.

So, how many hours a day, do you sit in front of a computer, responding to email? And in those hours, what strategies do you use to be more efficient? What strategies do you use to be more effective?