Tag Archives: Office Productivity

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Be a Smart Ranger! Stop Doing These 7 Things

Do you ever get to Friday and ask yourself, “Why does it feel like I didn’t get anything done this week?” The reality is that you probably didn’t get as much done as you could have. Which, is ok…as long as you’re committed to improving your productivity. (Hint…if you’re not in the mindset to regularly assess your work productivity, you need to start.)

This article from CamMi Pham Medium.com, 7 Things You Need to Stop Doing to be More Productive, Backed by Science, touches several topics that are routine challenges for military leaders:

  • Military leaders typically work long hours. Are we overtasked or just inefficient?
  • We say YES to ideas that help Soldiers, even if they’re not the unit’s priority.
  • The military is full of perfectionists who spend too much time refining products.
  • Money and bureaucracy prevent the military from automating many of the procedures that make it inefficient.

Here are the bullets from the article:

  1. Stop working overtime and increase your productivity
  2. Don’t say ‘yes’ too often
  3. Stop doing everything yourself and start letting people help you
  4. Stop being a perfectionist
  5. Stop doing repetitive tasks and start automating
  6. Stop guessing and start backing up your decisions with data
  7. Stop working, and have do-nothing time

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“7 Things You Need to Stop Doing to be More Productive, Backed by Science” was published on Medium.com by Digital Marketing Strategist CamMi Pham on April 29, 2014.
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“Iron Major Survival Guide v2”

The Iron Major Survival Guide is 29 pages of advice on how to succeed as a field grade officer. It includes everything from how to arrive as the new S3/XO to how to set up systems for unit property accountability. This document will make you a better manager and leader, period.

(Hint:  it’s not just for field grades.  NCOs, junior, and senior officers need to read this, too.)

Iron Major Survival Guide V2

Here are some excerpts:

  • The ability to anticipate and fix problems before they happen is why FG officers are paid the big bucks. Key to this is time to think. Get yourself out of the knife fight early and often. Hold your staff to extremely high standards early so you can build a level of trust and confidence in them that allows you to decentralize taskings and grants you the space and time to ask the “what if?” Spend your time anticipating what could go wrong then take steps to avoid failure.
  • Apply some analysis to emails; don’t manage/lead your staff by forwarding higher HQ/or the boss’ orders. Make them your own. An “FYI” on a forwarded formation time is acceptable, but when the boss writes you and says “I’m tired of units submitting their Green 2 reports late”, don’t simple forward to company commanders and write “please note BN CDR comments below.
  • If you can’t get out of the office most nights by 1800, then you are doing a poor job of time and task management.
  • If you think staying up for 48 hours will make you more efficient and garner the respect of your subordinates, then you are probably oblivious to the poor decisions you made or the irascibility you demonstrated for them over that time.
  • Figure out how to assign tasks, give guidance, establish suspenses, follow up, and quality control. It’s easy to hand out tasks, it’s harder to remember to keep track and follow up.
  • Remember, that in addition to managing your staff, you still have to ‘lead’ your staff. Many a good junior officer has decided to bail on the Army because of a bad experience on a staff, most of which were instigated by a leader who didn’t care enough to lead them.

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What You Can Do About Your Full Inbox

It’s tough to deny… Email is our closest companion and our most prolific mode of communication. Despite the personal nature of military leadership and the requirement to build close-knit teams, I can’t think of a single thing we do that isn’t planned, assigned, or communicated on email.Inbox

And if you’re like me, this list sounds familiar:

  • I feel like I need to keep every email for accountability
  • My OCD personality makes me want to sort all my emails into folders
  • I get a little anxious when I open my Inbox and find dozens of new messages
  • I have dozens, even hundreds of unread messages in my Inbox
  • I feel like I can’t leave the office without responding to the day’s new mail
  • I have checked mail while having a face-to-face conversation with someone on my team
  • I feel like email is taking up more of my day than it should

After living with the military Inbox for 16 years now, I’m convinced that few of us manage it well and could use some techniques on being more efficient. If you agree, you need to check out leadership and productivity expert Michael Hyatt’s post, “Yes, You Can Stay on Top of Email.”

Take Aways

  • You get 5 options, that’s it:  Do, Delegate, Defer, Delete, File
  • You’re wasting time by sorting emails into folders
  • Use the search box to find emails quickly
  • Use automatic rules and conditional formatting to organize your high and low priority emails

Bottom Line:  we don’t need more time to process email…we just need to be disciplined and efficient in managing it.

Questions for Leaders

  • Do you think email has negatively impacted the leadership environment in military teams?
  • Have you ever tried to move your organization away from email and engage more personally?
  • What methods do you use to manage your Inbox?

Feel free to leave a comment below.