By Lisa Bodell
Whether you’re a senior leader or a junior exec, your workday most likely revolves around meetings, emails, and reports. These activities were designed to increase efficiency, but today, they devour more than three-quarters of our workplace time. So how do we carve out space to do work that actually matters?
As the author of a simplification book and CEO of the innovation firm futurethink, I’ve interviewed thousands of employees about the time-sucks that get in the way of doing their job. What I’ve discovered is that we can combat workplace complexity by making simple changes to our personal habits around emails, reports, and meetings.
Take the “two-day” approach
Focus your mind by starting each workday with intention around two things you want to get done today. This practice is shown to help us make smarter choices, avoid distraction and control our impulses.
Kill pointless meetings like Sprint did
Upon review of every meeting held in one year—from standing and weekly status meetings to events, off sites, and team gatherings—Sprint eliminated 30% of them. Think objectively about the meetings you attend or preside over. Are attendees engaged and participating? Does real work happen in these sessions, or is everyone pretending to take notes while replying to emails? Conduct your own meeting audit and do away with meetings that don’t add value or have outlived their original objective.
Start meetings with goals…and end with action items
Require that every meeting agenda includes the meeting’s goal and is sent to invitees in advance. Similarly, require that next steps be defined at the meeting’s conclusion.
Stay on your feet
Stand-up meetings are less comfortable for attendees, which typically reduces the meeting’s length.
Institute Meeting-Free Wednesdays like Airbnb did
This is to encourage uninterrupted time for valuable work.
Audit your reports
Is your department contributing to valuable reports or have some of them outlived their usefulness? Is duplicate information already compiled by another division? Analyze all the reports to which your team contributes for opportunities to streamline or eliminate.
Use Google Docs to finalize presentations and reports among multiple stakeholder
Limit cc recipients
Limit cc recipients on email to three people inside your company, which is how Ferrari got its employees to “talk more, write less.”
Pick up the phone
Resolve any topic that isn’t decided after three emails.
Practice no-scroll emails
Summarize key points or action items for recipients in the body of your emails. Lengthy or dense information should only be provided in attachments.
Unsubscribe from e-letters
Unsubscribe to every e-letter that adds zero value to your life.
Utilize NNTR
For email topics that are FYI and don’t require a response, type NNTR (No Need To Respond) in the subject line. By utilizing this tactic, a business unit at Merck reduced email volume within its group by 20%.
Reduce emails, meetings, and reports is your starting place for a better work-life balance. And with these small changes comes the potential for company-wide ripples. Whether you’re a boss or not, you can role-model the same respectful approach to emails, reports, and meetings that you want your colleagues to take. Reducing your volume of busywork will free up time for doing the kind of valuable work that gets you noticed—and promoted.
About the author
Lisa Bodell is the founder and CEO of futurethink, which uses simple techniques to help organizations around the world embrace change and increase innovation capabilities. She brings her compelling message to more than 100,000 people a year, showing them how to eliminate mundane and unnecessary tasks from their everyday routines. A top-rated speaker at Google events, she is also the best-selling author of “Kill the Company” and “Why Simple Wins.” Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.