Juggling Elephants At An Early Age

While the focus in the book, Juggling Elephants, is for adults, I was reminded this past week that there is a younger audience that needs the message as well. One of my daughters is preparing for three school-related competitions-all within the next two weeks. She is an awesome young lady, but in the past couple of months she has simply allowed other "good acts" to take away time she should have been using to get ready for the competitions. As a parent I should have been gently reminding her that she would have time for some of these acts AFTER the competitions were over. Now, just days before the competitions, she finds herself stressed and worried that she won't be ready.

The Cost of Not Paying Attention

While working on the Juggling Elephants "Train the Trainer" program, I came across a fantastic research abstract entitled The Cost of Not Paying Attention-How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity. Consider some of their findings:

-Unnecessary interruptions cost U.S. businesses $588 billion per year.

-Twenty-eight percent of a knowledge worker's productivity may be lost to unnecessary interruptions such as instant messaging, spam e-mail, telephone calls and the web.

The abstract offered three great solutions to minimize such losses. They were:

-Training knowledge workers to prioritize work at hand

-Providing them with discretion to turn off technology

-Separating themselves from technology to do work

Work On Improving One Act

There was an illuminating article in the NY Times on April 2nd entitled Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind. It looks at the results from a research study on the use of willpower. In short, the study found that willpower is not unlimited. Use it in one area and your willpower is depleted when you choose to use it for another task requiring restraint.

Based on the study, their recommendations included using your willpower on one key area at a time, and once you achieve success with restraint in that area, work on another area.

What about your circus? Where is willpower needed to add, change or delete an act in your lineup? If you're trying to change too much at one time, you may feel like you're juggling elephants again. Read the article for more great insights into willpower.

Write Your Eulogy

One of my favorite songs is Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw. You can click here for the lyrics. It helps me clarify my lineup when I'm trying to juggle elephants (yes, I still try from time to time).

It might be morbid but why not begin with the ultimate end in mind and write your own eulogy. What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want said and written about you? What accomplishments do you want to have achieved? Lay it out in detail. Review it on a regular basis and don't be afraid to edit, delete and add to it.

Going "All Digital" - Not Yet!

We recently had a customer of "Juggling Elephants" write to us about tips for going "all digital" with a system that would be small and compact. Here was my reply:

When it comes to calendaring I struggle like you do. I love electronics and technology. But I haven't found an electronic calendaring solution that I totally like - especially when I am away from my desk a lot. I am a visual person and like to see a layout of what is going on in my life and small PDA screens just don't do that for me. A few tips that work for me:

• I carry a paper based system with me - mainly for my calendar and for taking notes (I can't take notes fast enough on a PDA especially when I am on the phone). I use Franklin Covey's compact planner with the 2 page calendar spread - it fits in a brief case (or purse) and is easy to carry


• It is critical to have just one MASTER calendar (for me it is my planner). Everything goes in the Master calendar and then I update other calendars as necessary (the family calendar, my schedule in Outlook at work, etc.)


• In my planner I carry a quad-pen that has red, blue and black ink along with a pencil. On my paper based calendar I track the 3 rings of my circus with a different color of ink (red-relationships, blue-self, and black-work). I use the pencil for stuff that is tentative and hasn't confirmed


• I still use technology. I update my schedule in Outlook so that people that I work with know my schedule. I also like that my mobile phone will sync with my Outlook automatically and will "beep" to remind me of appointments (my planner doesn't beep). This function also mutes my mobile phone during meetings so that I don't get interrupted by an incoming call.

These ideas seem to work for me but I travel and am away from my desk a lot. If I were at my desk most of the time I think that I could go 100% digital due to the bigger screen of my computer. The key is to take planning of your circus seriously and to find a solution that works for you. A custom solution that fits your needs is probably the best answer. I have also found that talking with others and finding out what works for them has given me new ideas and increased my productivity.