Archives for August 2013

One of the things you can do to increase your productivity and achieve more results is to increase your focus.  Most people in our industry today are pulled in a million directions all day long.  This can create a “fire fighting” effect that makes you feel like you got a lot done, but in reality, you may be working on all the wrong things.  One technique that I’ve used is setting a specific period of time aside to focus on your top priorities.  This can have a dramatic effect on your productivity.  Here are my tips for doing that:

1. What are your top priorities? Most people have a hard time with this first step. In order to achieve more you have to work on the right things. You are being pulled in a million directions but what is the number one thing that needs to get done? If you can answer this question, you are in good shape. In Brian Tracy’s book “Focal Point” he talks about applying the 80/20 rule to work. 80 percent of what your employer is paying you is being derived from 20 percent of your tasks. If you can spend more time on the critical 20 percent and less time on the 80 percent, you will have more value to your employer.

2. Carve out a time to work on your top priority. Start with 30 minutes. Maybe for you it’s the last 30 minutes of the day. Maybe it is right before lunch or right after lunch. For most people, the best answer is the first 30 minutes of your day. The first thing you do almost always gets done. So many things can happen in the middle of your day that can derail your plans. The morning is usually the best time.

3. Environment is key. Do you have an office where you can close the door? Do people come in anyway? I try to do my 30 minutes at home before I leave for work. My family is asleep, no one can interrupt me, and I can concentrate. Maybe the Starbucks down the street from your office would be better? You might also try putting a sign on your door indicating the time you will be back out of your office so people will wait and not interrupt you.

4. Turn everything off. Turn off the email alerts on your computer. Turn off the meeting alerts on your computer. Turn off your office phone. Turn off your cell phone. No interruptions! This is key. They say that it takes 15 minutes to recover from an interruption. If you are only doing 30 minutes that is half the time you have scheduled! If you read any books on how the mind works you will see that in an environment where you can’t be interrupted, your mind will focus better. Your mind is always scanning for things and it will not do this if interruptions are not anticipated. That’s why you get so much done when you are the only one in the office on a Saturday. So turn off any potential interruptions.

5. Lastly, set a timer. Give yourself the 30 minutes but stop at 30. Again, your mind will be more focused if it knows how long the focus needs to be. Now, work on that first priority. If you can’t finish it today, there is always tomorrow!

Management is a weird thing.  Most people think of a role in management as a step up but it is really a step sideways.  You go along in your career gaining skills and experience and then one day someone comes to you and says “you are being promoted!”.  You think, now what?  When I received this position, I went from being and individual contributor to being the head of a team of 45 people.  That is a big shift.  I started reading and learning everything I could about the concept of leading and managing.  It was a very slow process and I made lots of mistakes.  But in the end, I learned a lot about what it means to lead and manage people and as a result, I learned a lot about what it means to be a great employee.  So, this article is the advice I would have for anyone who is looking to be more effective at their job and hopes to be promoted because of it.

First, understand your manager.  This is critical.  You work for someone who holds the keys to what you want.  You need to understand what they value, how they think and what they want from you.  Without this, it is doubtful you will be able to move ahead in your company.

What is their communication style?  Study the DISC model and find out if they are a High D, High S, High I or High C.  Then alter your communication to match their style.  Do not walk into a high D’s office on Monday morning and start trying to talk about the weekend.  Do not make proposals to a High C without all the data to back them up.

What is important to them?  Most of your job is to make your boss successful.  Their department goals, or the company goals need to be met.  What is it that your boss is looking for from you?  This is what you need to concentrate on. As Peter Drucker said:  “What does the company need from me?”  That should be your first question.  Or in this context, “What does my boss need from me?”  If you are achieving results in the wrong area, it will not have an impact.

What do they appreciate?  Not just what the company wants, but blending with them.  Their behaviors will give this away.  Do they come in early?  You should too.  Do they work late?  You should too.  Do they keep regular hours?  You should not try to have a flex schedule.  Do they enjoy going out to lunch with vendors?  Then you should set some lunches up and invite them.  Do they dress up on Halloween?  No?  Then it might not be a good idea for you either.  Yes?  Then maybe you should.  This isn’t hard and fast but the more you are like your boss and they feel you are like them, the better your relationship will be.

Next, Blend with the organization.  What is the company’s mission, vision and values?  How are you making sure you are in line with them?  If you company values honesty, are you being honest in your approach?  If your company values innovation, are you innovating?  This seems obvious but people tend to do what they want to do and that isn’t the way to get ahead in your company.  You have joined an organization that is trying to do something and the more your work is helping them do it, the more chance you will be given more responsibility.

Lastly, you are being paid to achieve results.  Your results and your achievements are the cornerstone of your career.  When you look at a resume, for each of your jobs, you should have a paragraph about your job duties and then several bullet points for your achievements.  When we advertise for a position, we get hundreds of resumes.  I have yet to see one with actual achievements on it.  This is critical!  You get paid for your job, but you get promoted for what you achieve.  Don’t just do what is on your job description.  This is the minimum criteria!  Work hard to achieve results.  If you are a PM, bring your projects in on-time and under budget while creating crazy satisfied customers.  If you are in drafting, learn new methods to improve your process and become the fastest and most accurate draftsman on the team.  Find ways to increase quality, decrease time, save money and implement them!  This is what will get you noticed!

So, if you really want to get promoted or at least get a raise, think about these things.  One great resource for learning about management and your career is:  http://www.manager-tools.com. They have free podcasts you can download and they cover a broad range of topics.

 

 

About 8 years ago, at Autodesk University, Carol Bartz was making her keynote address.  In that address she made a prediction that the construction industry would be paperless in the next 10 years.  My colleagues and I just laughed.  We were drowning in paper and there were no signs it was getting better.  In fact it seemed to be getting worse.  There was no way at that time that we could see ourselves moving into a paperless world.

Last December, I completed my conversion to being paperless.  You can see my dramatic office changes here: http://youtu.be/N6krYvzBPAU  I’m happy to say that 8 months later, I am still completely paperless.  If you have been thinking about making the conversion or just wondering how it might be done, I thought I’d share what I did to get there.

So first, we had a number of changes in the office that really facilitated our ability to do this.  The first big change was moving our shop drawings and fabrication tickets to PDF.  We looked at this in the past and people were opposed to it because it was easier to flip through a set of drawings than try to flip through them on their screen using a set of PDF documents.  So we decided, if we could make it easier to work in the PDF files, then people would be more likely to adopt this change.  We wrote several custom programs to help with this.  First, we made everything into hyperlinks.  You could click on a unit mark number on your elevations and it would take you straight to the unit drawing.  Then click on a mark number for a vertical or horizontal and it takes you directly to that fabrication ticket.  Suddenly it was easier to review and check fabrication tickets electronically than it was using paper.  Second, we created a set of hyperlinks from the elevation marks on the floor plans or the detail bubbles on the elevations that would take you to what they were referencing.  And we included a tool to take you back where you came from.  So for instance, if you zoom in on an elevation and then you click on a detail call-out, you are taken right to that detail.  You can then hit the back button and go right back to the elevation and the zoom level you were on previously.  This converted the field to PDF in about a day.

Another advantage is that we could use the Adobe review process for all our internal reviews.  No more sending documents around for people to review then trying to collate the comments.  You can now send out a link to your review drawings, everyone can access them on-line, create their comments all on the same set of drawings.  This saves a ton of time and we can get our reviews in less than a week.  It used to be a nightmare trying to chase down all the paper drawings.  It also allows us to do reviews and include people from other offices in other parts of the country.

The next thing that was required was a wireless connection.  If you are going to be paperless, you need the ability to get to your documents wherever you are.  Our IT department went through and installed wireless in all the offices and that solved that issue.

Now that we had our documents electronic and a wireless connection to be able to access them, we needed a device that could be the interface.  Enter the iPad.  Small form factor, the ability to run all day on a charge and all the apps in the app store that you will need to become paperless.  With that , the conversion was complete.

So, here are the applications I am using to make my digital life more productive than I ever was with all that paper.

Dropbox – This is the hub of most of my applications.  Most applications you download will sync with dropbox which makes it a great starting point.  Install this on your desktop, iPhone, iPad and laptops at home and you will have access to any documents you upload wherever you are.  In addition, you can invite other people on your team to share documents.  This allows you to create a folder on your desktop, drop the architectural’s and shop drawings into it, then everyone on your team has the latest documents.  If you replace the shop drawings, everyone will get the update.  It also backs up your pictures and movies from your phone so when you get back to the office they are already there and you don’t have to plug your phone in and get them.

iAnnotate – this is the program I use for viewing and marking up my PDF documents.  It syncs with Dropbox so again, that just makes life easy.  You can also attach pictures to your shop drawings if you want to document something that way. Documents are kept local so even if you don’t have wireless at a jobsite you can still get to your drawings.

Evernote – this is my main program for keeping notes, pictures and emails.  Great search functionality.  Easy to forward emails from your desktop to Evernote then be able to access them from your phone or iPad at a future time.

Notability – this is my handwriting application.  I find it weird to type notes during meetings or one-on-one’s with my staff.  Using a stylus, this application lets me take handwritten notes.  I love the feel and interface and I don’t miss my old pen and notebook.  It automatically makes a PDF of my notes and places them in dropbox when I exit the note.

For all of these applications, I do not need to be connected to our internal network.  I place files in my dropbox at my desktop or forward documents and emails from Outlook to Evernote.  After that, everything can be accessed from wherever I am.  I use my iPad for all of my meetings and I always have the documents I need at my disposal.