Ask the Expert - Focus with a plan

Question: My business schedule has me out of the office many times for a week at a time. How do you suggest I stay organized when I am away from the office so much?

Answer: First, let me suggest that when you are traveling for business stay focused on why you are there. Where you will have the best opportunity to stay current with your duties is if you spend your evenings responding to emails you did not address during the day. Plan to dedicate at least two or more hours with your focus on the most important issues earlier in the evening. If you try and work later let me suggest you hold sending responses in your drafts folder until the morning. Sometimes a fresh view of what you wrote in the morning may help you avoid sending something you did not intend to communicate that way.

Question: It seems I am getting more things thrown at me than ever and I am not sure how to prioritize my work. Can you suggest a way I can spend less time doing the same thing?

Answer: There is one fast way to re-organize your work flow and it has two steps. First, group all the like tasks together as many times you may be able to handle more than one situation with a single consolidated response. The other is to make sure you only touch something once. Part of this is when you start to work on a task make sure you have enough time and the correct resources available to finish this at one sitting. Do the more involved tasks grouped at the beginning of the day where you can stay more focused and then deal with the smaller ones later when your focus may not have as much stamina. The most important thing is to focus on finishing one task before you start another.

Question: I seem to find that no matter how hard I focus I am always being interrupted. How do you suggest I keep people out of my office so I can focus?

Answer: This may sound elementary but close your door if you have one. You can always put a post it note outside listing designated “visiting hours” so you can have uninterrupted work time. Many times people will stop and see you if the door is open and not think about the disruption they are causing. With the door being closed you are taking away a visual to your coworkers where they must actually have something important to discuss with you before they would knock or even send you an email asking for time with you. If you do not have a door make sure you sit so people only see your back. You are again giving someone a visual of you being busy and focused and should deter many interruptions.