If you spend too much time reading email and not enough doing real work, you could have 'pinball syndrome' — here's how to stop it by Todd Davis on Nov 1, 2017, 12:32 PM Advertisement
 - At work it's easy to fall into activities that feel similar to a pinball game.
- You're "busy," but you haven't accomplished much.
- To combat "pinball syndrome," it's important to prioritize and plan.
- Setting boundaries with coworkers also helps.
Pinball machines still exist, a relic of a time when long hair, ratty sneakers and The Who were in style. For those who fondly remember playing the game in a smoky arcade, it was indeed a rush: Lights flashing, sounds blinging when the ball hit the bumpers, the goal was to flip the paddles to keep the silver ball from falling into the center hole at the bottom of the table. You might look cool playing it, but no one could actually win the game. You might have hit a high score, but you never really won anything. You could fish out some more quarters and play again but you got the same result: The ball always sank into that hole, ending your game. In the business world, we can fall into an activity that feels similar to that pinball game. How often do you keep yourself bustling with tasks that kind of give you the charge that comes from getting something done in the moment, but that don’t move you toward your chief goal? If you reach the end of the day and felt like “I’ve been too busy to get anything done,” that’s pinball syndrome. These tasks seem urgent at the time — getting to ‘inbox zero,’ rushing from meeting-to-meeting, writing memos, settling petty disputes between employees — but they don’t get you any closer to completing what is really important. It can feel dynamic in the moment. And, in fact, if you are a bit anxious or are dreading the big and important project, you can hide behind this busyness. The important efforts fall by the wayside and pile up. The temptation, for instance, is to answer emails all day as they land. If you get a lot of emails, it’s very much like hitting flippers on the pinball machine to flip the ball back into someone else’s zone. Bling, bling, bling! Some emails have a “swoosh!” sound when you hit send. It’s satisfying and very gamified. One ‘productivity tool’ used for teams even cheers you on: “Inbox zero, you’re my hero!” But if none of those emails were pertinent to the project in front of you, and you spent all of your time doing it, what was really achieved? Could they have been addressed in one batch during the day? I once worked with a woman who was a flurry of activity all day. She even put a note on her door saying, “Please don’t disturb, I’m very busy.” But when it came to measuring who got really important stuff done, she was near the bottom of the list. We all want to think we are valuable, and activity can make us feel important. We live in a culture of “busyness,” and the implication is that the more busy you are, the more important you must be. But what if we measure our value in results rather than sheer activity? Suddenly many of us don’t look all that productive. Getting away from the pinball game requires some proactive work. Start with these two steps: - Prioritize. First, and perhaps most important, is to determine what is truly important or what is simply urgent. Do you know what your biggest goals are for the quarter, and for the year? What could you accomplish that would really power the business forward, and make you a star in the process? Get clear on those goals, and get full buy-in from your manager.
- Plan. Sit down every Sunday and chart out the week. Decide what each day’s goal will be and have a plan to stick to it. You might need to block out time. Or it might be that every time you find yourself behind or distracted, you will strive to redirect your focus and energy toward that day’s goal. Other things can wait. Amazingly, urgent but unimportant tasks often resolve themselves with the simple passage of time.
Once you have your priorities and plan for the week, there are lots of tactics you can use to protect your time. You will need to discern which fits into your culture, but here are some suggestions: A woman I worked with who had a reputation for getting things done used to set aside a block of time each day for herself and had her assistant zealously protect it. Pity the person who tried to pop in for some face time. Over time, everyone came to know those intrusions were not permitted. Her team learned to handle whatever the issue was, because if it could not wait until she was free, it probably wasn’t that urgent after all. Not everyone is blessed with a gatekeeper, and most of us do not have an office with a door that can be closed. In open office spaces and cubicle farms, the way in which you protect your time may be dependent on your office culture. I’ve seen people print out their calendar at the beginning of the week and post it on their cubicle. They will have blocks of time set aside for planning and preparations, and time for undisturbed focus on the task at hand. It may seem a bit extreme, and yes some eyes may roll a bit, but it is a forceful reminder to colleagues to respect your time. It’s a great practice: diplomatic but direct. There are all sorts of offshoots of this technique, for instance the concept of university professor “office hours” creating space for random interaction (and sending a signal that other times are less appropriate). In some company cultures you might be able to duck into a conference room, or out to a coffee shop next door for an hour. Others may allow work from home on a Friday. Or with some small conversations with your team, you might establish a guideline that wearing headphones is a signal you are getting something done and don’t want to be interrupted. You could even work with others on your team to post pre-decided rules of engagement. Something like “Welcome to IT. We’re in an open workspace, but we ask you to understand that just because someone is at their desk doesn’t mean they’re available. Thank you for a calendar invite.” For some of us, establishing boundaries and retiring the title as the office “Pinball Wizard” might feel awkward at first, but it will help you to find your way to a happier and more successful career. Todd Davis is the Chief People Officer of FranklinCovey, the company founded by Stephen Covey of the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" franchise. SEE ALSO: 9 types of people who never succeed at work
| 
0 comments:
Post a Comment