Business

Current Events Consumer, Beware

We each need to make good choices about where to give our time and attention

Published

1 year ago

March 11, 2021

Jeff Davidson

When TV first became popular, many people predicted that movies would cease to be a part of American culture. That did not happen. Many people predicted that TV would replace radio, yet there are ten times the number of radio stations today than when TV was introduced.

When VCRs and then DVDs grew in popularity, again people predicted movie theaters would wane. Yet, a record number of people own DVD players and in a normal year a record number also go to the movies.

Each entertainment/communication/technology breakthrough doesn’t tend to replace what came before. Witness that we still have radios, TVs, and movie theaters, in addition to DVDs, DVRs, streaming video, podcasts, and Youtube. Rather than giving up what came before, often we create a niche for each of these items. Meanwhile, they each require another bit of our lives.

The Lure of the Latest

Thirty to forty years ago, it was enough to catch the news from across the state; now, if a train crashes in Tokyo, we hear about it in minutes. Bombarded by news at all times, ours has become a 24-hour society. Oddly, many people feel as if it is their civic duty to keep up, lured by media slogans such as, “We won’t keep you waiting for the latest.”

Is the “latest” the most important or even close to what humanity, society, or a community needs to know?

Among the over-50 crowd, why do people feel guilty or inefficient if they don’t keep pace with current events? They grew up with messages, slogans, and catch phrases drilled into them from birth that said, “Give us 24 minutes and we’ll give you the world,” and “All the news that’s fit to print.” These messages were hardly true decades ago. Today, they are ludicrous.

Actually, more information is newly generated on Earth in a single second than could be ingested in the rest of our lives.

Not the Way it Was or Is

“And that’s the way it is…” No, Mr. Cronkite, you were over-generalizing. That’s the way a handful of news executives, producers, and writers decided it would be conveyed to the public. What got broadcast was a fraction of a sliver of what was occurring in the world.

With the vast array of Leftist gatekeepers, propagandists, and censors at Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Disney, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, etc. the challenge before us today is clear.

We each need to make choices about where to give our time and attention, and to have the mental and emotional strength to let go of the rest. We need to pay attention and take action in the key areas that matter to us.

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Jeff Davidson

Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®

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Business

Delegation: An Ongoing Phenomena

Failure to delegate effectively often happens because team leader don’t trust the people with whom they’re working

Published

3 days ago

June 29, 2022

Jeff Davidson

For most of your career, you’ve read or heard that one of the key approaches to getting things done is to delegate effectively. This presumes that you have others to whom you can delegate. In my contact with more than 950 organizations over the last two and a half decades, I’ve found increasingly that people have fewer resources, a lower budget, and less staff people. If they want to get something done, often they have to do it themselves!

Assuming you have others to whom you can delegate, the first or second time you personally tackle a particular task yields useful information. You learn more about the nature of the task, how long it takes, and whether or not you enjoy doing it.

By the third time, a task of the same ilk as those you’ve handled before often becomes best handled by someone reporting to you. Such tasks could involve updating a database, completing an interim report, or assembling meeting notes.

All that You Can

On the path to getting things done, your quest is to identify all those things that you can possibly delegate to others and then prepare those others so that they have a high probability of succeeding. In the course of your workday there may be only a handful of things that you alone need to do because of your experience, insight or specialized knowledge. Everything else that can be delegated should be.

Some people feel they have to take care of everything themselves and to this day haven’t been able to break the habit of “doing it all.” If this someone is in your seat right now, recognize that as a category of one, you can only get so much done.

Many managers and supervisors fail to delegate effectively because either they don’t fully trust the people with whom they’re working, or they’ve always been get-it-all-done-by-myself types.

Take Time before You Assign

Prior to delegating anything to anyone, take the time to actually prepare your staff for delegation. This would involve assessing an employee’s skills, interests, and needs. You could even ask people what new tasks and responsibilities they would like to assume. You might be surprised at the wide variety of responses you receive. There may be people on your staff right now who can help you with tasks you’ve been dying to hand off to someone but didn’t see how or when you could put them into play.

While you want to delegate to staff people who show enthusiasm, initiative and interest, or have otherwise previously demonstrated the ability to handle and balance several tasks at once, sometimes you have to delegate to someone who has not exhibited any of the above. In that case, delegate on a piece-meal basis.

Ensure that the staff person is able to effectively handle the small task or tasks he’s been assigned and does not feel swamped or overloaded. When the staff person demonstrates competence, you can increase the complexity of assignments and even the frequency with which you delegate.

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Business

Multi-tasking: More Harm than Good

In this day and age, where so much competes for our attention, it is easy to stray!

Published

2 weeks ago

June 16, 2022

Jeff Davidson

I belong to a local health club, and while I was there one day, I saw a woman get on the Stairmaster. I watched as she whipped out an mp3 player and started listening to music. Then, to my surprise, she reached into her gym bag, pulled out a book, and placed it on that ledge to read. I almost asked her if she would like a piece of gum!

Today, when so much competes for our attention, it is easy to stray! More often than we care to pretend, in the office and at home, we invite more than we can handle, and then act as though we didn’t. As individuals, throughout society, we are trained to believe that the ability to multi-task is a great attribute. Unfortunately, that’s a big mistake. Here’s why, and how to avoid multi-tasking in the future.

First Things First

What’s the fastest and easiest way to handle six tasks competing for our attention? Identify the most important task, second most important, third most important, and so on, then tackle the first and finish it all the way, move on to the second and complete it, then move all the way down the list.

Any other way of tackling those items, whether they are tasks for home or work, is simply not as efficient. The catch is, any other way is more psychologically satisfying. Why? It’s almost as if juggling projects, switching gears unnecessarily or abruptly, or leaving a job unfinished to start a new project gives you the opportunity to say to other people, “Hey, look at me! Look how involved I am! Look at how busy I am! I’m great at multi-tasking.” A multi-tasker, however, can’t compete with others who tackle their to-do list, one item at a time.

What about doubling up as a procedure for tackling a number of routine items or very simple tasks? You can eat dinner and read a book at the same time. Eating and reading at the same time is relatively harmless.

How about driving and talking on the cell phone at the same time? Driving requires your sharp attention, as does carrying on an intelligent conversation with someone else who is not present; doing both at the same time spreads your attention too thin, with often disastrous results. The same is true for projects you’re working on that require your best thinking.

Tips:
* give yourself 5 to 10 minute intervals to focus on the task at hand
* safe-guard your immediate environment to avoid interruptions
* acknowledge yourself whenever you stick to one task and finish it
* repeat all the above, often, knowing that ‘more often’ is better!

Your Undivided Attention

When you’re working on a new task, brainstorming, engaging in first-time thinking, or doing creative work, it’s vital to offer your complete and undivided attention to that one task before you. To dissipate your attention or otherwise stray means you are not going to do your best work.

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