How I Work

I just read an article in the March 20 issue of Fortune called “How I Work.” They interviewed some important people about their work habits. The range of responses was incredible. These folks ran from the techno addicted to the technophobic, with some in between. Imagine --- Wynton Marsalis has never written an email. Senator John McCain has his wife do things for him like print boarding passes. Other people, important people who run big corporations work hard, read hundreds and emails, and are glued to their Blackberries. Clearly, success in our modern times is not defined by how well you use the electronic tools we have. What then is it based on – honestly, I have no idea!

I am often asked how I manage to get everything done. People who know me well know that I have diverse interests, both professional and personal, and that I am involved in community work. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way! The thought of a quiet retired existence makes me shudder.

Reading this Fortune article made me stop of a moment and ask myself, “How Do I Work?” Is it a good way to work? What if I changed the way I work? Would I then make lots of money and be wildly happy? Interesting thought!

Each morning, I lie in bed about ½ hour and just think about the day ahead of me. What do I have to do? Where do I have to go? What am I going to wear? What do I want to accomplish? Often I will contemplate a solution to a challenging problem. I find this time of morning I am at my most creative. Often my dreams give me ideas that trigger solutions to problems.

Once fully awake, I grab my Treo from my bed-side table and verify my schedule. Am I really doing the things I thought I was doing? Did I leave anything out? What email has come in overnight? Did anyone sign up for an event? Who? (People sign up for things at the strangest hours). Usually there is email from Amy, my accounting consultant. I try to get her whatever answers she needs from me early in the morning.

I shower, get dressed, eat something and arrive at work about 9:30 a.m., already fully caught up on my emails, having read my email on my Treo. I typically go through the office and talk with my employees….do they have anything they need of me before I get going in my day? Usually Most days I have appointments scheduled from 10 a.m. until about 3 p.m., with some breaks in between. I use those breaks to review my email, review my paper mail, review printing and Web project proofs, send specifications to printers for bids, and deal with issues that come up. More often than not I have a lunch meeting. About once a week our VP, Nancy Badertscher, and I go to lunch and review project progress.

Those appointments I have each day, who are they with and what are they about? This varies all over the place. Often they are with clients and prospective clients who want me to put together a proposal. Sometimes (though rarely) I need to meet with small groups of employees about a project. Maybe one every couple of weeks, I meet with someone who has asked for an appointment for advice in finding and job or becoming involved in community work. Of course, I never turn down an interview with the press and have one or two of those a month. There is the occasional off-site meeting, in addition to lunch once or twice a week at nearby Mezzanotte with clients and business associates.

Most of my volunteer community work I do in the evenings, as much of it involves going to meetings. Board meetings typically start at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. and run until 9 p.m. Fortunately, I don't have meetings every night.

Focused time is the thing I find hardest to find. The best way for me to complete a really challenging project is to designate a day (or even a morning) to work on it and nothing else. Saturday is my “best” work time each week. I can work at my office all by myself and focus very narrowly on what I want to accomplish. I guard my Saturdays! Between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. I can accomplish as much as I could in a week at the office. Sometimes, however, I will take a Saturday and just play – just is important too!

Yes, sometimes I also work on Sunday afternoons. Sunday night is usually “family time” when our son and his family visit or we go to their home. Effectively this means I have three hours each Sunday afternoon to “get something done.”

Another technique I use is to isolate myself for a week to do the really “tough” work – the business planning in particular. I run three businesses; they interact with one another in many ways; each of them has a plan and goals. I have to stop living in “real time” in order to do the analysis and reflection needed to keep them moving forward. My strategy is to dedicate two weeks away each year for just this purpose. Sometimes my husband goes with me; other times he doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter that he is with me, as he brings similar work for himself. We can go out for dinner in the evening and enjoy ourselves.

As I write this, we are at a cabin on a hillside overlooking Gatlinburg, TN. It is snowing outside and we are inside working happily, each at our respective ends of the dining room table. We both have laptops and Treo cell phones (with good reception) and there is a printer/scanner on the table between us. There is no high speed Internet, but there is a local number we can use for dial-up. We only need the Internet to send files and search the Web, as we have the Treos for email. It works! We are in the first day of our spring retreat. I spent the morning organizing my temporary office and reviewing my work notebooks to re-sort priorities. I am doing some clean-up work on my laptop to make it run faster.

But regardless of where I work or when I work, I must be organized. I would like to say I am totally paperless, but that isn’t so. What I can say is that I don’t have any more paper than is necessary and what paper I do have is well-organized and that organization matches the organization of my laptop.

I think there are three kinds of people on the world: pile-people, file-people, and notebook-people. I never have been a pile person and quite frankly I have a hard time comprehending that approach (although it seems to work OK for those who are so inclined). I used to be a file person and still am where some things are concerned – like contracts and financial documents—pieces of paper that for sure really, really need to be kept. But within the last year I have become a notebook person.

I think notebooks are easier to deal with than files. A plus is that you can use those nifty clear vinyl sheets and stuff them full of all the papers related to a project. Another plus is that they don’t spill out all over the place.

My notebook system is really simple. I have one notebook that has all of my empty plastic sleeves and blank project/consultation forms. I have one LITTLE notebook for the stuff I must do within the next few days. That way I am not overwhelmed looking at how much stuff I really must do. I have another notebook for things I have to do soon, but not immediately. Then there is another notebook for stuff I would like to do eventually – good ideas that are not a priority. I have two pending notebooks – one for things that are simply in some body else’s court and another for things related to money that not resolved (such as pending proposals). Finally I have BIG archive notebook for all the thing I have taken care of. I have to start a new one each quarter. It takes about two hours once a month to go through my notebooks and re-shift my priorities.

Similarly, my computer is set up to focus on priorities. One nice thing about Eudora, our email program, is that it allows you to “find” any word in any message. As a result, I don’t have many folders for Archived email. Instead I have one email archive per year. I have a TO DO mailbox and a HOT mailbox. It works!

One last thing, I try to combine work and play when possible. If I have a business trip to a city, I will try to stay over another day (on my own money and time) and go to a spa, shop, and experience the city. My vice president shares this same guilty pleasure, so we have fun in our little “after-event” adventures and come back refreshed.

These are the techniques that allow me to keep sane while dealing with lots of shifting priorities. By far, however, the greatest tool that has enhanced my productivity is my Treo (cell phone that gets email and more). While traveling, or even in the average workday, I can view and answer my email on the fly. I figure this saves me two hours each day!

Am I a workaholic? Maybe, but I also play hard, on those times I allow myself to play. I may not lead a balanced life daily, but I certainly live an interesting life. In the end, I think there is a balance there – just over the course of time, not daily. Is that good or bad? Who knows?