How do you know when you are effective?

A new-to-me blog by Matt Cornell takes a new look at one of my favorite topics, How do you measure personal productivity?

Metrics (what a researcher client of mine calls indicators) for quantifying personal productivity improvements is a topic I started tracking when I get into the field. Having some kind of measure is important if you want to determine whether your presumably improved changes have actually helped.

He puts some good thought into the topic, providing a background on metrics (Drucker: If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.) and some thoughts on how that fits into the realm of personal productivity. And I particularly like the list of challenges to productivity and performance from Do You Know The Real Productivity Problem?

Unnecessary Interruptions and Distractions
Poor Planning and Scheduling
Unclear Priorities
Excessive Paperwork and E-Document
Ineffective Meetings
Ineffective Delegation

But what about those measures? Well the problem is that either you get very complex and specific to the job with the not-entirely-useful metrics like number of articles written or lines of code written. Or you step back and look at the evidence of effective and productive work. Combining my thoughts with those from Matt's article you have things like:

Time spent on activities directly related to your objectives and those of the company.
Previously-read mail in the inbox (awaiting some action). Ideally, kept to a minimum
Amount of incoming / outgoing email. There is no specific number here, but I think the flow of email indicates something. Too much flow and you are spending all your time reading and responding - there is probably a better way to spend your time.
Similarly, outside of email, there is time spent looking for things: files, information, people. Can you organize your own information in ways that make sense for you? Can you work with the company to provide better access to information that is otherwise hard to get?
Time spent on interruptions: colleagues, phone calls, IM's, etc. This should also be kept to a reasonable minimum. Learn how to tune out that co-worker who always talks over the cubes.

What about you? What measures make sense for you?

2 Comment(s)

Matthew Cornell said:

Thanks for extending the discussion, Jack. I like your interpretation. Esp. important is your comment "the flow of email indicates something." Absolutely. This goes to many issues including buffers (does your system handle *temporary* increases?) and input/output balance. Chris Crouch made a good point when talking about balance - he thinks we need to be operating below our maximum capacity, but most of us are *at* that level readily. More here, if you're interested:

When Inputs Exceed Your Workflow System's Capacity
http://matthewcornell.org/blog/2006/01/when-inputs-exceed-your-workflow.html

Thanks a bunch!

April 30, 2008 1:32 PM

Jack Vinson

said:

Cool, Matt. Thanks for your thoughts. The flow thing is something I've been pondering recently. Once you get all your own ducks in a row, it is the flow amongst others that becomes important.

Interesting connection to the idea of capacity. In Theory of Constraints, the concept you describe is "protective capacity" to make sure minor disturbances don't throw the entire system out of whack. One of the elements of my personal protective capacity is blogs. If things get overwhelming for whatever reason, I read fewer blogs and I certianly write much less.

April 30, 2008 9:40 PM