Getting More Stuff Done with Less Stress

Posted by Grainne O'Leary 
on Jul 31, 2014
 
Ted BehrTed Behr spoke to us about Getting More Stuff Done with Less Stress.
 
Ted Behr, M.Ed., ACC, CPCC
Coaching for the Frustrated and Frazzled
 
 
Ted Behr has been a coach for 17 years, working with busy professionals and anyone who needs to organize their life, focus, and get more done well.  For more than 14 of those years, he has worked with people with ADHD (or ADD) who have more challenges than most folks in focusing their attention and keeping with a task to completion.
 
Ted Behr speaking at Brookline Rotary ClubFor this introductory talk, he focused on three primary "productivity killers:" interruptions, multi-tasking, and procrastination.
 
Interruptions: Research shows that people in offices get interrupted 56 times a day.  One-fourth of people's time is lost due to interruptions.  Once interrupted, it can take 25 minutes to get back to what you were doing before the interruption.  How to reduce interruptions?
  • Turn off the new-email indicator or phone.  Once you turn your attention to the interruption you end up checking a lot of additional messages besides the one.
  • Call or text instead
  • Close the office door
  • In a cubicle, use a headset or put up some flag or other visual indicator that your door is "closed".
You may need to do some "time boxing"
  • Work for specified intervals of time, no more than 25 minutes at a time
  • Then take a 5 minute break
  • Followed by another 25 minute work interval
Multi-tasking:  You cannot really do two things at once.  You are really just task-switching from one to another, or interrupting yourself.  Multi-tasking reduces productivity by 40%, and increases the rate of mistakes by 50%.
  • The right kind of soothing background music can help concentration (e.g. Mozart effect)
  • Different people react differently to background noises.  Know yourself.
  • Anything that grabs your attention is an interruption, not a background noise (e.g. a story or a news broadcast)
Procrastination: There are many psychological aspects to procrastination.  We may delay starting a task because of perfectionism (worries about making it perfect), or fear of failure, or in fact fear of success.  We get ourselves overwhelmed and it paralyzes us. 
  • Chunk the task down into manageable pieces
  • Tackle each individual step one at a time
  • Schedule time to work on things without interruption
Ted offers a free 30-minute coaching session he calls "Fast track to a joyful life."  See his website at http://careerchangeforboomers.com/ and sign up for your personalized session.