What if...? #4

Week 4 of the What if...? Monday feature.  Leave a comment below and be part of a conversation.

What if you were held accountable by 1 minute increments?

Yes, this is extreme, but I'm sure that the lawyers and accountants out there understand the importance of assigning client projects by time.

I'm not suggesting that you track your time every minute of every day, but what if you had to?  Are you spending your time on the top priorities?  What % of your day is on the "most important" projects?

I am in the middle of David Allen's Getting Things Done (or to those converts out there, GTD) and in a nut shell, he's super productive because he knows exactly what needs to get done and more importantly, the next action required for each of his to do list items.

What are you getting accomplished this minute?

Comments

[Matt Sunshine]

Depending on the job at hand being held accountable 1 min at a time may or may not be productive. For example, as I train for upcoming triathlons I do hold my self very accountable to every min of training and in fact measure my performance against it. However, I recently had my house painted and I will tell you that it was nearly impossible to measure success or for that matter productivity by the minute. But, at the end of the day the outcome was fantastic. I also think that if you were to measeure all your activities with that much scrutiny you might end up driving yourself crazy and then be less productive then you started. I think that accountibility is super important and finding a balance of how to hold yourself accountable and to what you should be held accountable to is the real question.

Matt

[Donnie Walker]

At first glance, under this scenario, it appears only the first minute would be productive. A portion of every minute after the first would include time spent logging/analyzing the previous minute.

If we're talking about transition times, this is very applicable. In tracking/preparing for daily activities, it's my opinion anything less than 30 minute increments is going overboard on the 'planning to plan' scale.

That being said, the past 10-15 minutes I've spent on your site and this post has been EXTREMELY unproductive. :)

[K. Todd Storch]

Matt and Donnie,

I find it very interesting that you both have taken an extremely "literal" view of the post. But knowing that all of us love to track our triathlon info down to the second, it makes sense!

Todd

[Bren]

Well, if people would stop writing on their blogs (*Todd*), I could get a lot more work done.

I wonder if ADA has a clause for people who compulsively check bloglines all day long?

[Donnie Walker]

Yes, Bren, they're called "unemployed". ;)

[Andreas]

I started to read allen's book, because I surely need some organisation in my messy day. But I also realised that this is the propagation of plain task orientation, the Japanese style - tick one task off and start the next. Boom, boom, boom. I never got it to work in a multi-tasking environment. Or in an environment, where long and intensive thinking and analysing is required. But may be this is just me.

I think it is adjustment of what you are doing to the most appropriate way of doing it, and accountability and performance, that keeps us going in the right direction.

[K. Todd Storch]

Andreas,

I'm in the middle of GTD as well. I see that the focus of "Next Action" is a very good way to plan and get sharp on priorities.

I haven't seen that utilizing his techniques wouldn't allow for multi-tasking, in fact, just the opposite.

Tell me more...

Todd