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3 Tips For Overcoming Reactionary Workflow

As our businesses become more connected and social-media savvy, we increasingly suffer from being overwhelmed with communication. Think about it: Every single minute, more "stuff" is being sent your way. Emails, text messages, voice mails, instant messages, twitter messages, facebook posts...and the list goes on. The proliferation of mobile devices only serves to increase the flow.

 

What do you do with this deluge? You simply try to stay afloat. You peck away at the latest communications at the top of your many inboxes. And since the flow of communication never ends, you slip into a life of what I have come to call "reactionary workflow."

For those of us with great ideas and bold goals for the future, reactionary workflow is a big problem. If we spend all day reacting to the incoming barrage of communication, we will fail to be proactive with our energy. Our long-term aspirations suffer as a result.

Some people I met during the research for my book MAKING IDEAS HAPPEN demonstrated an ability to avoid reactionary workflow. Here are a few tips on how they do it:

Create windows of non-stimulation.
Once you open the door to communications overload, you could spend all day reacting to what's thrown at you. Piers Fawkes, founder and editor of the marketing consultancy PSFK, reserves a good chunk of his morning – from 7-10am every day – to do research and digest the day’s trends and news prior to going through his email. Proactively blocking out time for creating and absorbing – rather than just responding – is a key tactic of productive creatives.

Keep Two Lists
When it comes to organizing the day's tasks - and how your energy will be allocated - create two lists: one for urgent itesm and another for important ones. Long-term goals and priorities deserve a list of their own and should not compete against the urgent items that can easily consume your day. Once you have two lists, you can preserve distinctly different periods of time for focus on each.

Don’t hoard urgent items.
Even when you delegate operational responsibilities to someone else, you may still find yourself hoarding urgent items as they arise. When you care so deeply about a project, you likely prefer to resolve things yourself. Say an e-mail arrives from a client with a routine problem. Even though the responsibility may lie with someone else on your team, you might think, “Oh, this is really a quick fix; I’ll just take care of it.” And gradually your energy will start to shift away from long-term pursuits. Hoarding urgent items is one of the most damaging tendencies I’ve noticed in creative professionals that have encountered early success. When you are in the position to do so, challenge yourself to delegate urgent items to others.

How do you avoid a life of reactionary workflow? You need discipline and a dose of confidence. Recognize your tendency to surf the stream of incomings, and gain confidence in the potential of being proactive. It is easy to sit there and react all day. You'll never run out of work to do. But your future visions will suffer unless you take your energy by the reigns.