Dot Connector Blog

This post is part of the One Goal Project to achieve exceptional performance at work.  Learn more.

Feeling overloaded?  Try these two templates. (source: antwerpenR / CC 2.0)

My team hears me say it all the time, and it always goes something like this:

“We all have a hundred things on our plate, but are you working on the right things today?”

Easy enough to say, but harder still to deliver on. Why? Because we are creatures of habit.  We show up (physically) on Monday morning. We check email and voice mail and then “ping pong syndrome” begins.

What is “ping pong syndrome”?

Reacting. Bouncing back and forth between all the things competing for your attention all day long.  Reacting to emails and voice mails, trying to please our leaders, reacting to our Clients’ needs, and our teams’ issues. Reacting to the voices in our heads, the feedback from family and friends, and what the media tells us we should be doing.  We spend so much time reacting all week, that before you know it, its Friday.

Did you know?

A University of California – Irvine study showed that information workers are interrupted on average every 3 minutes.  In addition, a study at Intel showed people spending 20 hours per week processing email.  (source: IEEE Spectrum)

Here are two insanely practical tools that can help you BE CERTAIN you are working on the right things, and avoiding ping pong syndrome:

Goal Setting Worksheet

This Goal Setting Worksheet will help you organize your goals, to dos, and/or projects to help you make the biggest impact in your life or career.

Updating this each week will only take about 10 minutes if you have all of your goals, to dos, and projects organized.

Here’s what you do:

• Simply draw 4 quadrants on a piece of paper (or in Excel).
• Label the top of the vertical line “High Impact” and the bottom of the vertical line “Low Impact”.
• Next, label the left side of the horizontal line “High Effort” and the right side of the horizontal line “Low Effort”.

Now, place all of your goals, tasks, or projects in the quadrants. Quickly, you’ll find the things that have low effort/ high impact. Work on those first. Then, move to high effort/high impact!

Download the Goal Setting Worksheet Template (Excel).

Weekly Planner Template

This Weekly Planner Template (borrowed from the teachings of Stephen Covey) will help you organize the most important things to do in each “role” you play in your life.  Combined with the Goal Setting Worksheet above, you can easily identify those things that will have the biggest impact.

Creating one each week should not take you longer than 10 minutes.

Here’s how to use it:

• Simply write in all of the roles you have. As you’ll see in my example, I put in things like Husband, Father, Team Leader, etc.
• Then, ask yourself “What is the most important thing I can do in this role this week?”
• Pull the best high impact/low effort and high impact/high effort goals, tasks, or projects that you will accomplish THIS WEEK from the Goal Setting Worksheet, or any other to-do list you maintain.
• Fill in the “Sharpening the Saw” section – which contains the 4 areas of your personal development each week.  Sharpening the Saw refers to Habit 7 in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  Learn more on the complete Franklin Covey approach.

Download the Weekly Planner Template (Excel).

Hopefully these two tools will help you focus your biggest decision – where to spend your time – much more effectively.  Will you be able to consistently do this type of goal setting each week?  Not always.  But, doing this more often than not, and getting in the habit of doing so is time extremely well spent.

Do you have feedback on these ideas or have your own to share? Leave a comment!

• Exceptional Client Service [The One Goal Project]
• Personal Development Plan Template
• Exceptional Execution and Follow Through [One Goal Project]
• The One Goal Project: Reaching Exceptional Performance at Work
• The Power of Weekly Meetings

Posted in: Personal Development, Project Management