Perfectionism and the 90% Solution

Perfectionism is a common psychological obstacle to productivity.  In the perfectionist's mind, the product, email, report, etc. she is trying to produce is not quite good enough just yet.  The perfectionist has a sense that her ideal is attainable, if only through more work.  Making things worse, she likely believes the sky will fall if she is not successful at attaining perfection.

The problem is that somewhere along the pursuit for 100% perfection, we face diminishing returns.  We wait to send an email until we get the wording right, and an opportunity passes us by.  While we're stalling on completing a project to our own exacting standards, our boss or funder is wondering where it is.  And when we ask our staff member for the fourth revision on that fundraising letter, we can see their morale take a dive.

When I see perfectionism of any sort cropping up in myself or in a client, I've begun to ask:

[box] What would 90% look like?

Are you at 90% good enough/complete enough?

If yes - you are done.

If no - strive to get to 90%.  [/box]

For most of us, doing a 90% job is good enough - great, in fact.  (I admit for some , it may not be good enough -- I have had surgeons as clients.  But for most 90% is just fine.)  Further, a conscientious perfectionist's 90% may be 100% acceptable or even outstanding to her colleagues and supervisor.

Give it a try: let go of the 10% that exists between what you must do and how perfectly you imagine it can be done.  Then look around and see if the sky is falling.

Workshop: Create the Work Life You Want

I am really thrilled to announce Create The Work Life You Want, a workshop for entrepreneurs I'm co-leading in NYC on December 16th January 27th.  This workshop is the product of months of inspired collaboration with Liz Dahmen of Make Space. Below is the workshop description, and you can register online here. Please spread the word!

[box] Create the Work Life You Want invites you to discover how to manage your time and workspace in service to your unique entrepreneurial vision.

Over the course of this 4-hour workshop, you will assess your current time management practices & workspace set-up, explore strategies for improvement, and craft an action plan for change.

This workshop is for you if you:

• Are an entrepreneur, freelancer, independent worker, or otherwise work for yourself
• Are overwhelmed by your to-do list, email inbox, messy desk, or just how much you have to do
• Want to find better systems & strategies for organizing your time and your workspace

This workshop, the first in a developing series, is being offered for the introductory price of $55.[/box]

7 Strategies for Less Stressful Work Travel

A busy work travel schedule can throw even the most balanced of us out of whack.  Forget jet-lag -- just being away from the office, our families and our own beds can be seriously disorienting. And then when we return, we face an avalanche of work left behind.  Good news: you can take action to prevent travel hell before you even leave for the airport. Here's how you can set yourself up to take a more sane, less disruptive work trip:

1.  Schedule smartly It can be tempting to book yourself solid while you're on the road.  Don't do this.  Leave yourself some breathing room to take care of business (answering emails, returning calls, etc.) back on the homefront during your away-workday.  A solid hour a day of attention devoted to your home-work will make life a lot easier when you return.

2.  Plan for recovery Schedule your post-trip recovery time ahead of time.  Depending on the length of your trip and what happens at home while you're gone, you'll likely need some time to process all the new information you got while you were away and catch up on what you missed.  Block off between a couple hours a full day within the first couple days of your return.

3.  Manage expectations Let key colleagues know you'll be on the road and less available than usual.  Set your "out of office" message on email to say that you will return emails on the day AFTER you return to the office, not the day-of, to give yourself a little breathing room.

4.  Pack healthy snacks Between the airport food court and the conference buffet, it can be hard to eat well on the road.  Play defense against Danishes by packing portable and healthy alternatives like instant oatmeal, almonds, dried fruit, and energy bars.

5.  Plan to maintain healthy rituals If you exercise regularly at home, research the hotel's gym situation (or load up some fitness podcasts) and bring your workout clothes so you can exercise while you're away.  If you enjoy a cup of herbal tea before bed at home, make sure you bring your stash for your hotel room.

6.  Research the sights Plan to allow yourself at least half a day to be a tourist, wherever you are.  After all, you haven't really been to Georgia unless you've seen the world's largest peanut, right?

7.  Get clear about why you're traveling Like, really clear.  Why are you taking this trip anyway?  And how will you know if you & your organization have gotten your money's worth?  Before you go anywhere, make sure that you know the purpose, outcomes, and process of your trip.  Let this guide your decisions about how you focus your time and attention while you're gone.

What do you do to make travel less of an ordeal?  Share your tips in the comments.

The One Planning (and Focusing and Decision-Making) Tool I Couldn't Live Without

  Three years ago at the Selah Leadership Program, I was introduced to a planning tool that I've used every single day since.  This magic tool?  POP.

The POP Model was developed by organizational consultants Leslie Sholl Jaffe and Randall J. Alford.  POP stands for Purpose, Outcomes, and Process, and it's a simple and effective tool for keeping yourself and others focused aligned in almost any context.

Purpose answers the question, why is this important?  

Outcomes answers the question, what do we most need to accomplish?

and Process answers the question, how will we accomplish the outcomes?

It is easy to see why these three little questions have so much resonance.

• Purpose fuzzy?  You are likely to find yourself spinning your wheels, lost and not sure how you got where you are.
• Outcomes unclear?  Team members may be working toward different goals, reducing the group's overall impact.
• Process ignored?  You'll find yourself in the middle of a dead-end meeting, wondering why there is so much talk and so little progress toward what you really need to be getting done.

POP In Action

To use the model, articulate the Purpose of what you are taking on, your desired Outcomes, and the Process for how you will get to the outcomes.  In some contexts it is beneficial to use POP on your own, and in others it can be a powerful tool for aligning a group.  POP can be the basis for a 5-minute back-of-the-envelope exercise, or an all-day, organization-wide planning endeavor.

Say you have an upcoming meeting with your staff to plan your big 2012 fundraising event.  Before the meeting, you might sit down and take 5-10 minutes to sketch out a POP for yourself:

• Purpose: The purpose of this meeting is to kick-off planning for the 2012 fundraising event.
• Outcomes: We need to leave this meeting with:
  • Clarity around who will spearhead each major piece of work.
  • A decision on if we will hire a marketing consultant or handle that in-house.
  • An understanding on the part of the Development team of the Board's expectations for how much $$$ this event will bring in.
• Process:  In order to get to these outcomes:
  • I need to think about who I believe should take on each major piece of work, before the meeting.
  • I should look at that research we did two years ago about marketing consultants so I can go into the day with a ballpark figure of how much it would cost to outsource.
  • I sh0uld also have a conversation with my Development Director to make sure he understands the Board's target for this event -- that way he can help me get his team on board during the meeting.
  • Finally, I need to design an agenda for this meeting that will produce the outcomes I want -- so that we don't get lost in the weeds.

POP is a powerful tool to use in meetings. The meeting facilitator can either lead the group in collaboratively defining the meeting's Purpose, Outcomes and Process in real-time, or can bring a pre-defined POP to a meeting and solicit group-buy in.  A meeting where the whole team knows the POP -- why we are there, what we are trying to get to, and how we will get there -- is a meeting worth everyone's time.

POP can be used at the beginning of projects -- Why are we taking on this project? What do we want to accomplish by doing it? How will we accomplish that?  And, it can be a test of alignment, mid-project, when things seem to be drifting off course -- Why were we doing this project again?  What were we trying to accomplish?  How can we get back on track?

For me, the power of POP is in slowing down and thinking about what I really want to get out of the effort I am putting into a meeting, a project, or a partnership.  In a group context, going through the POP process can reveal hidden assumptions, biases and leaps in logic that would otherwise derail the group down the line.

It is no exaggeration to say that I use POP every single day.  I may have even POP'ed a vacation once or twice!   Try it out, and let me know how you experience the simple power of POP.

Want to learn more about applying POP in your organization?  Learn more about working with me.

Make Purging Clutter as Easy as 1,2,3 (Guest Post by Liz Dahmen)

[box]This summer I've been collaborating with Liz Dahmen, professional organizer and project manager extraordinaire at Make Space.  With Liz's focus on space and my focus on time, we are essentially helping folks with two sides of the same coin.  Nearly all of my time management & workflow clients also need some help corralling their physical stuff, so I am sure that Liz's guest post below will resonate.  You can read much more from Liz on her blog.  Enjoy!  - Sarah [/box] How To Purge With Ease by Liz Dahmen of Make Space  

Problem: It’s time to conduct a major wardrobe/ junk drawer/ garage/ under-the-bed/ you-name-it purge but the thought of sorting through all of that stuff terrifies you.

Solution: Use the rule of threes! Whenever you want to purge, limit yourself to three categories at a time.

Example 1: Junk Drawer

Either pull out the drawer or empty it into a box or bucket. Choose your three categories, I like to start with:

1) Trash (it’s amazing how much trash we keep in our drawers! from bits of string to broken rubber bands)

2) Misfiled (items that actually have a home somewhere else and you know where that somewhere else is, like pens- why are there 7 pens in this drawer when I have an entire cup devoted to just pens over there?) WARNING: Resist the temptation to go put them away in the right place, this will lead to major distraction. Just pick up the pen, note that you know where it lives, and put it in the “Misfiled” category.

3) Homeless but Important (you don’t know where it should live, but it’s important- like that necklace with the broken clasp that you have been meaning to take to the jeweler, or the gift certificate to the local movie theater you got for watching your neighbor’s dog)

Now, your first pass is complete! Congratulations! You know what to do with theTrash category. The Misfiled group can now be returned to their actual homes, and all you have left is the Homeless but Important group which is way simpler to tackle than an entire junk drawer. Here we make a second pass and choose three (again, just three!) more categories for our Homeless items, for example:

1) Worth Money (gift certificates, punch cards, coupons)

2) Office Supplies

3) To-Dos (items that are awaiting your attention, like that broken necklace, or something you borrowed that needs to be returned to someone)

As items get whittled down they become easily manageable and you can have fun with your categories, or just let them be inspired by what you see in front of you.

Example 2: Clothes Closet Purge

Go through every single item in that clothes closet and relegate each piece to one of three (no more!) categories. Generally, we always start with the following:

1) Keep (it fits, you love it)

2) Donate/ Recycle (it doesn’t fit, you haven’t worn it in a year)

3) Trash (it’s unwearable, soiled or otherwise unfit for donation)

At the end of the first pass you can expand to three more categories (again, only three at a time!), but now instead of dealing with everything in the closet, you’re just going to sort through the “Keep” pile. For example you may choose to sort it into

1) Off season (if it’s warm, you pull out the cold weather close and store somewhere else)

2) Special occasion (why keep that dress you wear once a year with your work clothes?)

3) Workout wear (finding your gym clothes will be a snap)

By this time, your clothes will be feeling manageable instead of daunting, and you’ll be able to allot the appropriate amount of space in your closet to your different categories.

Read more from Liz Dahmen over at Make Space!