Simplicity Survival

Great meeting at the recent Fast Company Reader’s Network (Company of Friends) Tuesday night. If you’re not already on the list to be notified of these free events, sign up at the Fast Company site.

Bill Jensen, author of Work 2.0 and Simplicity, gave a heartfelt, inspiring presentation as part of the book tour for The Simplicity Survival Handbook. You can find the slides from the presentation here (1.2 MB PDF).

1440. The number of minutes in the day. Bill began the speech giving the reason that he’s chosen to focus on making things simpler. Several years ago, his mother suffered a stroke. Bill’s family was summoned to the hospital, with the news that their mother wouldn’t live through the night. When they arrived, they began enquiring about her, and wanted to see her. It took the hospital staff 45 minutes to find her, blaming a communication error from someone in the hospital. After they moved her from the Emergency Room (where she’d been alone for 45 minutes) to the ICU, the family spent their final two hours with their mother. Bill was incensed that of the final three hours he had with his mother, nearly 1/3 of it was wasted because of someone’s careless mistake.

Each of us has 1440 minutes in a day. And with each email we send, each task managers assign, each report we submit, each meeting we schedule, we use up part of someone else’s 1440 minutes. Minutes someone might spend being with their kids, or playing golf, or working on something really important. Are we careful in how we use someone else’s 1440 minutes?

He outlined 4 of the 32 lessons he publishes in his new book.

1. The Awesome One Page Summary: The first page of your summary must contain the following: the one thing you want me to know, why I should care, and the one thing you want me to do. He also made the point that research has shown that the one behaviour in business today is moving To-Do's onto someone else's plate. The best way to make sure they stick is to make it super easy and quick for them to do what you want them to do.

2. Emails that Get Read and Acted Upon: Think billboard, not letter. In a 3x5 space, tell them the same things listed above. What should they know, appeal to their feelings, and tell them what you want them to do. I've already seen benefits from using this outline, and have tried to step it up since Tuesday.

3. How to Delete 75% of Emails: I love this one. First, scan just the Subject and Sender, and if there's no clear action or "I better read this today" reaction, delete them. You should be able to delete 50% of the emails. Next, scan the remaining 50%, and if you don't find a clear requested action and deadline, delete them. That should be another half. If you're squeemish, put them in a "Read Me Later" folder.

4. Getting the Budget You Deserve With Less Effort: Don't focus on the money, focus on the executive's pain. Make the goal of the meeting to get another meeting. Rather than re-write this one, (and use up my 1440 minutes), I’ll point you to his blog entry while he guest-hosted Fast Company’s blog a few weeks back. Getting the Budget You Deserve With a Lot Less Effort

Great meeting! If you get a chance to meet Bill during his book tour, do it! If not, buy the book!

Good writeup by Curt Rosengren and a mention by Heath Row.

Comments

[steven vore]

manual trackback: http://steven.vorefamily.net/2003/11/24.html

"I love it when great minds think alike. Or at least when I think along with a great mind. Anyway..."

[Wena]

the one thing that makes my mind spiral out of control at times is the no. of rules that I have to remember in order to get the job done. i guess it helps but it definintely needs a lot of discipline and effort to use the tools.

sometimes i wish that things are easier to get done than said.

then again, maybe i need a better brain.

or more breaks. :p

[Amanda Murphy]

Very good lessons indeed. I will have to get this book to find out what the remaining 28 are.

Lessons 1 and 4 are very much a part of my life already. I am a huge believer in telling people what's in it for them and becoming their bandage or drug of choice for all that ails them.

Lesson 2 I tried adopting over the past 2 weeks since I originally read this post and I have to say "IT WORKS". I have experienced great success at getting responses within 3 minutes from people that usually required 3 requests before. I have realized that it is much easier to change my approach than to expect someone else to change for me.

I may still include the same level of detail in my requests. But I have noticed by drawing attention to the key points in larger bolder fonts I am getting answers much faster (and they are quite positive usually). So that tidbit of advice was enough to win me over to go get the book.

I am not quite sold on the 3rd lesson. It is going to take a little more convincing. With the exception of the spam I get - the majority of the email I receive are from my team members, bosses or customers and I don't feel comfortable neglecting or deleting either. But for now I can live with that.