If I were to ask you to answer the following question right now..... 

what would your answer be?

 

If I could change one thing about my work life...what would it be?

 

What is the one change that would make you: happier, more productive, less stressed, more focused, able to control your inbox, more innovative, able to produce better results, better in control of personal time and able to do more of what you love?

 

I ask this because I had two experiences lately that have made me pause and reflect. One was very tactile.  I was at a networking meeting with three panelists, one of whom was an "efficiency expert".  In her short 10 minutes she gave us tips on getting control of our email inbox.  The first thing that she said is that we spend too much time "dealing" with email and very little time "processing" email. I had never thought of email that way.  I have a new awareness of how often I scroll through my inbox; reading and possibly tagging the message to remind me to do something with it later, or to highlight its importance. Interestingly, I seem to only "process" about 10% of the "important" stuff immediately, which is neither effective nor efficient.

 

The other tip that she gave us was to have three email addresses and therefore three                in-boxes: one for business, one for personal and one for other (online ordering etc.).  My immediate reaction was, "Ugh, that would mean three inboxes to manage."  But the more that I thought about it, the more it made sense.  By having three distinct inboxes with pre-differentiated messages, I no longer have to classify my message list on first-read, increasing the efficiency and probability that I might actually be able to "process" important work emails immediately and "deal" with less clutter as well.

 

I have also been struck by a major news event.  In late 2012 Marissa Mayer was named the CEO of Yahoo, the youngest-ever CEO of a Fortune 500 company.  She tackled CEO-dom and motherhood concurrently, embracing the quintessential "peak" of both her professional life and her personal life without hesitation.  In the three interviews that I have seen, she has an amazing and admirable quality:  the strength of complete focus. The two exact words that she used when asked how she juggled all aspects of her life were:

 

Ruthless Prioritization

 

WOW - that really spoke to me.  How many of us struggle with conflicting priorities?  All of us, I'd guess.  How many of us are ruthless when it comes to our priorities?  Many fewer of us, I'd imagine. 

 

Mayer's embracing of the idea of ruthless prioritization clearly indicated to me that she has incredible focus on her top priorities and she ruthlessly cuts out anything that gets in the way of that focus.  In one interview the interviewer kept pushing her about certain facts and Mayer stayed true to her personal brand saying that she does not spend time thinking about whatever the question was about...she might as well have said, "That is not one of my top priorities - it didn't make the ruthless list."

 

What would happen in your world if you ruthlessly prioritized? Would some of those desired results that we mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter come true?  How important is it to you to be: happier, more productive, less stressed, more focused, etc.?  You might want to take a tip from Marissa Mayer and begin to ruthlessly prioritize to have more of the things that you want in your life.  Congratulations, by getting a greater focus and prioritizing exactly what you want you are deriving results from within.