You Might Be A Responsaholic If . . . [Tech Rest]
You have email notifications turned on (any of them)- You check your Blackberry while eating or having a conversation
- You don’t have Caller ID on your home phone
- You have that pop up, fade away box in Outlook turned on
- You have your work phone set to ring (not roll to voice-mail)
- You answer the phone when it says “Unknown Caller”
- You leave the door to your office open
- You answer your Cell Phone without looking at the Caller ID
- You send someone an email and them walk over and ask them if they got it
- You respond to email while in the bathroom or (even worse) while driving
Busted? I’ve been guilty of most of them at one time or another but I’m trying to reform.
So what’s wrong with responding quickly anyway? Nothing, as long as you keep it in balance. In fact, I love Michael Hyatt’s post on the subject. But as with most things, if you take it too far it becomes a negative. Being too responsive hurts your productivity.
So what can you do?
- Realize how addicted to responding you are. I pull my Blackberry out of my holster so often my arm gets tired. How addicted are you?
- Realize that things will be okay if you take a little longer to respond. I have a good reputation for responding quickly. Part of my responsibility is second-tier Help Desk support. My latest experiment is to check my email twice / hour. I put a sticker on my laptop, desktop, and Blackberry that reads “17/47″ (only check at 17 and 47 minutes past the hour). It’s working pretty well. In your role, what’s the optimal interval?
- Communicate your expected response times to your team (or not). If you are going to make a big change (like only checking email once / week), I suggest you communicate this to your team. If you are going to make a smaller change, just do it. When I set my phone to always roll to voice mail, only one person seemed to have a problem with it. Sometimes the adage “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission” holds true.
- Establish times of focus. You know when you work the best. DON’T CHECK EMAIL WHEN YOU ARE AT YOUR BEST! Instead reserve that time for the things you love to do that require the most creative energy. I used to check email first thing in the morning. Not anymore. For most people, 2 hour blocks of time without being interrupted work great (for more info see Focus Like a Laser Beam: 10 Ways to Do What Matters Most
).
So how about you? Are you a Responsaholic?
See also
This post also appears on CE On Time .
Original post here: Craig Huggart
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