Work Clean (15 page)
Authors: Dan Charnas
We hold a linear, one-dimensional concept of time. Along this timeline, we order our tasks:
First we do this, then we do that.
Much of the literature about productivity focuses on
how
we do this ordering. Do we put the most urgent items first, or the most important? Do we do first what can be completed quickly, or do we give our first moments to things that need quality time?
In contrast, chefs and cooks cultivate a two-dimensional concept of time. A chef thinks this way: In the foreground are the projects that need my presence: my hands, my mind, my body. But
in the background are the projects that don't need my continued presence, but need me to start or maintain them.
I call “hands-on” time
immersive time,
because the projects that happen in it are wholly executed by me and happen largely independent of external processes and other people.
The vegetables won't chop themselves.
Hands-on, immersive time aligns with
creative
workâactivity with which we engage fully. I call “hands-off” time
process time,
because the tasks and projects therein are dependent on and linked to external processes. Some of those processes are impersonal:
The rice needs a certain amount of time to simmer;
other processes are interpersonal:
Joe needs the chicken stock from me so he can prepare the sauce.
Hands-off, process time aligns with
management
workâengaging with external objects, processes, or people.
Immersive time is worth its face value. Five minutes of my energy now equals 5 minutes of my energy later.
I can chop the vegetables for garnish now, or I can chop them 5 minutes before service.
Process time, however, can be worth much more than it seems. Consider the consequences of not jump-starting a physical process:
The 2 minutes I
save
now by not preparing the rice is not just 2 minutes I must still
spend
later on, but also the 15 minutes I will have to wait for the rice to cook if I wait until I need it, plus the cost in minutes, energy, and resources of all the other delays in the kitchen arising from that absent pot of rice.
When a task in the present unlocks a cascade of work that other people do on our behalf, the worth of process time increases and becomes harder to measure.
If I don't take 5 minutes now to show Joe how to work the equipment, and instead show him 5 hours from now, he will spend 5 hours not doing that work. And, in 5 hours, my 5 minutes will be worthless because there is no more time for Joe to do the work. The delayed 5 minutes cost me 5 hours.
Great chefs maintain a constant if often unconscious awareness of the dual nature of work time: hands-on and hands-off. Immersive time and process time. Creative work and management work. Chefs know the importance of making time to immerse themselves in creative work. But they also understand that some small and
tedious tasks have the potential to launch powerful processesâunleashing huge amounts of energy, time, and resourcesâas long as they start those tasks
first.
Chefs perpetually make first moves on those two levels.
Some tasks, however, can be done
too
soon. “You have to know what to prep first,” says Jean-Georges Vongerichten. “You start by butcheringâdeboning, filleting, making your portions. All that has to be done first thing in the morning. Then you peel the vegetables, make sauces with bone and vegetable stocks. Then the last thing you do is chop your fragrances: the lemongrass, mushrooms, and fresh herbs.” Sometimes Vongerichten sees young cooks working in reverse. “They'll fill up a container with chopped parsley at 8:00 a.m., and by dinner service the parsley is dry.” The handling of fragile, fragrant herbs can make the difference between four stars and no stars, and speaks to the power of even a small dose of mental mise-en-place. Everything has its right place
and
its right time.
Who hasn't felt the sting of a forgotten e-mailâone that would have taken us a few seconds to answer when we received it but
now because of our delayed reply has cost us an opportunity or created extra work? Or realized we could have that thing we need right now if we had only made a simple phone call earlier? Or delayed giving our quick feedback on a project only to realize later that the whole thing stagnated for days, with everyone waiting for us to act, while we worked on something supposedly more important?
Even if we haven't articulated the concept for ourselves, we've all experienced the dual nature of immersive and process time and its repercussions. Making first moves engages the power of time in three ways and helps us work clean with priorities.
First, a first move can serve as a placeholder or a
mark.
When we don't have time to execute in the moment, a mark put in the right physical or digital place ensures that we won't forget an action and can subtly tilt us toward the task to be done.
Second, making first moves creates
momentum.
The first move compares to a
beachhead,
a military term signifying the most difficult first step of an invasion by sea. In our case, making the first move creates an initial staging area for a project, a foundation necessary for further progress. If you can't act in full now, make one small move toward completion.
On the highest level, making first moves results in
multiplication.
Investing the present moment with action can save multiple moments in the future. Mastering the art of compounding time requires a fluency in time's dual nature. Making first moves, cultivating a sense of
immersive
and
process
time, means acting immediately to set processes in motion and multiply your power and productivity.
DISCERNING IMMERSIVE TIME FROM PROCESS TIME
How do you know if a task needs immersive or process time?
In principle, any task that requires you to be “hands-on” is immersive; any task that you can briefly start or maintain and then be “hands-off” is process.
In practice, however, the difference may not be so easy to discern. How brief is that “briefly” I mention above? For me, it usually takes 10 to 15 minutes before my brief attention to a “hands-off” project becomes something that feels “hands-on.” Or here's another way to discern “hands-on” from “hands-off”: Does the activity demand enough time to merit an entry on your schedule? Again, I find this threshold to be around 15 minutes.
Process time includes replies, quick decisions, short personal interactions, or small errands. Process tasks are the little management “noodges” that keep projects and people around you going. Process work also includes the work of delegation.
But when brief instruction becomes a longer education, when decision becomes analysis, when practical replies become a deeper conversation, those tasks require immersive time.
Process time unlocks work on your behalf; delaying process tasks will delay their benefits to you and others.
Immersive time can accord larger benefits than process time, but delaying immersive tasks doesn't necessarily delay other people or processes on your behalf.
Quickly discerning whether tasks require immersive or process time is crucial for being able to habitually make first moves, because process work is most effective when it happens
sooner.
The following quiz will help you get into that habit.
Which of the following tasks are immersive and which are process? Ask this question of each:
If I don't act now, do I stop a process on my behalf? Do I stop other people's work on my behalf? If the answer is yes, write “Process.” If no, write “Immersive.”
1.
Answer an e-mail asking for your approval on a brochure
2.
Answer a request for an invoice from you
3.
Come up with ideas to be pitched in a meeting happening next week
4.
Write a recommendation letter for a student
5.
Answer a friend's invite to a dinner party
6.
Make a cold call to begin a negotiation for a partnership with another company
7.
Review an e-mail containing a one-page summary of weekly sales numbers for your department
8.
Read an attachment containing 10 pages of marketing recommendations for your department
Answers
1.
ProcessâYour approval of the brochure unlocks work on your behalf. Delayed approval shuts work down.
2.
ProcessâYour invoice unlocks payment to you. Nothing happens on your behalf until you send it.
3.
ImmersiveâBrainstorming requires quiet, reflective, personal time. You don't block any work by doing this on your own time as long as it is completed by the meeting.
4.
ImmersiveâWriting a thoughtful letter typically takes some dedicated creative time. What's more, delaying writing this letter doesn't block work on your behalf, though missing your student's deadline may hurt your relationship.
5.
ProcessâThough a dinner partyâand anything recreationalâis by nature immersive, your decision to attend is one that can and should be made quickly to preserve the relationship and your time.
6.
ProcessâThe time needed to make one cold call is usually brief, and it unlocks potential work. Several of these calls together signify longer-term benefits and may need an immersive session.
7. ProcessâA one-sheet e-mail that can quickly be scanned and translated into one or two personal action items unlocks potential benefit.
8.
ImmersiveâA long read is immersive by nature. To the extent that not reading it blocks a process from happening on your behalf, it should be completed sooner rather than later.
All the above actions have value. The purpose of this exercise is to get you to see the
hidden value
in some actions because they link to larger processes that are dependent on you.
Process tasks don't necessarily demand
immediate
action, but by their nature, they should be done or delegated in the short term. Immersive tasks can be delayed, but if left unscheduled for too long, they become blocks to your work and career.
Have you ever served a meal and messed up the timing, wherein one or more dishes weren't quite ready? Started the pasta too early, so it overcooked and became soggy by the time the sauce was finished? Served breakfast, but forgot to start the coffee? The next time this happens to you, take 2 minutes at the end of the meal to write out a new sequence of actions. Commit the sequence to memory and test it. The kitchen provides a laboratory for learning how process and immersive time work together.
SCHEDULE BLOCKS OF IMMERSIVE AND PROCESS TIME
The really good stuff happens in immersive time, especially if you are in one of the creative professions. Immersive time is time to think, time to write, time to experiment, time to explore. But process timeâbecause much of it happens with your “hands off”âactually produces more results in some cases. It's true, we need to make and honor time for immersive work. But we
shouldn't undervalue process work. Here are tips for scheduling our work in dual time.
â
Get in the habit of determining what tasks require immersive versus process time, as in the previous exercise. In your Action list or calendar (which we detail in Course Three of this book), denote each process task with a small “â.” Remember, anything that needs your input or feedback on a project to keep it moving forward is process work.
â
Begin each day with 30 minutes of scheduled process timeâstarting, unlocking, and unblocking the work of others.
â
Use your process time for communication, requests, and the like. Try to constrain check-ins during immersive time.
â
Alternate blocks of process and immersive work throughout your day. The more management responsibilities you have, the more process time you need in your day.
â
Given your responsibilities, try to attain a perfect ratio of process to creative work. A ratio for a writer will be different from that of a department manager. Start with a 1:1 formula for creative and process time, and adjust your schedule from there.
â
Schedule process time directly after meetings. After a long, immersive meeting, make process time to digest and set action items in motion, whether by marking them on your schedule or Action list or by delegating them.
Cooks move fast. They're able to process incoming requests and execute tasks with speed because they've cultivated a system for moving on tasks immediately or marking them for later.
You can also become a moving and marking machine. Here are the habits.
1.
Carry a notebook and pen with you everywhere. Even if you carry a smartphone, you should always have an alternate, easy way to mark down tasks.
2.
Get in the habit of marking down
every Action,
whether an incoming task is given in person or via electronic communication.
3.
Move immediately on small process tasks (quick answers to e-mails, signing papers), especially during your process times.
4.
Mark tasks in two ways: either directly onto your schedule orâif you don't have enough perspective on your prioritiesâonto your Action list for ordering and scheduling later, during your Daily Meeze. (See
Third Course: Working Clean as a Way of Life
for more details.)
5.
Develop a flagging system for e-mails to mark them for action and to more easily move on those action items. For many of us, e-mail is our main channel to receive incoming tasks. In the middle of a busy day, we may not have sufficient time to mark every action item that we receive via e-mail, so the e-mails themselves must serve as marks until we are able to process them by moving on them or else transferring the action item to our schedule or list. In whatever e-mail browser you use, the flagging function can help you make first moves. The rhythm, repeated several times per day, is as follows:
a.
Scan your inbox for e-mails with action items.
b.
Flag those e-mails.
c.
Archive
all
the e-mails in the inbox, even the flagged ones. Your e-mail inbox is now empty.
d.
Now check the flagged folder for urgent items to act on immediately.
e.
Keep any flagged item you don't have time to address in the flagged folder for your Daily Meeze, where you'll either schedule the item or put it on your Action list.
f.
Unflag an e-mail once you've extracted the action item from it.
6.
Remember that any action item that remains in your notebook, or your flagged folder, or on a paper or digital list, you will process during your 30-minute Daily Meeze.
With a strong Daily Meeze, you will build confidence that all your marks will always be processed later. You will also develop a sense of which tasks you can move on immediately and which seemingly “small” tasks are actually big ones in disguise. You will become a master mover and marker!
The present has incalculably more value than the future. Starting is, in effect, a shortcut.