This scene repeats each day and I am so consumed by these routine tasks that I start cursing the company, the environment, the people, the work assigned and so on, but lay no blame on myself. I try to reason and find justification for my actions. I retire for the day with a resolve to complete some of the tasks next day but do no better in the day that follows.

After reading a book, ‘First Things First’ by Stephen Covey, and a couple of workshops later, I realized the folly of falling into this do-loop. Starting the day with a vague sense of purpose, I understood, doesn’t get me anywhere as I start reacting to whatever scene that unfolds in front of me. I am therefore led by the events that occur rather than I determining how the day should proceed for me.

The task list

The best thing therefore is to start the day with a clear sense of purpose and lay down for yourself matters that you think are important to attend to. In simple terms what you need to do is to write out a ‘to-do’ list. Set a plan for the day. Spend five minutes before turning on your computer in the morning to write down what you want to accomplish that day. Be realistic. Schedule time in your calendar to get each thing done, putting the harder tasks at the beginning of the day.

Just preparing the list is not enough; the tasks have to be executed too. Every hour, take a minute to stop what you’re doing, look at your list, and reflect on your last hour. Was it productive? What can you do to make the next hour productive? At the end of the day, as you are closing down your work, review your day and ask yourself what you were able to accomplish. If you have been unable to achieve much of what you set out to do, ask yourself – what will you do differently tomorrow to be more productive?

Prioritize your chores

How we spend our time usefully during the day is the key strategic decision. You may end up doing a lot of unimportant tasks and leave out key tasks because you did not have time enough to execute them. It is natural to pick up simple and miscellaneous tasks thinking that once you get them out of the way, you can concentrate on the important ones that need time.

These include disposing off all pending papers, going through the inbox to read/delete/forward mails to keep the inbox clean and stopping at your colleague’s desk to exchange pleasantries. The truth is that before you realize, most of the day gets over leaving very little time to work on larger tasks that have been waiting for your attention. These tasks therefore are put off for the next day and the same routine gets carried forward.

The task list therefore needs to be split into those tasks that are large and critical and others that could be important but not urgent. It is better to address the critical jobs first and the smaller tasks can fill in during the time available in the day. Towards the end, as you prepare to wind up for the day and are relaxed, you could clear your desk and the mailbox and get back home with a good sense of having accomplished what you had targeted and come back the next day with new targets.

The vendor-side story
Some vendors/ consultants appear at the appointed time and create a good impression. I have often given additional scores for their punctuality and preferred them over others if they were suited for the work in question. Others, who don’t keep time, have their own characteristics. Some land up late either because they finished late at a prior meeting or miscalculated the travel time or failed to keep a buffer for unforeseen delay on roads. It is often difficult to justify such delays and therefore is a bad practice to follow. A few others are habitual defaulters, start late from their office and have their secretaries call up saying that the person has already started and is on his way. We are expected to condone this small delay and wait for him to come. Some walk in casually, though late, taking advantage of an existing relationship and expect to be excused. Peeved with such attitudes, I had sometimes called off the meeting when people turned up late and the results were dramatic, the same persons landed up on time for the next set of meetings. The lesson here was that we are wrong when we continuously tolerate such violations of time.

The CIO’s tale
He is in most cases, a customer and hence the king. He is the master on such occasions and has the privilege to act pricey. Those who want to be morally right, keep themselves free for the meeting, and receive their visitors on time. I have seen some of them even asking their CEOs to wait for some time as they had already committed time to someone.  In case of any emergency a good CIO would call up the vendor, offer apology and make one of his colleagues to meet the visitor in his absence. Some others however may not go to such great lengths – they hold a view that vendors should understand. Some prefer to attend to issues on hand and make the vendor wait at the reception. Some others pretend to be busy and try to emphasize their importance. I don’t think that is a productive exercise and vendors are not really impressed with such moves.
Honoring appointments, in my opinion, is the reflection of our character. It speaks of the one who keeps his word and is worthy of being trusted. If we are not one of them we would always struggle to make others believe in our good credentials.

Extracting time for oneself
Now if a CIO devotes so much of his time in keeping the ‘lights on’, he would be neglecting his need to grow and develop. Rather than portraying himself as a victim, he should extract some time for himself.
There are many ways that he could accomplish that. He can develop a clear plan and schedule all his major activities in conjunction with the organizational priorities and user-requirements. Once the plans are agreed upon with the management, he could concentrate on major projects and refuse to take up ad-hoc work that is often thrust upon him. That could release a lot of time otherwise spent on many of these miscellaneous activities.
The CIO can delegate work by developing his managers and takes care of planning and monitoring. He should, in fact, outsource some of the routine activities and follow-up so that these tasks do not take time of his managers and himself. These and other measures could release time that he can use on himself.

Balance between ‘P’ and ‘PC’
Stephen Covey, in his book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, speaks of the balance between ‘P’ (production) and ‘PC’ (productive capacity). If an individual keeps delivering or producing, he would get accolades; but there would come a time when he is asked to deliver more, he runs out of ideas. A more accomplished person in this situation would apply innovation or new methods or technology to come out an appropriate solution. Now, where will the conventional manager stand if he falls short of what is expected of him?

Importance of self improvement
It is therefore very important that while we take care of our day-to-day performance, we also take out time to develop and equip ourselves for the future. The question often asked is ‘how much time should I allocate to development’ – the answer would depend on every individual and to each situation. Whether we practice 80:20 or 70:30, it is important that we consciously keep working on our development and make ourselves relevant for the future for otherwise we may lose out in the world of new order.
There are various ways that we can recharge ourselves. What we have studied in our engineering, science or other disciplines in our college gets outdated over a period of time and may be not as relevant in changed times.
We have therefore to learn new technologies, new management methods, new ideas and new solutions. One way is to enroll ourselves in academic courses – I have seen people joining management courses, either by leaving their jobs to do full time courses or obtaining degrees by attending up evening classes or through correspondence courses.  The added qualification and confidence help them in going up higher.

Staying current
I have seen a few others attending events and professional seminars where they keep themselves abreast of the new developments and get in synchronization with contemporary methods. Some enroll in short executive development courses of management institutions and become more knowledgeable. Some others join certification courses and learn to use the technologies better.
Such an individual, therefore, is constantly working upon himself to get better and develops additional capability to take him up to higher levels and the makes him eligible for taking up higher responsibilities. Learning never stops in life and the higher that he goes, the more he will have to learn.