While sitting on my local equivalent to the LIRR the other day, I took a look at the amazing device in my hands and what I was doing with it.  My new shiny iPhone (or any current generation smartphone for that matter) allows me to read, create, and send/receive email, write documents and/or notes to myself, view and create spreadsheets, presentations, stay in touch with both family, friends, and clients, and administer my blogs and websites, all in the palm of my hand at 65 mph.

With the wide variety of applications now available for smartphones, there’s something for every type of user out there, and this really got me to thinking about mobile productivity.  Obviously at TSheets, we’re a bit biased on the ‘time is money’ and ‘being more productive’ opinion, but with costs of said phones falling everyday, isn’t it about time YOU started thinking about a mobile strategy for your business?

What does this all mean for you and your business?  How do you go about it?  Which plans?  Which phones?  How do I deploy all of this seemingly complex gadgetry?

Well, hold the phone partner (yes, pun intended).  Here’s a list of things to think about before you take your growing enterprise mobile.

1. Are your communications mobile friendly? While time might be money in the TWorld, size is often money in the mobile world.  Are you using a logo in your email footer?  This extra bit of transfer can add up to quite a bit of extra, unneeded cost at the end of the month.  Think about slimming everything down.
2. Are you working with the best Technology? While Palm and Apple (and quite possibly the T-Mobile/Google Android phone soon enough) have been making great headway into the mobile enterprise market, there’s a common misconception that Blackberry is the way to go.  Perhaps the pricing structure might work best for you, but don’t be too quick to rule other smartphones out simply because they’re not carrying the crackberry logo.
3. Are you in sync? If you’re using Microsoft Exchange, chances are you’re already covered, but a good thing to think about is ‘Is everyone on the same page?’  Can all mobile users synchronize email, contact lists, calendars, etc. to ensure that everyone is, literally, on the same page?  Would this help grease the productivity wheels within your team?
4. Do you have a mobile plan? If you’re already issuing company phones, check with your wireless carrier if they offer enterprise smartphone packages, what features they offer, and what the price difference would be.  It’s entirely possible that some of the features designated for smartphones are already covered in your package.  Try getting a test phone or two that you and another trusted member of the team can use for a month or so.  Keep track of the usage: emails, calendars, meeting planning times, how often you use it to increase productivity on the LIRR for example.
5. Is your website mobile compatible? Here’s one that often goes unsaid, but is your main website already mobile compatible?  Do you offer a .mobi version of the site, or perhaps a text only based version.  Again, these things might not seem like a big deal now, but once smartphone mobile deployment is issued, with your entire staff accessing the site on a regular basis, it IS something you’re going to have to think about.
6. What’s your 20? This may be your most important consideration when deciding on a mobile strategy for your business: Security.  Do you have a backup plan if/when a smartphone goes missing?  Not just the actual hardware, but the potential loss of data and thieves access to sensitive company data.

Obviously, there’s a lot of factors to consider in whether or not you should or even need to deploy a smartphone solution for your business.  I personally know some managers and execs that couldn’t live without their mobile devices, while others that I’ve spoken to enjoy simply leaving the phone at the office.  Interesting to note, these people often also have a corporate smartphone tucked in a briefcase or bag nearby.

Having access on the go certainly leads to increased productivity, as there’s never a moment lost.  This mobile productivity can even lead to increased creativity, as a changing landscape often leads to changing thoughts, ideas, and ways to tackle a project.

Michael Hunger was searching for a way to track his day.  He finds that task tedious and inconvenient.  Some of his suggested time tracking methods came in the form of software:

• Spreadsheets
• Plain text files
• Browser based time tracking
• Outlook/iCal
• Popup applications/widgets asking for the current task (hmmm…has he not yet found TSheets?)

And others in the form of the physical:

• Sticky Notes
• Paper
• Tally sheets
• Notebook
• Diary/filofax

All are ok solutions.  Naturally, we’re a bit preferential to the application/widget genre, but let’s hear the man out.

What Michael stumbled upon in his daily ‘blue hour’ (time he spends reading in a café before work) is a childhood toy that we all know: Lego.  He quickly realized that events in iCal look remarkably like building blocks of time.  The transition from playing with his daughters legos to iCal’s block of time to Lego as time tracker is simply genius.

With a box of 600 legos purchased from Amazon, Michael set out to track his day in a colorful desktop form.  What he found was that there was a wide variety in color, length, and width of the 600 pieces.  By using the ‘one row’ blocks, Michael builds he day (literally) by segmenting 1, 2, 3, and 4 studded pieces to represent 15 minute blocks of time, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes.  By stacking these individual blocks of time on top of each other, he builds a project (color) coded map of his time throughout the day.

Using a ‘one row’ piece to represent the day, Michael lays bricks on top of this ‘day ruler’ so that he can see what he did, and where in his day he did it.  Each day of the week is then coded by a rainbow color scheme.  Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue represent Monday – Friday.  At weeks end, he then uses his lego blocks to enter the data in a timesheet software package.

Michael has found that by using the Lego time tracking system, he can even pre-plan days by using temporary bases and allotting time via the same color coded method.  Benefits include (in Michael’s own words):

• it works (for about 4 months now)
• I have something to play with while pondering stuff
• it looks great
• it’s incredibly fast with no overhead
• planning is possible

He is however quick to point on the one disadvantage:

coworkers coming to your place and disassembling your time tracks

He’s recently updated the original post with an announcement of a small java application that will work in conjunction with a webcam or phone so that the time block is automatically entered in the week’s end timesheet.

This is a fine example of independent ingenuity when it comes to personal time tracking.  Certainly this will work while sitting in a closed environment (read…office), but has little practical application in the mobile work.  You might be hard pressed to pull out your Lego block set while sitting in economy on the next flight to Atlanta.  The Lego system can and will only work for personal time tracking, as just with the time clock or paper and pencil sheets, there are almost certainly time fudgers that would take advantage of the system.

As always, TSheets remains your one stop, easy to use, corporate wide time tracking solution. With widgets, gadgets, and iPhone apps, we’ve got more ways to track time than hours in the day!

Now….off to the TLabs to talk to the Time Scientists about the Lego app integration….

A couple of weeks ago I took a look at Google’s Chrome browser and it’s ‘interesting’ EULA, and if it was right for enterprise users.  As with most products that come out of Mountain View, Google stole the show from an otherwise equally interesting product designed to not only make you more productive, but in a fun and easy to use format: Mozilla Lab’s Ubiquity.

Plain and simple, Ubiquity is an experimental Firefox extension that bills itself as “a powerful new way to interact with the web.”  After using ubiquity for a few weeks now, I say that’s a bit of an understatement.  For those of you on OSX, think of ubiquity as a Quicksilver, but for the entire internet.  For those of you on windows, think of it as, ummm..well, like something you’ve never seen before!

While a good friend and colleague has been extolling the virtues of semantic web to me for years now, I’d yet to see a ‘well functioning, real world’ example.  Quite simply, we’ve all be raised on the standard point and click, drop down menu, long URL strings way of doing business.  Ubiquity seeks to change all that through a highly intuitive interface.  For example, when I find an article like this one, and want to digg it, I normally have to search for a digg button somewhere on the page, clicky clicky, etc., or have to copy the URL myself, navigate to digg, login, paste the URL, click submit.  Ubiquity?  “digg this”.  Done.

With Ubiquity,  semantic web just made one small step for computers, and one giant leap for computing.  By recognizing the phrase “this”, we’ve just connected the word to a variety of input mechanisms.  Granted, this seems like an incredibly simple solution, but until now there really hasn’t been the correlation between “What I’m looking at right now” and “input”.

OK, so what’s the big deal?  What’s ubiquity going to do for me?  Well, glad you asked friend, step right up to one of the most powerful moves in productivity in years.  Ubiquity will do just about anything you tell it to, and how!  Not so hot on your one line command writing skills?  Me neither, so without further adieu, some common and helpful ubiquity productivity tools:

To summon ubiquity to your service: Alt/Option + Spacebar

Email this:  Here’s a great time saver.  Let’s say you just found a really great article about Time Tracking software and want to send it over to Jim in accounting.  Normally, this would require a copy of the URL, a trip over to the email client, new message, Jim, subject line, paste URL, click send.   With Ubiquity open, simply type email this to (contact), and Ubiquity launches gmail, inserts the correct address and, subject line and text.  Time saved?  Approximately 20-30 seconds.  Not a big deal right off the bat, but think about how many emails you send per day.  The time savings begin to add up quite quickly.

Define:  As seasoned a wordsmith as I am, even I, dear readers, come across a phrase every now and then, when I think, is that REALLY the correct meaning?  Or better yet…what the heck does that mean?  Simply type Define in Ubiquity and either jump to answers.com, or give ubiquity a second to call answers.com and deliver the definition of the word right there in your ubiquity window.  Quite handy when readying legal or technical documents.

Wikipedia: Who doesn’t love Wikipedia?  For all the strengths and weaknesses, Wikipedia is still packed with an amazing amount of information.  Instead of surfing over to the big W everytime you want to do a bit of research, bring up ubiquity and simply type w.  Ubiquity calls Wiki and delivers an astonishing amount of information on the word you’ve highlighted in the webpage, or any other phrase you choose to enter.

Map:  Whoa nelly!  If I had to rank a favorite feature thus far, Ubiquities’ mapping features would take the cake.  This one is a major time saver and productivity tool.  Need to find the address of that widget company in a hurry?  Bring up ubiquity, enter the map command, and type the name of the business.  Sometimes this works, sometimes not.  The other solution is to find the company address somewhere on the site (usually under the ‘contact’ page), highlight the address, open ubiquity and enter the map command.  Google maps will deliver up a fresh and tasty map of the location.

But wait…there’s more.  Simple mapping of a location within Ubiquity might not save you a bunch of time, but what if you could enlarge that map to get a better view, drop it into an email, AND attach a restaurant review?  With Ubiquity, all this can be done with a simple few clicks.  If you’re on a regular HTML page, the ‘insert into page’ option is obviously not going to work, but if you’ve already opened an email to a friend with ubiquity, you’re then in an ‘editable’ HTML section on a page.  In other words, dropping a map into an email now can be done in a few clicks instead of the previous 5 minutes it took prior to ubiquity being on the scene.

So what’s the big deal?  If these few examples haven’t started you thinking about shaving seconds, minutes, hours off regular everyday tasks, keep in mind that Ubiquity is still in the ‘experimental’ phase, meaning alpha, beta at best.  Given Mozilla’s open source philosophy, the additional uses and functionality are limited only by user’s creativity and need.  Speaking of which, the Herd has already sprung up, and is addressing the collective as a one stop shop for safe Ubiquity scripts (I’m already using the facebook scripts with delight).  Is Ubiquity perfect?  Far from it.  There are still a number of holes in the dam that need plugging, and it’s certainly got room to grow before anyone calls it a finished product.  But, right out of the gate ubiquity is saving time and endless searching all from within your current browser.

Give Ubiquity a download and a go.  It’s going to take a few hours to get used to, but once you do, it can be a massive time saver, and a great productivity tool.  Hey TLabs guys…how about a Ubiquity script that will allow me to clock in/out and switch job codes?

As far as business blogs and productivity tools go, there are a great number of them that, well frankly, bore the pants off of me.  Sure there’s Lifehacker which is always a guaranteed smile, but for the most part, lots and lots of business bloggers tend to grab a bunch of statistics and/or other data, run it through the ‘What would my big fancy diploma on the wall say about this’ filter, and generally spit out material that’s about as exciting to read as sniffing glue.  Wait…sniffing glue might be more entertaining.

Thank heavens for Merlin.  Merlin Mann that is.  If you’re not already familiar with Merlin and his 43 folders blog, do yourself a favor.  Merlin’s recently posted an update to slideshow/presentation that he debuted back in January at Macworld.  While I only caught bits and pieces of it through the grapevine, Merlin’s done a whole lotta work on this one, and revamped a number of topics and material.

The subject of this talk is ‘Time and Attention’.  He’ll be delivering it….hang on, just got an email.  Brb.  Right.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, Merlin’s going to be talking with the folks over at GoDaddy abou…a sec…phone.  Ummmm.  Oh right…talking to the folks at GoDaddy.com about Inbox Zero and Time and Attention.

Merlin fully admits that the irony of über cool picture slides is that you don’t get the slick audioness of it, so this deck includes some of Merlin’s main talking points.  And if you’ve never seen this guy speak…the subtitles are almost as accurate as a German translation of a French film that was directed by a Mexican director.  In other words…they do only a third of the justice as seeing Mann in person.

Mann’s main focus in this deck is Time and Attention and how to manage both to work in the utmost productive state.  Give it a whirl…tell the boss its ‘research’.

In case you’ve been sleeping for the past few days, you’re probably already aware of Google’s new release: Chrome.  Chrome is an open source browser Google’s built to take on the likes of IE and Firefox.  Since it’s another free product coming out of Mountain View, naturally, it ranks high on the coolness factor, and the blogosphere has been abuzz with tips and tricks to already customize the newest offering in your daily surf.

Amongst the buzz, Google’s even produced a comic book detailing Chrome’s features and how it differs from other browsers.  To be fair, I made it about halfway through the comic and figured I knew all I needed to know.  A former college roommate with a dual degree in Computer Science and Bassoon performance (I’m not making this up) came back to me with a few highlights from the end pages, but again…Google’s fun and easy users manual gave me just about all I needed to know.

One standout is the way Chrome handles data.  They’ve of course incorporated a number of today’s standard operating system functionality and protect browser sessions and data from each other.  In other words…one tab can’t crash the other or flummox data in other tabs, or windows via what Google refers to as individual ‘sandboxes’.

I mention Windows here as Chrome is only out in a Windows version (for now), and for the first time since converting to Mac, I actually had a 100% valid reason to crack out Parallels and run the VM.  Chrome runs on Windows only for the moment, mainly due to the complexities that arrived along with sandbox technology when Google acquired GreenBorder a few years back.

Basically, sandbox technology boils down to a checks and balances system for your browser.  Code that runs in it’s own sandbox is free to do whatever it wants, but the second it tries to step outside that sandbox and play with others, big brother steps in, gives the code a once over and decides whether it’s safe or not to join the OS party.  Obviously, Big Brother (The IT department) will be able to set limits and restrictions of any type, thereby leading to tighter security.  On the (slight) downside, since each sandbox is self contained, CPU resources and memory usage will increase, but in my honest opinion, a few more cycles and processes vs. lock tight security is a fair trade off.

Sounds like a dream come true, no?  Well before we head off to the bar and start swinging from the chandeliers, let’s take a look at the EULA.  Google, at the end of the day is a business, and the main goal of any business to turn a profit.  Pulling out the magnifying glass to view the fine print brings up a few points where the ‘enterprise’ community might raise an eyebrow or two:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

Let’s get this straight:  You own the data that runs through Chrome (and any other Google “Service”), but Google obtains a perpetual, non-revocable license to it.

Google also reserves the right to ‘update’ the software you’ve downloaded.  And of course, the standard EULA copy of you’re not going to hold Google responsible for any malfunction that may occur in it’s code while using it’s product.  So let’s look at this from a pure and simple point of view.  You’re excited about and want to use Chrome as your default browser.  You maintain a number of documents hosted at Google docs.  You own the data, no problem…but Google also has a license on it.

And then there’s the immediate buck coming through the door: Advertising.  Naturally, Google makes the largest turnover from their advertising revenue streams, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Chrome’s gonna be optimized to serve up some juicy adsense-ness.

17.1 Some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services, queries made through the Services or other information.

17.2 The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you.

17.3 In consideration for Google granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Google may place such advertising on the Services.

Ah yes, legalese; the great language spoken by millions of software vendors (and their teams of lawyers) to prevent you from doing just about anything.   Enterprise customers are certainly going to have to sit down at the negotiating table with the Mountain View folks on these ‘small’ caveats, but at the end of the day, once the deals are brokered, I’d hate to be standing in the way of any enterprise solution powered by the great and mighty Google.

For any and all questions concerning Sandbox technology, give the Chromium Developers a visit.

The Quest

As the CEO of Tsheets.com, a productivity tool, I set out to interview CEOs and find the Top 10 Productivity Tools they use to manage their time. After an initial round of interviewing about 20 CEOs, I started getting a bit nervous, as I wasn’t finding any common tools that that they were using. I considered that the effort might be a flop - that is, until I interviewed Jason Fried of 37Signals. During the conversation I started to see a common thread. The “Light Bulb” moment hit me, and I blurted out, “That’s fascinating. I’m beginning to see some brilliant common threads.” Jason’s immediate response was, “Yeah? Well, what are they?” After mentioning a few of them to him, he said, “Very interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing the end result.”

After I hung up the phone, I realized that the productivity commonalities weren’t tools at all – but rather principles! I knew that I was onto something, but I also knew the title had to change.

One of my final interviews was with Andy Sorcini, an obviously successful social media expert as he is the # 1 Digger in the World! At the end of the conversation, I realized that he had some brilliant concepts that led to extraordinary productivity. Clearly these principles didn’t apply just to the most successful CEOs. Thus the Title:

“Productivity Secrets of the Most Successful People”

Dictionary.com defines Principle as: A fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived. E.g. the principle of modern physics.

As defined, I have truly embraced the idea that principles are as factual as the law of gravity. Only the highly misinformed or the delusional are going to argue with you that jumping off a building results in a fall; yet the same applies to business principles.

***This document has been abbreviated to accommodate quick reading; please visit mattrissell.com for the full conversation***

From C-level executives of billion dollar organizations to companies of smaller, yet successful entrepreneurs, here are the resulting Top 10 Productivity Secrets of the Most Successful People:

1. Passion!

This is your “Want”. The very premise of all productivity is a love for what you do. I asked every interviewee, “If you could take everything that we have talked about and boil it down to just one thing – What would be the key to productivity”? The most common response? Passion.

For many – intellectuals, to be specific - this can be a tough concept because it deals with heart and not the head. Passion doesn’t need to be for the product itself, but what the product or service does. E.g. A productivity tool in and of itself may not be a thing of passion – but the end result of increased productivity could be.

Productivity Principle Summarized: If you’re not passionate about what you are doing – then stop now!

2. Surround yourself with people of Excellence

Notice that I didn’t simply say, “hire great people” but rather surround yourself with people of excellence. The obvious is to hire great people to be productive, but personal productivity goes MUCH further. Who is your mentor? Who are your friends? The same principle that applies to my three year old daughter applies to us as business leaders: Show me your friends and I can tell you what you’ll be doing in 5 years. Powerful isn’t it?

As I mentioned above, hiring great people isn’t the end-all but is significant in surrounding yourself with people of excellence. When you hire excellence, they bring both the problem and the solution. It doesn’t matter how you describe them: Great, Phenomenal, Extraordinary, Best of the Best – when it comes to your people DO NOT settle for “Good”.

Productivity Principle Summarized: Surrounding yourself with excellence personally and professionally defines your current productivity as well as your future.

3. Create an Environment where Great People Can Succeed

It’s one thing to surround yourself with excellence; it’s another to keep excellence around you! While I’ve heard the saying many times “hire people smarter than yourself.” The most successful take it step further and say “why spend so much time and money recruiting smart people and then allow insecurity to take over and spend all of your time making sure that everyone knows how smart you are?”

Examples of how to create environments of excellence for productivity:

• Pay them well – visit www.mattrissell.com for out of the box ideas
• Show Gratitude – This caught me by surprise and came up often enough to stand on it’s own as a productivity principle. See principle number nine.
• Understand the Vision – See mattrissell.com for a great example of employee vision in the Roman Empire.
• Do not be delusional – others are not motivated by building your dream
• Allow for creativity
• Candor is required

Productivity Principle Summarized: Hire the best and treat them as the best, and the productivity will follow.

4. Simplicity!

What a paradox this one became! This was the most frequently occurring topic in my interviews with the most content, and yet shouldn’t it have been simple? I discovered that the most successful leaders keep things as simple as possible, so much so, that even leaders of the most technologically advanced companies keep things relatively low-tech to stay productive!

A familiar example given was to pick one project and complete it; not getting caught up in the tyranny of the urgent by multi-tasking. Taken a step further, that example was compared to the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. A 12-gauge shotgun cartridge has two times the amount of powder that a .270 rifle cartridge has. Yet because the energy is spread out between so many different objects, it’s practically useless beyond 50 yards. While a .270 cartridge, with less energy focused on one object, can be effective out to 1,000 yards. We are back to the relationship between productivity and physics again, eh?

Productivity Principle Summary: Do one thing at a time with less energy, and you’ll make a great impact.

5. Know your Motivation

This is your “Why”. Many confuse this with their “Want” or passion, but these are two very different items. The “Why” is your motivation to build your passion. The “Why” is critical to productivity because it’s what keeps you going when times get tough.

Where are you headed in your life? Who do you want to be in 10 years? These are big but important questions pertaining to productivity.

You may be thinking your motivation is money, however my interviews confirmed the timeless quote of Warren Buffet, “Money has to be the by-product of your definition of success – not your definition of success.”

Some examples from the CEOs and business leaders interviewed:

• To become the standard
• To be the best or to win
• To purchase the NY Jets (J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!)

Conversely, an example of a poor, but common, motivator for entrepreneurs, has been: “To be focused on the exit plan… To plan on being bought out for $X amount in two years”

Productivity Principle Summarized: Know the answers to your “Why” Questions before you run into difficulties; Money isn’t enough of a motivator.

6. “Secret Sauce”

If you want to have a provocative conversation with successful people, talk to them about two things: Getting stuff done and their ‘Secret Sauce’. On it’s own, this is at least a two-drink conversation.

It was unbelievable to me that all the successful people I spoke to nailed this. They all knew what makes them a limited edition or gives them the competitive advantage.

Some examples:

• Their opinion that others want to hear
• Love for people
• The Gift of ‘understanding what people want to know’ even when it changes
• Genetics
• The people that they surround themselves with

7. Make your decisions be great

Notice that I did not say, “Make great decisions”. Overwhelmingly, the successful people out there say things like, “Just make a decision, and if it’s not a good one, learn from it and go on”. We all make bad or “wrong” decisions at times but on the other hand, the cost of not making a decision is much more expensive than making one. Beware of the trap of becoming paralyzed in your productivity from fear of making wrong decisions.

Here’s a perfect example: An IBM Executive made a “bad decision” that cost the company $3 million. The next day, he started packing up his office. Thomas Watson, the CEO, walked by his office and asked what he was doing. The exec responded that he was ready to be let go because of his “wrong” decision. Watson’s response? “B.S. You better not leave me now – I just invested $3milion training you.”

It’s not about right or wrong decisions in building productivity, it’s about what’s working or not working and constantly adjusting… Are you Familiar with the definition of insanity?

Productivity Principle Summarized: More productivity is lost from indecision than from making the wrong decisions.

8. Balance

This is for long-term productivity and shoots up to the top of the list for most of the successful people I interviewed. A quote that absolutely stopped me in my tracks was from John Pollard, CEO of Jott.com. “Anyone can work 16 hour days. The secret to being productive is being able to get done what needs to be done in an eight to ten hour day, still get a workout in, have a successful marriage, relationship with your kids, and sustain life outside of work; otherwise, you’ll lose the “Why”. You need balance in your life if you are going to stay at peak productivity.

Another comment I heard all too often in my interviews was, “I’m not too sure how much longer I can keep this up”.

Productivity Principle Summarized: Balance is essential to stay at peak productivity for the long haul.

9. Execute

Productivity requires action.

Few people actually execute; rarely do they say what they are going to do and then roll up their sleeves and get to work. While dreaming, talking, and thinking can all be included in the productivity world, the successful don’t forget the “do”.

The most successful also execute on the important things – not just the urgent. An easy phrase to help distinguish the difference is a quadrant (learn more on the Vlog on mattrissell.com). Kevin Dixie, CEO of Fuel My Blog, had a great point regarding executing on the important: when he goes through his list of tasks, he finds the item he wants to do the least and does it first, as it’s usually the most important.

Productivity Principle Summarized: Execute. Execute. Execute.

10. BUILD YOUR OWN SYSTEM!

Surely we’ve all heard of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system. Not one CEO or successful leader referred to his name or system. . While Mr. Allen has good solid principles in his book, the applications that he suggests are built for a very small % of the population.

To accentuate the point that a successful system needs to be “your own”; here are some quotes from the Most Successful when comparing their methods to the standard.

• “I do things different”
• “I don’t do things right”
• “I do things backwards”

While they may not do things according the to book, the most successful each have a system of productivity that works.

Productivity Principle Summarized: A productivity system is integral to success; however, must be made your own.

Today I spoke with a gentleman by the name of Rob who was experiencing a very common pain point in his business. He, like many CEO’s, is very rarely in the office during the day due to the simple nature of his position. This in itself is not an issue. The issue is that his employee time tracking is based upon the honor system. Ouch. Whenever Rob is not in the office all of his employees turn into saints that never show up late and can clock out just in time to make a perfect 40 hour work week. Sound familiar?

I’m sure most all of us have been here at one point in our lives or another and just like Rob, we too have felt the pain of the “honor system.” Just think how many shekels have literally flown right out the window due to employees who fudge 15 minutes here or there.

15 minutes on clock in and clock out is an extra 30 minutes that you’re doling out to this employee every day. That’s 2.5 extra hours a week, 130 hours a year. At $6 per hour that’s almost $780 a year that you’ve lost to just one artful dodger of the timesheet. Can you imagine if you had a whole office fudging just a little here and there? And let’s face it, we’re not even sure that employees of the Vatican don’t push a number around once in a while.

Fear not Brutus of the Boardroom, there IS a solution to this. It’s called automated time tracking and it’s just one of the many beautiful things that TSheets.com can do for you! For just 10 bucks a month Rob could be saving his company thousands of dollars a year.

Is being on time important?  If so, how important?  As a company that sells a time tracking tool surely you can imagine what our answer might be, but we’re a little biased.

I just got done reading a blog post from Caroline4sumone.  In her post, Caroline writes about a situation at work where a woman known for being consistently late is hired onto a team at Caroline’s company.  Lo and behold this new employee shows up late for the very first day of work. The story is interesting but it isn’t what really got my gray matter churning.

What intrigued me were the comments that were left after Caroloine4sumone spoke about her frustration with this employee.  Here’s just a sample:

Frodo: Ah relax. being on time is overrated

highpriestess: If they are 5mins late then it’s ok but if they are an hour late and make a habit of it then it’s uncalled for.

Paul: There is nothing wrong with being late the odd time but if it is consistent then it is a problem. And it is usually the people who are consistently late that have poor productivity. Also it pisses off the other team members who feel they have managed to get in on time and have to pick up the slack. I would work with them to improve their time keeping but ultimately I would let them go if it did not improve.

Now, as far as the eagle flies, in my book output is much more important than input, but does this really matter?  Does it matter any more or less if said employee is hourly rather than salary?

If not, when does it start to matter?  How often can an employee be tardy until it’s no longer a good business decision to keep them around?

What do you think?

Here’s a fun calculation you can do.  Share your answers by leaving a comment.

L/60 x R x F = WC x 52 = YC/12 = MC

L = Average number of minutes an employee is late
R = Employee’s hourly pay rate
F = Avg. number of days per week employee is late
WC = Weekly Cost
MC = Monthly Cost
YC = Yearly Cost

*Please do not confuse this with Einstein’s theory of productivity, as that requires MC to be squared.  Squaring the TSheets theory of Being on Timeitivity could lead to the cataclysmic collapse of the sun.  DO NOT TRY AT HOME!

Are you in sales? This one is for you!

Finally, an effective way to forecast and measure the effectiveness of your sales efforts!

We all know that managing results is NOT what helps build successful sales people but rather, managing the actions that lead to results. An unexpected benefit of a time tracking tool has been discovered.

Building on the notion that an effective sales manager manages activities vs. results, normally managers accomplish this by consistently reviewing each sales persons pipeline. At least this is the way they USED to do it! Now there is a much more effective way to manage their activities - tracking their time!

We have done case studies of sales managers that have more effectively managed their sales team’s performance through tracking their time.

Here’s how:

1. You need a time tracking device that can be used from the field (hhhmmm… let’s see, where could I get one of those? TSheets, maybe? Although a shameless plug, this can truly make the difference between big commissions and the unemployment line.)

2. Set up job codes such as “Pay Time”, “No-Pay Time”, “Cold Calls”, “Drive Time”, “Meetings”, “Emails”, etc…

3. Then as you or your sales people go throughout your day, track time by changing job codes.

At the end of the month you have a very clear picture of why you are successful and/or effective in one area of your life but not the other. For instance, an unsuccessful sales person might get in trouble for having a small pipeline and thus missing quota for a month. However, that same sales person could have been spending 60% of their time cold calling and just need training on how to cold call more effectively.

Bottom line - if you want a clear picture of the effectiveness of your sales team - track their time!

A lot of companies are outsourcing these days.  Whether it be an accountant, marketer, web developer or lawyer, the odds are that you have someone that you pay on a regular basis who isn’t part of your organization.  The Illinois Department of Transportation is no different.  Just like you, they trusted in another organization to take care of a task that they didn’t have the resources to accomplish internally.  However, the people that they trusted ended up cheating them out of more than $1 Million dollars by falsifying timesheets.

Kamleshwar Gupta, the owner of the Elgin-based engineering consulting firm being used, directed a bookkeeper to falsify employee timesheets.  (Conveniently it was company policy to write out the paper timesheets in pencil, so they could easily be editted.)  He then signed off on the fraudulent invoices before sending them to the Department of Transportation.  Luckily, a routine audit caught the fraudulent activity.

Is this kind of thing happening to you, certainly not.  However, how accurate are your vendors keeping track of their “billable time?”  Do you know the method they use to keep track of the hours they spend on your projects?  Do they even have a method, or do they just sit down at the end of the day and make an estimate on how much time they spent?

Don’t be afraid to ask vendors how they track their time.  Keep in mind that if they’re using a manually entered timesheet then it’s probably “padded” in their own favor.  If their method makes you nervous, don’t be afraid to ask them to use an automated system like TSheets or any other real time tracker.  After all you are paying them for the actual time that they work for you, not just what hours they think they spent.