Dear Jayme-
My phone is driving me nuts. I spend all day being interrupted from what I'm doing. I thought it was supposed to improve my productivity, but I feel like I'm a slave to the cell phone. Is there a better way to handle my communications?
Andy
Dear Andy-
Remember the old days when you had to go back to the office, string a temporary line at a site or find a pay phone to check messages? You probably wished you could justify one of those pricey cell phones (about $800 back in 1990). Well, now they're almost free (dollar-wise) but can still cost you a ton in lost time, focus and bad decisions if you don't maintain control.
We'll start with a few lowlights:
- Interruptions are costly: Every time you get interrupted, it distracts you from the task at hand and takes your mind several minutes to refocus when the call ends. That means a two-minute call really costs seven minutes, and doing this twenty times a day means 100 minutes or almost two hours of focus lost.
- Short calls become long: When people reach you on the phone, they want to chat, and it's hard to politely end the call. So, you hear about Earl's colonoscopy for five extra minutes instead of running your business. Again, multiply this times five or ten and your day is disappearing.
- More time is spent on the phone than working: Particularly if you're at the center of an owner-dependent business (though you shouldn't be, but that's another article), the phone can consume your entire day. If everything has to go through you, you must take the calls. You'll feel like you've worked hard but gotten nowhere.
- Reactive rather than proactive: Callers call you when it's convenient for them. They're prepared for the call, you're not. They want quick answers from you, so you answer on the fly, under pressure and without solid information. The phone (and the callers) are dictating your schedule and priorities.
Some solutions to regain control of your phone and time:
- Prioritize calls: Divide calls into three sets: 1) Must answer now, 2) must answer but can wait 3) don't need to answer at all. Be brutal. Whenever the phone rings, check to see who it is and deal with it according to your priorities. Only answer critical calls that minute (and it's just fine to put your best friend in the top category).
- Let it go to voice mail on all the 2's and 3's. Lots of people stop calling if they know you won't pick it up yourself every time.
- Have a safety valve or gatekeeper: Have your voice mail message say:"If you need immediate assistance, call Chris at XXX-XXXX." Give Chris the priority guidelines and then have him decide if it's worth bothering you (but always take calls from Chris). If the calls don't meet priority guidelines, he sends them to voicemail.
- Return non-critical calls twice a day, in groups: Listen to the messages in a quiet environment, gather input from your people if needed, get your thoughts together, and have a productive response for each call.
- You control when and where you deal with callers rather than letting them dictate to you.
- This eliminates the distraction/refocus problem of taking calls on the fly.
By the way, cell phone cameras can come in handy. Here are a few examples:
- I watched a contractor take pictures of a broken tractor, send them to his tech support people in about ten seconds and get back an answer in about ten more.
- Reassembling things looks easy until they're lying in pieces. A few pics of the teardown sequence and you have a perfect reassembly guide.
- Ever opened a wall or a trench and found a surprise that needs a client decision? A few quick pics can help the client understand, make a choice and avoid delays.
Cell phones are a tremendous tool for your business but only if you maintain control in the relationship. You're bigger than they are, so don't let them push you around.
Cheers,
Jayme
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. -Thich Nhat Hanh
Construction Business Owner, June 2008
