A three-handed approach to production control

It seems anatomically impossible, yet you do it every day
 
The clichés abound: There aren’t enough hours in the day. If only you could clone yourself. A stitch in time saves nine.
 
Okay, scratch that last one.
 
(And what the heck is “nine,” anyway?)
 
Here’s the point: We all need to work as smartly, and efficiently, as possible, in order to get as much done each day, week, minute, as possible. Time is the great equalizer. Someone can have a bigger budget than you, but they can’t have any more time. (In the same way, creativity is the great equalizer, too, in that it’s not budget-dependent. Read more about that in our ode to radio post.)
 
You could argue that a bigger player can hire more people than you, and thus multiply head-count, and thus person-hours. That’s true. But unless each one of those new hires is working at peak efficiency, that’s known as waste.
 
Tried and true
 
Before we get to our provocative “three-handed” topic, let’s consider all of the other tricks you have at your disposal for maximizing time. There are:

• Organizational tools. The most basic—and arguably most essential—of these is the calendar. We live by our calendar, and prefer the kind which allows you to combine both events and to-do’s in the same day-view. (If you’re on a Mac, check out our fave: BusyCal.) There are plenty of reminder and to-do organizers, and not all are apps: some assistants are, well, people.

 

• Macros is a broad term to describe any programmable repeating activity. “When Event A happens, it triggers Actions B, C, and D.” Example: You’re asked to bid on a new project. Assuming that bid gets approved, some fairly predictable events might need to get populated into your calendar/schedule, such as 1) get a P.O. number from the client for the job; 2) Calendar the production of the project itself; 3) Get client approval on the project; 4) Make any client-directed revisions; and 5) Bill out the project. Knowing all those steps in advance can help you with “macro”-style productivity.

 

• Faster hardware can help you when old tech is bogging you down. These days, most processors—in computers, phones, and tablets—are pretty darned fast, but of course, that never stops the Gods of Programming from writing ever-more-taxing apps. Sometimes you can hold off on upgrading your essential apps in order to preserve speed, but this is an option you can’t sustain for long.

 
The third hand
 
Here’s the best thing about the “three-handed approach” which we’d teased you about since the top of this article: We don’t need to teach it to you. Because you already know it!
 
Yup. Odds are you’ve already employed it a half dozen times today before you read this article. You’ll use it another 20 times before you go to bed tonight. The only thing is, you haven’t realized that you’ve been using it. What’s more, you didn’t think to apply it to boosting your business productivity.
 
We’ve long been fans of low-tech, counterintuitive techniques to boost productivity, and this one ranks near the top of that list.
 
Enough teasing already. Here’s what it is. Quick: You’re carrying your laptop and a cup of coffee to your office. When you get there, the office door is closed.
 
What do you do?
 
Notably, you don’t even think about it. In less time than it takes you to read this sentence, you’ve tucked the laptop under your coffee-carrying arm and secured it tightly against your side, freeing up your other hand to open the office door. Just like that.
 
You didn’t freak. You didn’t cry for help. You didn’t spill your coffee or smash your laptop. You didn’t buy a new table to hold your laptop, or your coffee, while you did this. You didn’t stand there for hours trying to think of a way to surmount this problem. You just did it instinctively, the way you do zillions of physical tasks every day. How many times do you approach your car, or the front door, or a load of dishes, with more stuff than your two hands can handle? Answer: all the time. And what’s even more interesting is that you instinctively solve these problems before the time comes. If you see that that office door is closed from afar, you’ve already got that laptop tucked under your coffee-carrying arm before you arrive.
 
That’s, actually, pretty amazing. Even more amazing is that we take it for granted.
 
Now for the leap: How do you apply this to business productivity?
 
It’s simply a matter of thinking ahead, and keeping this “technique” top-of-mind. It’s also a little bit like cooking: If you’re preparing a meal, and one item requires 15 minutes on the stove top, and another requires an hour in the oven, which one do you start first? Obviously, the oven dish, since it takes the longest, and you can have it underway when the time comes to turn to the stove top.
 
It’s the same thing here. You just need to keep that “third hand of the mind” at work as you go through the day, thinking ahead to which tasks equate to the laptop, the coffee, or the doorknob, as they pertain to our little example. You’ll be surprised to see how easily you can apply this innate and highly-developed skill of yours to juggling complex tasks around the office, and even to maximizing the effectiveness of the productivity tools in our bullet-list above.
 
Need help with any of these tasks? Does your third hand still have you yearning for a fourth? Don’t despair. Contact us today and we’ll help you with that consulting or creative challenge. 

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