Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:46 — 8.5MB) | Embed

One At A Time

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I make one heck of an omelet, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about getting things done by doing them one at a time.

Send in your contributions for this week’s Friday Forum. Head on over to https://www.goldenspiralmedia.com/feedback and use the form on that page to submit your written or audio message. You can also use the speakpipe widget to record something using your devices microphone. And of course you can call our voice feedback line at 304-837-2278. We’d love to hear from you.

Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that due to a lack of a clear “R” sound in the Japanese language, they changed Ronald McDonald’s name to Donald McDonald?

Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
I was listening to a podcast the other day and the host mentioned that his son had recently started kindergarten. On that first day of school, after they ate breakfast the father told his son to go get dressed while he prepared the boys snacks for the day. When the father went to get his son a few minutes later the boy hadn’t dressed yet. Instead he was going through his school bag making sure he had everything he needed.

The father told him to hurry up or they would be late for his first day. All excited, the boy grabbed two socks and tried to put them both on at the same time. Of course this didn’t get him anywhere. After a few seconds of watching the boy struggle, the dad asked him “how do you normally put your socks on?” to which the boy replied “one at a time”. The dad nodded at him and the boy quickly dropped one sock, put the other on, then picked up the discarded one and slipped it on his other foot. He then proceeded to finish dressing and off they went to school.

I though this a very amusing story when I heard it, but it got me thinking. The boy got the idea somehow that he could get dressed faster if he put both socks on at the same time. But in effect, it slowed him down.

That analogy can describe so many of the things we do in life.

We live in a world where multitasking is expected of us. We do it at work, we do it at home, we do it at play. But is multitasking really the most efficient behaviour?

Yes, sometimes it is, but there are time when doing things one at a time is more efficient.

Think of it this way. Your boss at work assigns you the task of stuffing 500 envelopes for an upcoming event your company is hosting. Your company wants to really impress the attendees so each envelope will contain a folded letter explaining the event, a card with a printed map to the event’s location, and a fancy booklet with the evenings itinerary, entertainment and menu. Your boss wants to go all out so the fancy booklet consists of three pieces of paper folded in half with two holes punched through the spine. The three sheets are to be held together by a piece of ribbon. Once stuffed each envelope needs to have an address label affixed to it.

Your boss tells you these have to go out in the mail today.

So you look at the pile of envelopes, the address labels, the letter that need to be folded, the map card, and the pieces of the booklet that need to be assembled. And you think to yourself what’s the best way to do this.

You have a couple of options; for one, You could fold all 500 letters first and get them out of the way, then fold each of the three sheets of paper that make up the booklet and be done with that part. Once folded you could then collate them all, then punch the two holes in the whole lot, then cut 500 pieces of ribbon to the right length, then bind all 500 booklets with the ribbon tying a nice bow in each. The booklets would then be done. You could then take the envelopes one at a time and stuff in all the letters, then stuff in all the map cards, and finally stuff in all the booklets. With that all done, you could then seal all the envelopes and finally affix an address label to each one and you’d be done.

Sounds like a daunting task.

The other option is to fold one letter and put it in an envelope along with a map card, then gather the three sheets for the booklet, fold them, punch the two holes, cut a piece of ribbon and bind the booklet with a nice bow, and put it in the envelope. Finally you could seal the envelope and affix an address label to it.

You would now have one envelope ready and 499 to go.

So which of these methods sounds like the most efficient way to go about it? Most people would choose the first, thinking it faster to fold all the letters first and so on. But in fact the second method if fastest and it’s been proven. Don’t believe me? Search for one piece flow on Youtube and you’ll find plenty of examples of why doing things one at a time is faster and more efficient.

But what it comes down to in my examples is how many times you need to touch each piece. In my first option, you folded all the letters and then put them down, later you needed to pick up each letter again to put it in an envelope which adds time. In the second option you picked up a letter, folded it and put it in an envelope, you only handled it once.

The added benefit of the second option if you find out right away if there’s a problem. Imagine if you folded all the letters only to find out once you’re done that they didn’t fit in the envelopes? Using the second option you would know right away and you could adjust the way you fold the letters.

Ok Mark, this is all well and good but how often do we have to stuff envelopes?

Think of the strategy in this way. Imagine your boss, who knows you’re a hard worker, assigns you three projects to do. Let’s say it’s compiling efficiency reports for each of your company’s three branches. Each report is made up of 4 parts, Front office, manufacturing, packaging, and finally distribution. And you know from experience that each part takes roughly 2 hours to complete.

You could start off by compiling the front office report for branch A. After 2 hours you feel like your on a roll with front office so you decide to do that report for branch B. Two hours later you do the same report for branch C.

Now you’re a dedicated worker and don’t take any breaks so you move right along and start the manufacturing report for branch A.

At the end of the day your boss comes to see how you’re doing. You tell him you have more than a quarter of the job done and you go home.

On day two you work on manufacturing for branches B & C and then do the packaging reports for branches A & B.

Again your boss asks and you tell him your two thirds of the way done.

On day three, you complete the packaging reports for branch C and do all three distribution reports.

At the end of the day you bring all three reports to your boss and he thanks you for your hard work.

That was option A. Now let’s look at option B.

On Day one you hunker down and concentrate on branch A working on all four sections one after the other. At the end of the day your boss checks in on you and you hand him the completed report on branch A.

You do the same on day two for branch B and the finish with branch C on day three, handing your reports in at the end of each day.

At the end of the project, all three reports are completed and turned in regardless of the method you chose. But chances are your boss will be much more impressed with your work if you used option 2 and did each report one at a time. For one thing, completing tasks makes you look competent. Plus your boss can go through the first report while you’re working on the second. This way he does’t feel like he’s waiting. If he notices something wrong with the efficiency of branch A, he can act sooner to fix the issue than if you had given him all three reports on the third day. And that could add up to cost savings for the company.

All this to say that when given a choice, you should try to work one task through to the end before moving on to the next one.

Here’s what I learned.
I mentioned a couple of episodes ago when I talked about S.M.A.R.T. Goals that I’m starting a graphic design podcast at the end of the month to go along with my blog. BTW, shameless plug here, if you know any graphic or web designers please tell to visit resourcefuldesigner.com/podcastlaunch to be notified when I launch the podcast.

There are a lot of different steps involved when starting a new podcast. I needed to secure hosting for it. I needed to create the podcast artwork, and believe me, just because I’m a graphic designer doesn’t mean that part was easy. I readily admit that I’m my own worst critic and am never satisfied with anything I design for myself.

Besides that, I needed to pick music for my podcast intro, and come up with several topics for my first few episodes.

I made a list of all the things I needed to do, and with a launch deadline approaching I got to work on that list. And just like I talked about a few minutes ago, I worked on each task one at a time. I first signed up for hosting for the podcast so that I could scratch that off my list. I then got to work finding the perfect music for my intro. While doing this I had ideas going through my head for my podcast artwork but I didn’t want to start on that until I settled on my music.

It was tough. I get so excited when I work on something like this that I want to do everything all at once. But I know that if I do then nothing will get done, or it will, but more slowly and I won’t have any way of measuring my progress.

So I listened to dozens of possible music clips before narrowing it down to a few. I sent them to a couple of friends to get their opinions before finally settling on the one I’ll use and scratching that off my list.

Only then did I start on the artwork.

Slowly my list is getting smaller and smaller. Which makes me feel better about the approaching deadline I’ve set for myself. As launch day draws nearer I can look at my list and tell myself with confidence that I’ll be ready.

Working on each task one at a time has allowed me that piece of mind.

I take the same approach with my business. I only work on a fixed number of client projects at any given time and never more than two websites at a time. If someone comes to me with a new project, I inform them right at the start where they sit in my workload and when they can expect me to start working on their job.

This allows me to focus my attention on my few current jobs instead of dividing it amongst many. I’ve been doing this for the past 10 years and it’s always worked for me.

So wether you’re stuffing envelopes or compiling reports for your boss at work. Or learning to play an instrument, or taking up a new hobby.

Whatever you do, remember it’s much more efficient if you do it one at a time.

I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

I would love to know what you though of this episode. Share on our Facebook group at Facebook.com/groups/stuffilearnedyesterday. Join the conversation.

You can Follow Golden Spiral Media on Twitter at GSMPodcasts and Facebook.com/GoldenSpiralMedia. If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.

[sc:stuff]