ANSWER: One bite at a time!

Accomplishing an objective is like eating an elephant. Identifying the activities required to accomplish an objective is critical. Projects such as complete the expansion plan, write a research paper for supply chain management, study for the history test, or clean the apartment have little meaning. Be more specific. What are the specific activities that must be performed to accomplish these projects?

List those activities that should be accomplished today. Do not start too many different and unrelated activities at one time. It is far better to focus your attention on a complete project and devote enough time to completing the project or a major activity of the project than to do a little of a lot of different activities simultaneously (multitasking). We discussed the problems of multitasking (briefly defined, it is moving back and forth across several different tasks at one time) in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 on project management.

3. Prioritize the activities based on causal dependencies (what must be done first, second, etc.), urgency, importance, timing, ease of completion, efficiency, distastefulness, or some other basis.

Do not over-prioritize. Some activities are urgent, while others are important. Some require starting at a specific time; some require large segments of time; and others require many small segments of time over a long period. Still others, while important, require little or no time. Remember your life goals and supporting objectives: Are you doing activities that move you toward these ends? The objective of prioritizing tasks is to remain flexible to respond to problems and opportunities.

4. Estimate the resources (time, materials, and equipment) required.

Estimate the resources required for each project to be completed. For example, to complete the expansion project report, you will have to set up an appointment with the contractor, you have to get estimates of equipment investment, you have to get permits, etc. To set up the project plan, you will have to set up a meeting with several different people. This part of the assignment will take approximately 4 hours, and the actual meeting to develop the project plan will take another 4 hours. Your capacity plan indicates 4 hours of work this week in setting up the meeting and the actual meeting scheduled for late next week.

5. Compare the resources required to the resources available.

Once you have a good idea of the resources required for an activity or project, you have to compare these estimates to the resources available. You might have 4 hours available this week and another 4 hours available late next week for the meeting. You probably need another 2 hours to prepare for the meeting early next week.

6. Develop a simple plan for accomplishing your activities.

Keep the plan simple (it can be a simple "to-do" list)! This plan entails identifying tentative dates and times for initiating each activity. When can you fit the 4 hours for contacting the project team? While you have 4 hours available tonight, most team members are working; therefore, you can't use this time for setting up the project meeting. What high priority work can you accomplish this evening related to school? To complete your plan, you need to identify the next priority item on your "to-do" list. You must ensure that resources are available when needed. The simple buffered "to-do" list discussed later in this chapter has proven highly effective for most students and managers.

7. Focus on the activity at hand. Find a quiet place and time to perform critical tasks.

Do it and move on to the next item on your "to-do" list. Do not multitask on important tasks. Eliminate distractions.

Focus, focus, focus! Clearly define the objective of the task and have all the materials needed to complete the task-then do it. Put yourself at a time and in a place that minimizes interruptions. Turn off your cell phone, the television, the radio, etc. This helps prevent multitasking.

8. As activities are accomplished, delayed, changed, and eliminated, adjust your list accordingly.

Check your plan ("to-do" list) frequently. When you complete an activity, mark it as complete. When you start or complete an unplanned activity, check the plan to see if you need to change or reprioritize activities. Murphy strikes! Murphy is the fictitious character who always disrupts plans. Murphy is alive and well and loves to create havoc with your plans. Any number and type of disruptions can wreck your plans. The objective in developing your plan is to recognize that Murphy will strike, and despite all good intentions, you cannot execute the plan exactly as established. Flexibility is the key-the ability to adjust your "to-do" list accordingly.

Using Buffer Management to Increase Your Effectiveness

Buffering is a critical activity that few people perform. Buffering your schedule can help you plan and control your daily activities in moving closer to your short-term objectives. Buffering protects the schedule from constant disruptions. Your "to-do" list incorporates the functions of priority and capacity planning and control. More importantly, it is based on time being a precious commodity and focuses on its effective use.

Let's examine this buffering concept in detail. Your time is precious and your goal is to have a higher quality of life. You need to accomplish work, academic, social, family, service, and personal activities to accomplish this goal. You devote a certain number of hours each day, say, 10 hours, to accomplishing these activities. While you may work 10 hours a day, you may accomplish more or less than 10 hours of work-more by working faster than usual or less by having more interruptions than usual. You may estimate that you have 4 hours of work in calling project members to set up your expansion project, but you were able to complete the work in 2 hours. You consumed 4 hours of forecasted work; therefore, you need to have additional work available to start on or you will not take advantage of the 2-hour savings in actual time. If you never take advantage of time savings and you always suffer the consequences of delays and interruptions (Murphy), then you will always be behind your schedule.

The "buffer" is the amount of work (measured in time) you have planned and with you, ready to be worked on in case Murphy strikes and you cannot perform the next scheduled task. The objective of a buffer is to increase your effectiveness by planning to have the next activity (work) available to you when you complete your current activity. Additionally, the second highest priority activity should also be present in case an interruption prevents you from proceeding on the planned activity. In fact, a couple of hours of high priority work should always be available for you to perform. Most people plan for only the current activity, and when Murphy strikes, they end up wasting the time allocated to that task because they did not plan effectively.

For capacity control purposes, the buffer should be divided into three regions (similar to the traffic light colors)-red (eminent tasks, the task that should be worked on from the present to the next few hours), yellow (lower priority tasks), and green (tasks to be performed later in the day). These regions are sometimes called region 1, 2, and 3. Region (red) contains the immediate activities to be performed; region 2 (yellow), the later priority activities; and region 3 (green), the last activities of those to be performed during the buffer period. Activities in region 1 are performed first, and as performed, activities from region 2 and 3 move up in priority and are performed as sequenced. If, for some reason, you cannot manage an activity in sequence, then move to the next activity in priority sequence and perform the skipped activity when you get a chance.

An example of the buffered "to-do" list is provided in Fig. 38-6. First, you have to prioritize your activities (priority planning) and estimate their time duration (capacity planning). Notice several items (meetings, classes, appointments) in the list are time related. Next, you have to identify any requirements for accomplishing the activity (e.g., files, reports, books, notes, and meeting and class times). List the activities in priority sequence with any known requirements and the estimated capacity required (time) to complete the activity. The buffer has arbitrarily been set at approximately 15 hours of work (from leaving home in the morning to returning at night), with each of the three regions (red, yellow, and green) containing approximately 5 hours. You initially indicated spending about 10 hours per day working on your activities, but Monday is a particularly heavy day. You, in fact, will be away from your apartment for 15 hours. The buffer is set larger than this time period to ensure that if Murphy strikes (e.g., the boss is busy and reschedules or your production meeting is canceled), you won't run out of work before you return to your apartment. Priority control (sticking to the plan) is accomplished as time progresses.

FIGURE 38-6 An example of a buffered "to-do" list.

Suppose your boss calls and reschedules your 8 AM meeting for 10 AM. You can check your "to-do" list, move your task of working on the month resource plan to 8 AM, and then go to the meeting with your boss. As time progresses, you also have to make adjustments to your capacity estimates-you estimated 2 hours to complete your work on the resource plan, but suppose after 2 hours you still have 20 minutes of work left. You decide to reschedule your lunch for 12:30 and finish the resource plan prior to lunch. You call Ann to reschedule and ask her to order your lunch when she places her order.

Notice that as you performed activities, you progressed down the list with activities in region 1 (red), which has the highest priority for your time. If you could not accomplish an activity in order, you moved on to the next highest activity in which you could meet the requirement.

Buffer Management is a simple approach to increasing your effectiveness because it provides a time buffer of activities at your disposal. Be assured, Murphy will always strike, so you must be prepared. The key is always to have the next highest priority activities available to be worked on just in case something does not go as planned. Failure to buffer your work results in unplanned idle time, working on unimportant activities, and having the wrong items to complete an activity. At the end of the day, you should examine your buffer list to plan your next day's activities. If you did not complete your list of activities, remember that you have accomplished the most important ones. You should move any incomplete activities to the next day and prioritize them based on planned activities listed in your daily planner for the next day. An additional purpose of BM is to identify the cause of disruptions to your schedule. An analysis of the causes of disruptions should be performed to identify which causes (maybe, your cell phone, or watching TV while you study) must be addressed to improve overall performance.

Don't be discouraged if you only accomplish half of the activities listed in your buffered "to-do" list. You have to learn to estimate your capacity for completing activities, and more importantly, you have to learn how to control interruptions. Interruptions are a fact of life. Some are uncontrollable and disrupt your schedule totally. Planning to finish your activities ahead of time is actually a method of buffering these activities against interruptions. Suppose your MBA team project is due next Friday (recall you have a busy Friday planned already), you discuss with your team tonight the possibility of completing and turning in the project by Wednesday evening. This gives you a two-day completion buffer for your team report.

Several other guidelines for managing your time effectively are provided here.

Set aside some quiet time for thinking and planning.

Identify your creativity or energy cycle. Protect creative hours from interruptions.

Schedule (sequence) the entire day, not just appointments.

Have specific, realistic, attainable, and measurable activities to be completed in your time buffer.

Eliminate or screen interruptions. (Cut off your cell; put a "do not disturb" sign on the door.) Find a quiet, isolated place to work on those critical projects.

Group errands-getting items from grocery store, bookstore, and library. Travel times may outweigh activity times.

Gain control-most individuals plan well, but they fail to execute.

Establish daily, weekly, monthly, and annual objectives linked to your life goals.

Set measurable objectives.

Measure progress toward your objectives.

Recognize that work requires focus, concentration, motivation, and time. If you cannot apply the first three requirements, then significantly more time is required.

Eliminate multitasking as much as possible. Start and finish a task; the preparation for completing a task in many cases exceeds the time to complete the task. Starting over requires repetition of this timely preparation.

Always have additional high priority work available to substitute where Murphy strikes and the completing of a scheduled task is delayed or when you finish a task ahead of time.

Allow and schedule time for high priority activities that support your short-term objectives and goals in each dimension of your life-self, family, friends/community, work, and professional. A balance is required for effectiveness, satisfaction, and productivity.

Reward yourself. Plan a rewarding activity for the completion of a difficult activity or a successful week. The reward might be as simple as a night out or a weekend trip with friends. Push to finish tasks before leaving so that the reward is meaningful.

Using the Thought Processes to Achieve Life Goals

This section presents one of the first applications of Goldratt's TP to achieve one's life goals. In 1992, after attending a workshop on the TP taught by Dr. Goldratt, I (Jim Cox) came back to campus with the idea of teaching these tools to my Advanced Operations Management class. I wanted to attack what I thought was one of the biggest barriers for students-personal productivity. I felt that the tools were extremely powerful in providing students a framework for logical analysis of any problem. What better area to study than keeping the many challenges of student life in balance?

After I made the assignment of using the TP to improve personal productivity, Sheila Taormina came to my office and asked not to have to do the assignment. Sheila was an exceptional student-swimming several hours every day, maintaining a near 4.0 grade point average, and active in numerous student organizations as an officer. Instead of analyzing her personal productivity, Sheila wanted to analyze her swimming. I really didn't have much hope in convincing her that she needed to study her productivity. However, I was somewhat perplexed at the time. I can't even float, so how was I going to help her analyze her swimming? She was an All-American swimmer! I verbalized my concerns, but agreed, knowing that she was not trying to get out of work, but really wanted to learn something that might help her swimming career. This story is the result of that "personal productivity" project.

Sheila's Story

By Sheila Taormina

In November of 1996, I opened the doors to my very first house. I certainly did not have much furniture to fill the rooms, but I did have a van-load of boxes containing mostly knick-knacks that I had collected throughout my college years at the University of Georgia. As I came across the box filled with my old college papers (the ones I saved that I thought would be fun to look over in future years), I remembered a project I had done, and I prayed it would be in the box.

There it was . . . MAN 577, Spring 1992, Dr. James Cox, Personal Productivity Analysis. A flood of emotions came over me because I knew that the work that went into this project was the catalyst that led me to a dream come true. As I read the pages, I relived every feeling that I had in 1992-a time in my life that was filled with questions and anxiety, but most of all a fearful kind of hope. Now, in order to understand the rest of this true story, you will need some background information that will take you to the point of the spring of 1992 when I wrote my paper for Dr. Cox.

I have been on a swim team since the age of six, and in 1988 and 1992 I qualified to compete in the Olympic Swimming Trials. I was 18 years old in 1988 and 22 years old in 1992, which typically are the peak years of swimming for females; however, I missed making the Olympic team both times. I was not disappointed in failing to make the team though, because I never expected to make it. After all, I believed that the people who make the Olympics are a level above all of us average people . . . they have some special talents.

My plans were to retire from the sport of swimming after the 1992 trials, but when my friend made the team to Barcelona that year, it was as if a light bulb went off in my head. I suddenly realized that I had been defeating myself all of these years before even stepping up to the starting blocks. My friend was not superhuman; he had no special talents! I immediately had a desire to make an attempt at the 1996 team.

My problem was that I was already 23 years old, so if I stayed around for four more years I would be 27-a dinosaur in the world of women's swimming. In addition, I was finished with my collegiate athletic eligibility, so I would have to support myself financially. My biggest dilemma was figuring out a way to drop three seconds in my 200-meter freestyle in order to get a fast enough time that I thought would have a reasonable shot at making the Olympic team. If you know anything about competitive swimming, then you know that three seconds is quite a bit of time to drop.

I was not guaranteed that dropping three seconds would be fast enough anyway because what I was doing was very similar to a sales forecast for a business. I looked at the history of women's swimming and figured that a 2:00 (two minutes even) was a safe bet, but as every business manager knows, forecasts are not always reliable!

I suppose, however, that my philosophy amidst all of this fear and questioning was, "I just do not want to look back 50 years from now and wonder 'what if . . .?'" The one thing I knew for sure was that I needed to return to Georgia and finish my last quarter in order to get my bachelors degree (specializing in Production/Operations Management). I enrolled in my final three classes, one of those being Management 577 with Dr. Cox. I had taken a few production management courses with Dr. Cox already, and he was always understanding of my swimming schedule.

We started the quarter learning the fundamental productivity tools: Current and Future Reality Trees, Evaporating Clouds, Transition Trees, and Prerequisite Trees. Our first assignment was to apply these tools to a situation in our personal lives, a personal productivity analysis. Of course, the first and only thought to come to my mind was, "How do I get faster to have a chance at making the '96 teams? What have I done incorrectly in the past, and how do I change that?"

This assignment was in-depth, and I loved every minute of it. I knew that it would help me identify the track I needed to take for reaching my goal. I spent many days after class asking Dr. Cox for help in preparing my tools correctly. He helped to point out the missing links in my thought process. As my Current Reality Tree was beginning to come together, I started building confidence in myself. The most amazing realization was that my core problems were not larger than life!

The following pages are the actual paper that I wrote in 1992.

Personal Productivity

Sheila Taormina Man 577, Dr. Cox Spring, 1992 Here was the scene: There was a fireworks display in the Natatorium while the National Anthem played in the background. A huge American flag dropped from the ceiling and the people inside erupted as the 41 members of the United States Swimming Olympic Team paraded around the pool. It was a send-off for the swimmers who will be going to Barcelona.

I thought that I would retire from swimming after the Olympic Trials in March, 1992. Even though I tried to convince myself that I could make the team to Barcelona, deep inside I had no confidence. When the trials were over, I could not bear the thought that I had just posted some personal best times in two of my events and was going to quit swimming while I had the opportunity to learn more and improve. I have found it interesting to complete a Thought Process Analysis for a personal problem, and it helps me to understand why it is essential that business entities should look deeply into the problems which face them. I always believed that there was no need for a business to constantly strive to be the leader in the industry, because, as long as a profit was made, then what is the big deal about claiming the number one position? This personal analysis has made me realize why businesses compete on a continuous basis. One competitive disadvantage can be the difference between reaching a goal or not, and when a few of those disadvantages are put together, it is sometimes amazing that a company or individual is still in the game at all.

I think that I stayed in swimming after the trials because I was still learning in each practice how to improve, and I wanted to give myself the chance to use what I learned. I am 23 years old now, and although most female swimmers peak from the ages 1820, I have been able to break the tradition through a process of continuous improvement. I also believe that there is another reason why I am still swimming, which is the fact that I am enjoying it so much right now, and I am finally seeing the results of many years of hard work pay off.

My hard work is paying off in more ways than one. I believe that the countless yards/meters I trained during my high school and college years have formed an aerobic base on which I can rely. Now I need to refocus my energy on improving in the areas which I have not worked on a great deal in the past eight years. Before I go into a detailed analysis, I would like to direct any readers who are not familiar with swimming jargon to refer to the Appendix entitled, "Definitions." (Not included) Also, there is one other clarification I need to state: in manufacturing, efficiencies can be considered a negative measure unless used at the constraint; however, I speak of efficiency in swimming as a positive measure. When I refer to it in this paper, I am speaking in terms of technique, such as streamlining in the water, hand pitch and hand entry in the water, elbow position, head position, and shoulder roll. An efficient stroke allows the swimmer to have "easy power."

It happens that my technique in swimming is average, but I have found it to be a negative effect. Other negative effects, some of which I could identify off the top of my head and others which I never thought of until they appeared in the Current Reality Tree (Fig. 38-7), include: (1) I am not as powerful as other female swimmers, (2) I do not have adequate flexibility, (3) I am dehydrated often, (4) I do not get a good night sleep often, (5) I am afraid to race the top swimmers in the world, because I do not think that I can win, and (6) I am not ranked as high in the world as I would like to be or have the capability to be.

FIGURE 38-7 Current Reality Tree of Sheila's swimming.

The negative effects listed above are a portion of what I have in my Current Reality Tree, and there are seven core problems that I have identified as causing the undesirable results. The core problems are: 1. I think of the things that worry me before going to bed, 2. I am stressed during the day to accomplish many tasks, 3. I pay too much attention to what other swimmers do in practice when I should be paying attention to my own swimming, 4. I push beyond my physical limit in practice sometimes, 5. I never remember to carry a water bottle, 6. I do not take time to stretch, and 7. I am afraid to suggest a type of training to my coach even when I think that I need it. (Paraphrased from tree where the core problems are shown in bold.) *

The connection among the core problems and negative effects is as follows: If I think of things that worry me before going to bed, then I am not relaxed when I go to bed. If I am not relaxed before bed, then I do not get a good night's sleep and am not rested well for practice the next day. The second core problem of lacking focus during the day causes a lack of focus and concentration in practice. If I do not concentrate, then my technique is poor. In swimming, it is difficult to maintain the correct technique when you are tired or not focused on your stroke. The third problem of paying too much attention to other swimmers and not enough to my own swimming causes me to lose the necessary concentration on my stroke. The fourth core problem of pushing beyond a certain training limit causes two negative effects to take different paths. The first part is that I have a lack of energy when my body is broken down, and my stroke efficiency once again suffers. The second path is that my body takes a long time to recover when I break it down too far. If my body takes a long time to recover, then I may not be able to perform well for the next practice. In fact, I have been so broken down before that I could not keep up with the team in practice for three weeks. I finally took four days away from any type of training and was able to recover. The next two core problems of lack of stretching and lack of water bottles both lead to a less than optimal performance in a competition. Stretching is essential for competitive swimmers as it is for most athletes, and each athlete should stretch for 2030 minutes per day. When I forget my water bottles every day, then I am dehydrated, which is dangerous for training. The negative effect is the same as before . . . I do not reach my optimal training performance nor do I reach my optimal competition performance.

The final core problem is the most difficult to overcome in my opinion, and it leads to many negative effects of my current situation. I am afraid to suggest a different type of training to my coaches because I do not want to show disrespect for their scheduled workouts. However, I feel as though their workouts were exactly what I needed up until this stage of my swimming career. When I do not communicate with my coaches about practice, then I work on the wrong things. If I work on the wrong things, then I am not improving in my swimming. If I do not improve, then I do not reach my optimal performance. Furthermore, if I am working on the wrong things (such as aerobic base), then I lack the necessary power I need for the 200 meter freestyle (the event which I feel I have the most potential). If I lack the necessary power for the 200 free, then the first half of my race is going to be slow. When I am too slow in the front half of my race, then I get caught behind the other swimmers' wake and have a difficult time passing them in the second half of the race.

These negative effects can be eliminated if I could effectively implement a plan to change my core problems into positive actions. Before developing an implementation plan, I have constructed a Future Reality Tree (Fig. 38-8) to see the effects of making the core problems into positive actions. The ultimate result is a reverse of the negative effects in the Current Reality Tree. One comment I must make here is that the Future Reality Tree indicates that I will reach my optimal performance. I cannot be guaranteed that my optimal potential performance will take me to my goal of improving my world ranking to the top eight. Furthermore, I must be careful that inertia does not set in. I could focus too much on training for a power base and completely ignore my aerobic base. I am aware that my aerobic base will be lost if I neglect it; therefore, my training will always include adequate work in this area.

FIGURE 38-8 Future reality tree of Sheila's swimming.

The Evaporating Clouds in Figs. 38-9 through 38-12 mainly challenge the assumptions by which coaches and swimmers have always lived. The conditioning of an athlete includes many different objectives, including physical and mental training. A plan of action is necessary in order to measure how effective the training schedule is during the different times of the season. The key to success lies in developing an intelligent plan of action which breaks away from the old paradigm that the more yards/meters a swimmer does, the better that swimmer will be. A coach and swimmer must develop the plan together in order to have input from both sides.

When the assumptions of the clouds are understood and managed in a beneficial way, I must begin to plan the actions to take in following through with my goals. The Transition Tree and Implementation Plan at the end of the paper outline the steps to take to achieve my plan. A few obstacles which I may encounter are identified in the Prerequisite Tree (Fig. 38-13), but I have developed another set of objectives to overcome those obstacles. I feel that everything in my plan is feasible and will help me to reach my goals. See the I/O map in Fig. 38-14. The interesting part of all of this is that I will be willing to bet that the negative actions which I have been doing require more energy than do the positive actions. I have not reached my peak yet, and I will keep searching for ways to climb up the ladder of world rankings.

FIGURE 38-9 EC of training hours dilemma.

Sheila's Epilogue

I took this paper very seriously. I implemented the solutions, but it was not without challenges. I followed through with addressing every issue at some point before 1996. Some areas take more effort to correct than others do. For instance, drinking water in order to stay hydrated was much easier to implement than the visualization techniques and positive thinking. I did not wake up one day a positive thinker! The process developed over time with practice.

The benefit that individuals will see the most from doing a productivity analysis is the identification of core problems and a logical way to find a win-win solution. Implementation depends on the conviction of the individual. I was determined to follow through with every effort in order to realize my positive effects. I moved home to Michigan in 1994 and trained with the coach I had been with since age nine, Greg Phil. Greg was not my first choice of a coach because the pool where he trains his swimmers is not a first-class facility with high-tech equipment. An interesting side story is that the team that I wanted to join in Colorado would not invest their time in me because they did not believe that I could make the team. Greg believed in my plan, and together we added what was needed that I had not yet identified. We even set a benchmark. It was simple: if I did not swim a 2:02 or better by the summer nationals in 1995, then we should put swimming behind us. Thank goodness, I swam a 2:02 that summer!

FIGURE 38-10 EC of the athlete's and coach's communication dilemma.