Tick Achieve How to get stuff done Kevin Duncan Cartoons by Gray Jolliffe

Tick Achieve How to get stuff done Kevin Duncan Cartoons by Gray Jolliffe

In my 25 years in business, I have never met anyone to match Kevin s extraordinary appetite for action. He does for business what Nike does for sport. Richard Hytner, Deputy Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide The need to get stuff done has never been more important in the world of 24/7 technology this book helps me have a more 12/7 life. Chris Macdonald, Managing Director, McCann Erickson I have been in hundreds of meetings where people talk for hours. It all sounds so persuasive, and yet several weeks later, still nothing has happened. Kevin nails the difference between talk and action. I would advise any executive in a company to read his suggestions for just getting on with it. Tom Hings, Director, Brand Marketing, Royal Mail Kevin brings energy and passion to skills and personal development. He shows creativity and innovation in his approach to helping people get things done. His ideas and concepts take projects forward and add great momentum. His pragmatic approach and focus on results add clear direction buy this book and learn. Marie Petts, Management Development Manager, News International

Getting stuff done has always been a bit of a problem in the ad industry. We re great at thinking about things and generally strategising whatever that means. We re also terrific at post rationalising and particularly post rationalising why something hasn t quite happened in the way that it should have. And of course we are consummate professionals at being late. Kevin s book provides a lot of hugely sensible disciplines some of which we probably know we should be applying (but probably aren t or certainly not consistently) and some of which will be new and more than a little handy in helping to get stuff done. In the modern world, when we can t get away with doing nothing immediately, Kevin s book is more than a little helpful. Jim Marshall, Chairman, Starcom Mediavest Group Kevin s book is fab! A delight to read, full of situations I recognise (and am sometimes quite guilty of creating) and it makes me smile. Anything that makes me sleep better and worry less gets my vote. Sue Farr, Director, Chime Communications plc

Tick Achieve

Tick Achieve How to get stuff done Kevin Duncan Cartoons by Gray Jolliffe

Copyright 2008 by Kevin Duncan First published in 2008 by Capstone Publishing Ltd. (a Wiley Company) The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, PO19 8SQ, UK. www.wileyeurope.com Email (for orders and customer service enquires): cs-books@wiley.co.uk The right of Kevin Duncan to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to permreq@wiley.co.uk, or faxed to ( 44) 1243 770571. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The Publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Other Wiley Editorial Offices John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA Jossey-Bass, 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741, USA Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, Boschstr. 12, D-69469 Weinheim, Germany John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, 42 McDougall Street, Milton, Queensland 4064, Australia John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd, 2 Clementi Loop #02-01, Jin Xing Distripark, Singapore 129809 John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd, 22 Worcester Road, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada M9W 1L1 Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duncan, Kevin, 1961- Tick achieve : how to get stuff done / Kevin Duncan ; cartoons by Gray Jolliffe. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-90646-527-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Time management. 2. Achievement motivation. I. Jolliffe, Gray. II. Title. HD69.T54.D86 2008 650.1'1 dc22 2008001336 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress. ISBN 13: 978-1-90646-527-8 Typeset by 11.5/14 ITC Garamond Light by Thomson Digital Printed and Bound in Great Britain by T J International Ltd, Padtow, Cornwall, UK Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Capstone Books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organizations. For details telephone John Wiley & Sons on ( 44) 1243-770441, fax ( 44) 1243 770571 or email corporatedevelopment@wiley.co.uk

To my mother Anne; my absolutely brilliant daughters Rosanna and Shaunagh; and Sarah Taylor, the Sleeping Lion. In memory of my father James Grant Duncan, 1923 1989.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to Richard Hytner for the Foreword. We have come some way since the days of the nursery. To Gray Jolliffe for the superb cartoons (and Sam for introducing us). For taking the time to read and comment on the first draft: Sue Farr, Tom Hings, Richard Hytner, Jim Marshall, Chris Macdonald and Marie Petts. A big thanks too to the team at Capstone, particularly to John Moseley for believing in my stuff. And finally, many thanks to the good people at The Week magazine ( All you need to know about everything that matters ) the source of the majority of the quotations in this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kevin Duncan worked in advertising and direct marketing for twenty years. For the last eight years he has worked on his own as a business adviser, marketing expert and author. He teaches at Canterbury University, and advises various businesses as a non-executive director, business strategist and trainer. He has two daughters, Rosanna and Shaunagh, and lives in Westminster. In his spare time he travels to strange parts of the world, releases rock albums and flies birds of prey. Also by Kevin Duncan: Teach Yourself Running Your Own Business Teach Yourself Growing Your Business So What? Start If you would like to be told of new titles by the author, or want to contact him: kevinduncan@expertadvice.co.uk expertadviceonline.com kevinduncan.typepad.com

FOREWORD In my 25 years in business, I have never met anyone to match Kevin s extraordinary appetite for action. He does for business what Nike does for sport. I first learned how effective he was when I shared a desk with him in The Nursery at Benton & Bowles, where we both started as advertising graduate trainees. We were separated only by a desk-long divider. We could hear but not see each other. Each night at 18.00 (on the dot), I would hear Kevin on his side of the partition chanting, Tick Achieve, Tick Achieve, Tick Achieve as if in some kind of trance. It took a fortnight for rampant curiosity finally to overcome Nursery etiquette as I sneaked a swift look over the top. There I glimpsed Kevin, contentment oozing from every pore, tick achieving, one by one, all the items on an immaculately laid out action list. I like him a lot now, but I hated him then. He s been tick achieving ever since. Not too long ago, I asked Kevin to help me teach the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising s Excellence Diploma module on Brand Leadership. Who better to inspire a group of talented youngsters in the art of getting stuff done? As he sat down after his master class, I said to him that he really should pass on the Duncan strand of Just Did It DNA to as many people as possible. I suggested he should write a book about it. I ll put it on my list, he said. He did. And, true to form, he got it done. Tick Achieve. Richard Hytner, Deputy Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide

CONTENTS 1. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE? 1 I m too busy, I m in a meeting. 2 Business intelligence? 2 Tick Achieve: what does it mean? 3 What does Tick Achieve not mean? 3 What is a tick? 4 What does achieve mean? 5 Achievement is not an endgame 6 Professional time wasting 6 Most businesspeople want to waste time 7 Seeing through the red mist 9 Addicted to work 9 The modern curse of WIP 10 Yes, but have you actually done it? 11 How to think more and worry less 11 How being organized lets you take it easy 11 Outcome not output 12 Action not activity 13 Cause and effect: first principles 13 If I do x, then y will happen 14 Most of what people do has nothing to do with the main point 14 What s on your list? 15 How to Tick Achieve 15 What s to come? 17

xvi / CONTENTS 2. TALKING STRAIGHT 19 People who are incapable of coming to the point are literally pointless 20 The new world of waffle 20 You can t think straight if you can t talk straight 21 The curse of internal waffle 22 Duckspeak and Birtspeak 22 There s waffle and there s strategic waffle 24 A strategy is simply when you have decided what to do 26 The rise of Offlish 26 Mission Incomprehensible 27 The fine art of business fiction 30 Spotting waffle 32 Understand how language works 33 Pleonasms and circumlocution 35 Permission to talk straight 36 If you must use jargon at work, do not use it at home 37 The mate, mum or grandmother test 37 How to talk straight 38 3. LEAVE IT OUT 39 Brevity equals intelligence 40 Less really is more 40 The Laws of Simplicity 41 How eliminating issues gets to faster answers 43 Does this need to be done at all? 44 Extraneous extraction 44 How leaving it out forces the issue 45 Reductionism: think harder and simplify everything 46 Boxy minds and why they help 46 Anti lists 48

CONTENTS / xvii Tasks do not improve in quality if they are delayed 49 Do less and get more done 49 Towards a manifesto for Tick Achieve 49 Say no more often 50 Debate hard and early 52 Have a system 53 Once you have written a task down you can forget about it 54 Trust your Depth Mind 54 Kick bad habits 55 Killer Questions 56 How to leave it out 57 4. ONE IN A ROW 59 Achievement does not have to be a relentless series of successes 60 The sublime accountant 60 Breaking big problems down 61 How to eat an elephant 62 Introducing mini steps 62 Rapid Sequential Tasking 63 The one-touch approach 65 Never touch a piece of paper or email more than once 65 An untidy desk used to betray disorganization now technology hides it 67 Think, do 67 Possible meanings of think 67 Possible meanings of do 68 Improving your time management 69 The curse of modern technology 71 Managing machines 72 Most of the people on any given street are moving without paying attention 72

xviii / CONTENTS Attention deficit syndrome 72 If you want to get something done, turn off your mobile or hand-held device 74 Hello Personal Organizer, goodbye Personal Assistant 74 The overnight test 75 Haste and regret 75 Emailed does not mean the job is done 76 Compress, excess and success 77 How to practice one in a row 77 5. TICK ACHIEVE 79 To tick off is to move on 80 The need for structure 81 Boxy minds and phrenologists 82 The art of great list writing 83 The PERFECT system 83 Personal priority 85 Emotional importance 86 Reason for doing 86 Financial value to you 87 Everyone else s priorities 87 Chronological sift 88 Time shifts 88 VPNs 89 The Priority Matrix 90 Bad lists and how to spot them 91 Don t talk about it: do it 92 Talk can be the enemy of action 92 The power of instinct 93 Views of the experts 94 Tick Achieve as a way of life 95 Just because a task is started, it doesn t mean it is finished 96

CONTENTS / xix A task is only finished when it is finished 96 How to Tick Achieve 96 6. LOOK LIVELY 99 Liveliness of the mind is more effective than any physical activity 100 The rigour of vigour 100 The more you do, the more you will get done 101 Energy and the art of effective activity 102 Getting your attitude right 103 Walk TALL 104 Conquering the quotidian 105 Liberate more time for the things that you find enjoyable 106 The joys of experimentation 107 Laziness vs. liveliness 108 When to do nothing 111 The value of self-editing 111 Quantity is no substitute for clarity 112 How to look lively 112 7. OUTTHINK YOURSELF 115 Knowing what you are unlikely to do can increase your likelihood of doing it 116 The art of anticipation 116 The excuse culture 117 Glossing, glazing and glozing 120 If you want to get something done, stick to the facts 120 Facing up to your failings 120 Being aware of your failings allows you to get more done 121 The art of outthinking yourself 121 Your locus of control 122

xx / CONTENTS Prearranging tripwires and fail-safes 123 Lateness 123 Everything last minute 124 Forget things completely 124 Can t remember names 124 Pretend the job is finished 125 Winning sportspeople have already pictured themselves winning 126 It s urgent pretend it s not 126 It s not urgent pretend it is 126 Recommending ratiocination 127 The one thing intelligent people know 128 How to outthink yourself 129 8. PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION 131 The fact that nothing is perfect needn t stop you making progress 132 Quantitative and qualitative perfection 133 Just doing it or doing it well? 134 Progress not perfection 135 Apogees and brobdingnagian achievements 136 Moments of greatness 138 Gaining control of yourself 140 What s happening? 143 Liminal limits 144 Dyspeptic diversions 145 How to make progress without perfection 146 9. MAKING BUSINESS TICK 149 Tick Achieve for businesses 150 Most organizations are not well organized 151 Panjandrums and pirates 151 The year that never is 154

CONTENTS / xxi No company workforce ever works effectively for twelve months of the year 154 A new manifesto for business 156 Smaller chunks 157 Long-term fiction 157 Decision windows 157 Are you deciding or just talking? 158 Crisis Bombs and how to predict them 158 Simplify everything 159 Monkey-free leisure time 159 Useless brainstorms 160 Meetings: who needs them? 161 The cult of the manager 163 How to make business tick 163 10. MAKE YOURSELF TICK 165 The complete Tick Achieve method 166 What makes you tick? 171 It is your responsibility to get things done not someone else s 172 Monkey on your shoulder? 172 Efficiency is a sophisticated form of laziness 173 In search of unworried Completer Finishers 174 How many hours in your life? 174 The one-page personal plan 175 Planning your year 176 Improve your ticker 177 Three final critical questions 177 How to make yourself tick 178 BIBLIOGRAPHY 181 APPENDIX 183 INDEX 219

Business 1 Intelligence?