At the conference I mentioned in the last post, I had a chance to lead a really fun breakout session called "Eliminating the Noise - Separating the Important from the Urgent". As I thought about the session, I thought about the IMPAX Process and Beyond Selling Value, where we make the point that the process isn't rocket science. What we've done is take the things that effective value-oriented BD professionals do by instinct and put these things into a process so they are done by design. I warned the group that nothing I would be sharing was rocket science. Instead, they were tried and true ideas that they were already familiar with and in many cases, doing by instinct.

One of the first questions I asked the group was, "What is the noise in your work world - the urgent things that get in the way of you getting the important things done?" Guess what the #1 response was. Of course it was email! Many other things were mentioned, like personal issues, social media, conference calls and meetings that aren't applicable to getting the job done... It seems that identifying the "noise" is one of the first keys to eliminating it.

Here are a couple of interesting statistics I came across while preparing for the session:

• Fortune magazine did a study and concluded that fantasy football costs U.S. employers over $200 million per year in lost productivity. They also felt that number was low, as it was based on an assumption that the average player spent 10 minutes per day on their team.
• Salary.com's 4th annual Wasting Time at Work study reveals that 64% of us waste one hour or less a day at work; 22 % waste approximately 2 hours a day; and 14% admit to wasting 3 or more hours on a daily basis. Thirty three percent of survey respondents cited socializing with co-workers as a time waster, second only to surfing the web.
• Research indicates that as many as 42% of those surveyed cite attending meetings as a waste of time. It is estimated that 50% of all time spent in meetings is wasted.
• According to a recent article in the Business Insider War Room, 48% of employees surveyed admit to surfing the Internet for personal use.

There really is a lot of noise out there!