Source: http://mikekim.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/basketball-pivot.jpg
In the book Getting To Like by Jeremy Goldman (@jeremarketer) and Ali B. Zagat (@alibzagat), the authors talk about the art of the pivot. Basketball fans know that a pivot is used when the player with the basketball can move in any direction to avoid the opponent, by moving with their planted foot on the court.
The book talks about using a pivot as a branding move, to switch from where you are, to where you want to be, career-wise. My example today is how to pivot from one task to another, to make your workday seem orchestrated and easily flow.
My book Avoid Chaos! touches on a variety of things that Not-For-Profit (NFP) leaders face. These issues are not exclusive to the NFP world, but they're more amplified due to the funding challenges that NFPs face.
When you face challenges, wouldn't you like to have control over how you deal with them? Otherwise, you are in constant firefighting mode, and trust me that will grow old (and make you old) pretty fast.
My free e-book on a successful morning (free, if you subscribe to my e-mails) talks about structuring your routines. Pivoting from task to task will also help you in managing your day more effectively.
I'm a big fan of batch processing tasks. It's taken me years to master this, and I still stumble from time to time, as other people's urgency can be hard to filter out from your day. Life moves in rhythm, and so should your day!
As I type this post, I know I have e-mails sitting in my inbox. The old version of me would literally freak out that there's an unread notification on my phone, or in the tab on my browser. I've learned to disable notifications on my phone (Pro Tip: Do that now, please, and come back to this post.)
Now, I let the unread e-mails stay unread until it's time for me to read them. I love e-mail over phone calls because I have greater control over when to address that item. I pivot from using a triage method to review my calendar, to looking at e-mails. If the message requires a response, I do so when I read them. If it requires me to do some additional work or research, such as working out the right sales objection handling response, then I file it in a folder called Priority. If it's an FYI-only type of e-mail, then it goes in there and quite frankly, probably won't be viewed again.
If it's a task that I've completed, then I move the message to complete. I've pivoted the message from new, to one of those 3 categories.
I've experimented with not responding to an e-mail until the next day if I don't feel a response is needed the same day. This requires training your audience to know that you won't respond same day. If the sender requests a quicker response, depending on the request I may respond. I control my response times, not them.
Now if you're dealing with customers, respond fast, and personally. Show you're human.
You can reach out to me on Twitter (@bfastleadership) and let me know how you pivot through your day.
