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Disclaimer
The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dermot Crowley is a productivity author, speaker, coach, trainer and thought leader. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and moved to Sydney, Australia, in 1993.
He has more than twenty years' experience working in the productivity training industry and has run his own business, Adapt Training Solutions, since 2002.
His passion for helping modern executives work more productively with their technology has led him to work with many senior executives and leadership teams in organisations such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Citi, Deloitte, Allens Linklaters and KPMG.
Dermot lives with his family in sunny Sydney. When not training or writing, he can be found coaching cricket or playing over-35s soccer on the weekends.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So I have written a book. This is an achievement that I am enormously proud of. But as with anything, the great things that we do in life are likely to involve a support cast that inspires, encourages and pushes us. Here are my thanks and dedications.
To my partner Jane, who has always helped me to stay grounded and to cut out the BS. I could never have written this without your love, support and encouragement. To my son, Finn. You were a baby when I first dreamed of this book, and now you are taller than me. What took me so long, I hear you ask.
Tony, thank you for many years of support and inspiration. Thank you to my mentor and friend, Matt Church. Matt challenged me to write this book, and shone the light on the path for me. I will always be grateful. Thanks to Peter Cook, who helped create an environment that challenged me and many others to give it a go, without fear of failure. And thank you to all of my thought leader companions who are sharing the journey with me, striving to be the leading thinkers in their fields.
Michael, thank you for your patience and brilliance in bringing my ideas to life with your hand-crafted graphics. Lastly, thank you to Lucy, Chris, Jem and all at Wiley for trusting that I could deliver, and making my words and ideas bigger and better.
PREFACE
In July 2001 I excitedly (and nervously) started my own business, Adapt Training Solutions. I had a vision and was confident that I could make it come alive. Fourteen years later and I am still bringing that vision to life.
My vision was to help corporate executives to harness the power of their technology and to work more productively in a rapidly changing workplace. A workplace that was becoming busier, increasingly pressured and more and more urgently driven. The email workplace.
My business name, Adapt, had been suggested by a friend. It was short and snappy and seemed a perfect fit. I did not think too much about any deeper meaning. Adapt it was. Over the years I have thought hard about what I do, about the true value of what I bring to my clients. During that time I have come to realise that I could not have picked a more apt business name. Most people would place my brand of training, coaching and speaking in the categories of productivity, time management and email management, as I did for many years. I have now come to realise that my passion sits at a level above these labels. I believe that my calling is to help people to adapt. And we need to adapt now more than ever.
We are now at one of those critical turning points in the evolution of the workplace. We are working in what some have labelled the Third Industrial Revolution. The first was launched by the mechanisation of the textile industry in Britain. The second saw manufacturing techniques vastly accelerate due to the brilliance of the likes of Henry Ford. The third (also known as the Digital Revolution) saw computers change the face of the modern workplace.
Computers have made it so much easier to do many of our daily tasks, allowing us to communicate faster with more people and to expand our workplaces from local to global. But these changes have meant more pressure, tighter deadlines and more work for most of us. Recognising this, I decided that I needed to go beyond teaching the basic time management principles that were relevant in the workplace of old. I needed to help my clients to adapt to the new workplace, and that meant learning to harness the power of the technologies that were changing our world. It also meant working smarter in this challenging new workplace.
In Smart Work I explore how we can adapt to a new way of working and organising in the digital age. My aim is to provide a simple, practical guide to working productively in today's workplace. Smart Work delivers a practical approach to productivity and clearly addresses the issues that modern executives and workers face every day.
It does not set out to explain the psychology of productivity or base its recommendations on scientifically researched studies. It simply suggests a range of practical solutions that work, and attempts to link the theory of productivity to the technology that we are already using every day.
Read this book from cover to cover if you are interested in a comprehensive approach to personal productivity using technology. Or dip in and grab an idea or strategy that you can implement straight away. But know this: if you do not adapt, you will be left behind, drowning in unprocessed emails, overwhelmed by your workload and feeling like you are getting nowhere in this brave new world.
It is time for smart work.
INTRODUCTION
The workplace has changed. How we work has changed. The pace of business has changed. How we communicate has changed, and the tools we are using to organise ourselves have changed. It stands to reason that we need to adapt our work practices to deal with these changes.
Productivity in the 21st century
From a productivity standpoint, our workplaces have seen massive changes over the past 30 years (see figure A, overleaf). The tools we use to organise our work have shifted from paper diaries to personal desktop organisers to sophisticated group scheduling systems. We have progressively moved from a paper-driven workplace, to an electronic workplace with a computer on every desk and handheld devices to help us stay organised.
The
