Last Monday, I received an email reminder in my inbox, inviting me to take part in an upcoming training session. I have blogged before about some of the training opportunities that I have had since joining Accenture, but this particular course was a little different. The session was one of a series run by an external training company who provide a number of training opportunities to Accenture employees. This company runs a number of 90-minute so-called “mind workouts” on a number of topics, including people management, delegation, goal setting, time management and so on.

And the topic of the session last Friday: Getting Things Done.

When I received the reminder email I was actually in the process of avoiding what I knew would be quite a complicated and time-consuming task, choosing instead to browse the BBC News website. The topic of this training session therefore could not have been of more relevance for me, and so I eagerly signed up, hoping that I might learn a trick or two that would make me more productive and help me to avoid procrastination and make better use of my time.

When the time came on Friday, I walked across from my office in Fenchurch Street to another of our offices in Old Bailey, where the training session was to take place. On entering the meeting room I was pleased to see that several of my friends from BPO Mobilisation working on other projects also apparently needed some help “getting things done” – I did have a slight concern that I might be the only person to show up at this particular training session! However, in actual fact there was a good attendance of at least twenty people from BPO, AO and IO Mobilisation. And after the usual “icebreaker” activities and introductions, we got down to business.

The session was very interactive, with the facilitator expecting us to contribute a lot of our own experiences and ideas. One of the symptoms of procrastination is the so-called “Action Illusion”, whereby we busy ourselves with peripheral, often administrative tasks, rather than focusing on the core activities and tackling the more challenging work. Four other main symptoms were also discussed, but I felt that this was the main form that my procrastination takes, so I was able to share my experiences in this area with the other participants.

This was not just a talking shop – it did aim to provide practical remedies and tips that we could all use to help us get our work done faster and less stressfully. The most useful technique that I learned was the “5 minute rule”. In this approach, you agree with yourself that you will start a project or activity that you have been putting off for some time, committing to work solely on that task for a period of five minutes. Often, just by committing five minutes, it is possible to sketch the outline of a work plan, think about the best way to tackle a problem, or download a template and begin to create that document/report/analysis. After five minutes, when the initial reluctance to commence the task has been overcome, you make a decision whether to commit another five minutes to the task, and so on.

I must admit that I did not find the entire session of uniform interest. This was partly because I did not exhibit many of the other symptoms of procrastination which were discussed during the session, and so was less interested in their remedies. Also, some of the diagrams and theories shown to us, while rooted in psychological principles, did seem a little like the oversimplified (and not tremendously realistic) models that I was taught in my first year at university. However, overall, the session did strike a good balance between theory, real-life examples and practical solutions.

I am also pleased to report that I have already put some of my learnings into action! In my last blog entry, I mentioned that I had an outstanding activity – I needed to arrange the upcoming governance calls for my project go-lives in Warsaw and Buenos Aires (these governance calls are internal Accenture conference calls held between the project team and the Outsourcing leadership team before every go-live of a BPO service into one of our Delivery Centres). I knew that this task would require quite a lot of focus, coordination and chasing people to get things done, and as a result I had not made a very timely start. However, by applying the “5 minute rule” I was able to plan the activity and produce an outline of the presentation that will be given on the call. I went on to spend an hour on the activity, setting up the meeting invitation and emailing everyone who takes part in the governance call to request their input.

My general opinion: the session contained some useful, practical tips for overcoming procrastination in order to become more productive and worry less about upcoming tasks and deadlines. And though participating in this course has not made those annoying or difficult tasks any more enjoyable, at least now I have a better framework in place to focus on the important activities and accomplish them sooner rather than later.