Harvard Business Publishing

Most of my career has been spent managing lawyers in a corporate environment. One of the issues they must constantly deal with is there is always time to do the urgent (the phone, the Blackberry, e-mail or the client standing in the door of your office) but never time to do the important. To keep focus on the important it helps to use a manage by objective system that helps people stretch to do the important. The one I use asks:
1. What projects are likely to consume more than ten hours of my time per month?
2. What I will do to become more valuable to my clients.
3. What are the key internal relationships I intend to work on,
including the time allotted?
4. What will I do to lower the time I spend on routine tasks that
others can due?
5. What will I do to add to my skills?
6. What will I do to get better asset building work?
(The qualitative nature of what you work on so that you use work
experiences to continue to build your career.)

That format helps keep me and those on my team focused on the important not the urgent.

I agree that instant communications can generate a lot of urgency and cause disruption to one's flow. I have gotten myself involved deeply in projects through simple messages asking for help over IM. Over time, I have found that IM and other instant communication work best when under tight deadlines and working with a remote team, and that I don't even sign onto IM as frequently. If a matter is urgent enough I am a phone call or email away. I also worked with an ex-Navy officer who told me that when he got a request from his superior he wrote it on a sticky note and put it in a drawer. When he got three with the same request he would do the task because it was important enough to stay on his superiors' mind.

In coaching many senior executives, it has been my experience that this tendency to create fires is often fueled by an addiction to the adrenaline rush that occurs in the midst of crisis. Being at the center of such an emotional vortex can be exciting and energizing and there is a feeling of great accomplishment when the crisis of the day is resolved. It is important that we strive to enhance our self awareness and resist the tendency to react. I urge executives to slow down to go fast and to be thoughtful about the priorities they set.

I recently worked on an important cross-boundary project for a knowledge-producing institution, and quickly perceived that pyromania, especially via what you call "thumb communication" ruled the day. When it began to swamp me to the extent that it was interfering significantly with the time-sensitive, high-profile mission entrusted to me--and getting on my last nerve--I was saved from despair by the following sage advice of a close associate.
1. Stay in the background by not participating in the flurry of e-mails.
2. Do glance briefly at the address lines of the e-mail ("from," "to," and "subject" lines) now and then, as the current firefight rages.
3. Inevitably, after a day or so in this type of institution, the thing will die a natural death.
4. Just at that point, you step back into the picture, with a very short mail that says something like this: "This matter seems to be resolving itself. I'm glad to see that [X, Y or Z tangible outcome or direction.] Let's move on! [or some other platitude which shifts attention forward, and back on track of the main purpose]."
Adopting this practice saved the day, and for me, the mission. Like one of the other commentators, I also found that matters of real importance were more often communicated to me by phone calls or in face-to-face meetings (formal or informal, scheduled or not) with my boss, my senior-most colleagues, and constituents and partners outside. I guess the key is to understand well the communication culture of your own organization, so you have a working triage method for essential and trivial communication, and a finely-tuned sense of when to initiate and when to respond to discussions. Behind that, of course, must lie your personal "compass" about priorities and values!

Dear Srs:
how can i do with a pyromanic supervisor?

thanks for your answered.

Carlos Silos.