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If we, like Georges Perec in the fascinating novel “Life – a User’s Manual”, could freeze time just for a moment on an ordinary day at work, how much of your business would be visible to the naked eye?

Are the things you do visible only when you are doing them, or are your routines and flows visualized in any way, so it would be possible for an outsider to study them, even if everything was standing still?

To describe your business in terms of work-flows is valuable, both making the actual real-time description and the complete documentation afterwards. This is particularly important in service-businesses since the service isn’t visible unless someone is performing it.

Do you find pleasure, in the same way as I do, in mapping out processes? Do you enjoy drawing boxes and arrows in a schematic way? Is your working-day complete when you have captured an ongoing activity as series of flows?

Perhaps not, but the actual visualization of the work doesn’t need to be as formal as the flowcharts that first come to mind. A checklist, an animation, a map of symbols or maybe even a comic-strip may be the perfect way to illustrate it, as long as it is appropriate for the target-group and the purpose.

But what is the actual point of describing your business?

Here are seven reasons why visualizing your company through flowcharts is useful.

I have a penchant for always having something with me to write or record in. It can be a notebook or a stack of index cards.

At least for me, ideas are volatile. As I mull something over ...

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Fläkt Woods in Växjö, Sweden, in order to hold a course in personal productivity for their staff. Fläkt Woods is a global business in ventilation solutions and they are the market leader in their field.

Meeting them was impressive in many ways. One thing was ...

Thank you for a wonderful 2009!

It has been the best year so far for Stiernholm Consulting, in many respects. At this very moment, it ...

What do you do with all that good-to-have-material, your reference material, the things you need from time to time that are so simple to put in piles so it won’t get lost, and which you then never find when you need them the most, just because they are somewhere at the bottom of the piles?

The whole idea with this type of material is for it to be out of your way when you don’t need it, it should be easy to put away and easy to find whenever you need it.
My personal favourite solution to this problem is…

Now, there are just a few days left of this fantastic 2009, and although I enjoy the time off between Christmas and New Year, my thoughts are already far into 2010.

Navid Modiri asked me the other day what my keywords for 2010 are. I love such food for thought.

After a few seconds of afterthought, ...

Do you ever experience from time to time that you are just completing task after task, doing one detailed thing after another, and everything is spinning so fast that you can’t grasp what’s going on, and that you don’t even have the time to reflect on what week it is and what’s coming up next month? Join the club.

It’s one thing to be in a flow, to feel that everything is clicking and falling into place, that you move from clarity to clarity and are getting things done, but that is not the situation I am talking about.

The condition I have in mind can be recognized by that you feel a week has just begun when it suddenly is Friday, you are astonished to realize that a certain meeting was “this week already?!” or that you are always running out of time when you are close to a deadline. To use a worn, but none the less illuminating expression: “You can’t see the woods for all the trees”.

My solution to this situation is ...

This autumn I have again had the opportunity to work with a group of entrepreneurs within a project called “Spira” (in English “spire”) here in Gothenburg. In this project, ten fresh entrepreneurs get help building their business during six intense months.

My assignment was to give a talk and to hold a workshop on how to formulate a long term vision and how to break it down into short term, detailed goals and milestones to guide you on an average workday. A month later, I met with every individual entrepreneur to work on their particular questions and challenges, regarding how to reach your long term goal as easily as possible.

When I sat down with ...

We are many who receive quite a lot of e-mails, perhaps even more than we can handle and are comfortable with. It is easy to feel that you are the victim of dire circumstances when it comes to the constant flow of mail into your inbox, but it is possible to be more efficient by working structured even with this.

Here are five concrete ways in which you can work more efficiently with your incoming mail.

Have you also from time to time experienced that the things just waiting to be done are in a real mess and you need to get a good overview to sort out what needs to be prioritized and what are the next steps?

It might be needed in some area for you individually or for your entire business.

Here is a quick and efficient method used successfully by both myself and several of my clients.

E-mail is a means of communication that we love to hate and seem to use more and more, every day.

Many suffer from overcrowded inboxes and getting more e-mails than they can handle.

Having a smart way of dealing with incoming mail once it has arrived is one thing, but as I see it, we can also influence how efficiently we utilize e-mailing as a whole through how we compose the e-mails we send others.

Here are six tips to how you can help others help you make your e-mailing more efficient.

Last week, I conducted an open course in personal productivity in Stockholm, with participants from a wide variety of industries: from disposal of radioactive waste to gardening, via pharmaceuticals (among others).

We talked about ...

When I hold a strategy workshop with a board or management team, they sometimes disagree on how distinct the vision is allowed to be. Someone may say “Well, in ten years time, we have accomplished this and that.” whereupon someone else objects by saying “No, that’s not a vision! It is far too concrete and measurable! It’s a goal!”

I have thought a lot about this lately. Is it really true that a company’s vision needs to be fuzzy in order to be a vision? Is there an inherent risk in a concrete and distinct vision?

We can’t do everything we need to do everywhere or anywhere. For some things we need a computer, for others access to a phone and some things can only be done in the office.

We gain concentration if we at each point in time only need to care about the tasks that are available to work on where we are at the moment.

So, how do you determine what can actually be done here and now, from all the things you need to do?

The answer is ...

Yes, sometimes I actually dream of changing path and become a bicycle messenger. There is really something alluring about the bicycle messenger trade. I mean, getting ...

Imagine that a business, any kind of business, consists of a bunch of processes involving and performed by different participants (which could be employees, machinery, software, etc).

So, a process is then a routine, a series of activities that have a certain starting point and finishing line. One, a few or many participants may be involved in completing the activities in the process.

The purpose of looking at the business as a bunch of processes is that ...

In an earlier post we discussed how valuable it is to have a captivating and engaging vision.

As I see it, the vision describes the envisioned, future situation we want to achieve in the company. The vision should truly involve me as a leader and co-worker; it should make me want to spend at least 40 hours per week for x number of years to arrive at the envisioned situation.

So, the vision should evoke some degree of rapture, an excitement, eagerness, a good gut-feeling. The more senses the vision appeals to, the more efficiently it can inspire us.

So, what form should the vision have then? Here are six ideas on how to formulate and communicate the vision.

When you are experiencing more chaos in your workday than you are comfortable with and you wish to improve the structure of your day, it is fully understandable if you tremble at the mere thought of the extent of the changes needed.

Perhaps you are hesitant and are even doubtful as to whether it is even possible to change, and you might even fear that your particular situation is a hopeless case.

I am convinced that no circumstances are hopeless and I am equally convinced that you can make significant changes with small means.
Do not try to make all improvements at once, but choose to work on one aspect at a time and you will experience greater success. When the first change is done, move on to the next, etc.

Nice and easy, you will end up more structured and with more time on your hands by taking it one step at a time.

Here are three ideas on different steps to begin with.

The other day, I went down to Comwell Varbergs Kurort to give a talk to a company founded seventy years ago. I guess that, when you have been around as long as seventy years, you have experienced both ups and downs. Then, there’s a high probability that you have a sound perspective of what happens today. It was obvious that this company had just that.

When you are arranging your system for documents, to-do-lists, referencematerial and other materials, it is normal to ask yourself how it should be done, for instance, how should I store the documents I might need some day?

Should I put the articles, brochures or whatever it might be in binders or should I use a filing system? Should I do my to-do-lists in Outlook, in my smartphone or on loose pieces of paper?