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FERGUS OCONNELL
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Dont learn the hard way work advice from some of
the worlds most successful people, all in one place!
Work is a tricky business the politics, the workload, the career ladder. It
can take years and years of battling away and learning through mistakes to
fully get to grips with the dos and donts. What if you could fast track that
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Whether youre new to the workforce, changing roles, or just stuck in a
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By learning from the common mistakes of others, you can avoid making
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ladder. If you want a seat on the bullet train to success, Stuff I Wish Id Known
When I Started Working provides the tips and tools you need. Buckle up.
Buy today from your favourite bookshop
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Nuggets of wisdom and invaluable career advice
from some of the worlds most successful people
Oprah Winfrey
JK Rowling
Steve Jobs
Richard
Brandson
Jeff Bezos
Winston
Churchill
Jon Bon Jovi
Jim Carrey
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Please feel free to post this
sampler on your blog or website, or email
it to anyone you think would enjoy it!
Thank you.
Extracted from Stuff I Wish Id Known When I Started Working published in 2014 by Capstone Publishing,
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ. UK. Phone +44(0)1243 779777
Copyright 2014 Fergus OConnell
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London, W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher should be addressed to
the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England,
or emailed to permreq@wiley.co.uk.
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A
pparently in London, at the very beginning of the twentieth century, many postal districts managed
twelve deliveries a day, the rst being at 7.15am and the last at 8.30pm. If you think about it, this was
almost as good as having email and this nearly a century before email was invented.
The Victorians have been slated for many things but my sense is that when it came to dealing with the mail,
they probably did it well. They probably did it in that solid, sensible, practical way for which they have so often
been ridiculed.
I can imagine say, the one oclock postal delivery coming and the letters being placed on either a small tray, if
it was a domestic delivery, or in pigeon holes if it was a business. Then, in due course, the master or mistress
of the house or some employee of the business would open the letters and deal with their contents.
The key phrase here is in due course.
The notion that each time a letter arrived someone would immediately tear it open and start dealing with
whatever issue it raised would have been laughable to those bewhiskered and crinolined Victorians.
One of the things I do is teach courses in project management. Whenever I teach a course I give it all Ive got.
For a course that starts at nine, Ill be there at seven and Ill pretty much not leave the room until the course
ends at ve. I may not eat lunch. Im in the zone. I teach all my courses using a ipchart no PowerPoint as a
crutch for me. As a result, when the course ends, Im completely exhausted. I have taught more than 600 of
these courses but Im as tired these days as I was after I taught the very, very rst one all those years ago.
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When I spend a day teaching a course, I do little else. Something would almost have to be life threatening for
me to give it any attention. As a result, the day-to-day business of emails is one of the things that gets put on
hold. Recently I taught two two-day project management courses back to back with the result that when I
had nally nished, there was a backlog of a couple of hundred emails that needed to be looked at.
I started in on them and had dealt with the lot in just over two hours. I started at the top, of course, with the
most recent one and worked my way down. What was particularly satisfying was when one that I had already
dealt with meant that several earlier ones were now irrelevant. It was surprising how often this happened.
What was also surprising was how I had missed nothing urgent there was nothing that could not have
waited.
Im not the rst person to point out that we have become slaves to email, addicted to it. Nor do I have to
even say it that most emails are crap? (And thats the ones that arent spam!)
And its an easy drug to get hooked on. We wonder what could be waiting for us. In my case, is this the day
when an email is going to arrive offering to buy my company or suggesting a lm deal on one of my novels? I
cant wait to nd out. My ngers get itchy. Its all too easy to ip into Outlook and have a look.
Our behaviour with email doesnt just border on the ridiculous. It is ridiculous. One of the tools I use in my
work is a ipchart marker.
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Imagine that every time I saw a ipchart marker I picked it up and started writing with it. You would very
quickly be calling the men in the white coats. But this is exactly what we do when our computer goes bing!
because an email has arrived.
And the best part of all of is that we feel that we are actually working. A colleague explains how he had 500
emails to clear when he returned from holidays. We sympathize and think what an extraordinarily tough job
they have and hard worker they must be. Its a charade.
We feel productive. Yet the couple of hours (or more) a day that we spend on email could easily be replaced
by that same couple of hours once a week. This whole email thing is a joke. And a bad one.
So, if youre tired of all this; if youve convinced yourself youre working hard when in fact all youre doing
is being unproductive; if youre short of time and there never seem to be enough hours in the day, then its
time to kick the email habit. Its time to become the master again, rather than the slave. Its time to take back
control.
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The following would work perfectly well and we can imagine our Victorian ancestors doing exactly this.
1. Check your email three times a day: rst when you come into work (removing your top hat and handing it
along with your cane and gloves to your secretary); then just before you go to lunch (which of course, would
probably have been ten or so courses, ending with brandy and a cigar); and nally, before you go home (to
your cluttered house, adoring wife and perfect children).
2. If something really, truly has to be dealt with in other words, if its wildly important as we described in the
Being More Productive chapter, then do so. Otherwise, leave it.
3. Once a week, starting at the most recent, go through your inbox and empty it.
The Victorians. They werent all bad.
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About the Author
The Sunday Business Post has described Fergus OConnell as having more strings to
his bow than a Stradivarius.
He has a First in Mathematical Physics from University College Cork and is one of the
worlds leading authorities on project management. His company ETP (www.etpint.com)
- and his project management method The Ten Steps have inuenced a generation
of project managers. In 2003 this method was used to plan and execute the Special
Olympics World Games, the worlds biggest sporting event that year.
Ferguss experience covers projects around the world; he has taught project
management in Europe, North America, South America and Asia. He has written on
the subject for many publications including The Wall Street Journal.
Fergus is an accomplished novelist and the author of thirteen business and self-help books.
Also by Fergus
www.fergusoconnell.com @TheTaff
facebook.com/fergusoconell
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Fergus OConnells Stuff I Wish Id Known When I Started
Working, where you will:
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to work out!
Get nuggets of work wisdom from some of
the worlds most successful people
Learn how to get more done in less time,
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and online at