- "Excuse me, I've got just a quick question."

How often do you hear that phrase throughout your day?

I call this the dreaded double Q.

The quick question is one of the greatest offenders

when it comes to time management in the workplace.

It chops your day to pieces

to constantly respond to these little questions.

The problem is many people feel guilty

when they don't respond to these quick questions

because they want to be helpful,

and being helpful to your coworkers is a good thing.

So how is the best, most productive way

to respond to these quick questions?

I'm going to give you a four-step process.

The first question,

"Can this wait until our one-to-one meeting?"

The basic idea is you should have a regularly scheduled time

to discuss these quick questions.

Instead of answering them constantly throughout the day,

you want to queue them up

and then bring them to the one-to-one meeting

where you ask and answer these with each other.

The second question,

"Is this better handled via email?"

Now, some questions that people ask you

don't involve a lot of back and forth.

There's no conversation, it's just quick info.

Here's one question I have and here is the one answer.

So if you have questions like that,

they're much better handled via email,

not face-to-face or phone conversation.

Question three,

"Is this better handled in a separate meeting?"

Now occasionally,

you're going to bring a question to a coworker

or them to you that is complex.

It's going to involve a lot of conversation,

perhaps a half an hour or more.

In a situation like that,

you do not want to discuss these

during the one-to-one meeting

or ad hoc in the middle of the day.

You want to schedule a focus time

to have a conversation about this more complex issue.

And then number four,

if the answer to all the previous questions was no,

then you ask, "All right, what is the question?"

You'll respond now.

In this situation, that means that this person's question

is truly urgent and you should respond to it.

But if the answer to all three previous questions was no,

then you ask, "What is the question?"

You're going to respond now

because since they answered

all the previous questions as no,

their question is truly urgent

and you should stop whatever you're doing and respond to it.

When you ask these four questions consistently,

you'll begin to recondition yourself

and the other person to think more productively

about these quick questions.

You'll learn to, in most cases,

stage them and wait until the meeting happens.

It may not happen immediately,

but consistently asking these questions will start

to create a new pattern

of how you communicate in the workplace.

And when you can do this,

you'll both protect your time and everyone else's.

(bright music)