This week I've been collecting stories from friends, strangers and the web about time: how we use it, how we spend it and why we waste it.

This response comes from the brilliant Laura Vanderkam author of 168 Hours, You Have More Time Than You Think. 

"I think the answer is that most of us aren't very strategic about our hours. 

We tend to live life as it comes at us, which in our distracted world happens very fast. 

We don't think about how we want to spend our time, and so we spend massive amounts of time on things-television, Web surfing, random conference calls or meetings, housework, errands-that give a slight amount of pleasure or feeling of accomplishment, but do little for our careers, our families, or our personal lives.

We spend very little time on things that require more thought or initiative, like nurturing our kids (not just plopping them in front of the TV), exercising, or engaging in deliberate practice of our professional crafts. We try to squeeze these high-impact activities around the edges of things that are easy, or that seem inevitable merely because we always do them or because we think others expect us to. "

No wonder it is we feel overworked and under-rested, and tend to believe stories that confirm this view. Your thoughts?

 Great design equates with understanding and love. Sounds like marriage I know. And in a way it is.

Take a look at the iconic Nike logo, the Apple campaign for Mac or the print ads for Mastercard.

You get the brand when you see the ads.

You understand the values being communicated.

Better yet, you can look at them over and over again without tiring because they are spectacular in their design.

See what I mean about love and understanding.

I bet if we asked the marketing or communications managers at these companies about the design process, they’d say they have a great working relationship with their agencies. How many us can really say that and herein lies the real issue as why some organisations have amazing appeal and get great results from their agency’s design efforts, while others rest in the grave of mediocrity.

When you speak to artists and those of the creative ilk, their litany of woes is as long as Rumpunzel’s hair. At the base of it all is that corporate needs to be clear up front about what they want.

Here are the things your design team wishes you would know:

Come to the table with a solid brief. This may sound easy but many of the briefs are very muddled. Designers can get very justifiably irate at this since it means valuable time has to be spent trying to navigate their way through a vacuous document that speaks nothing of the target market and their needs. 

Be clear. Tell your designers what you want the work to accomplish. Are you looking for average? Something that’ll shock? Something above reproach? Something just like your competitors? Be honest because if you do know it'll save everyone a lot of time.

Tell them your budget. Yes, really. 

Have you seen a great design that you like. Sure you have. So go ahead point it out to the design team. If you want a Tv spot to be like three others (in feel only, and not treatment) then point it out.

Oh don’t forget the design is not meant for you but for the target audience. Walk a mile in their shoes before giving comment. A good design team always does that , so please don't backseat drive them through the process.

Oh and finally, how about a thank-you.

Used to be that we worked for corporations where there was plenty of time. Time to complete tasks. Time to eat lunch. Time to spend moments with colleagues in the rumour mill next to the water cooler. The gossip, the business, the game took place in our own backyards and we were happy for it to be so. 

But things changed. 

The game no longer occurs on familiar turf. Instead, its created  in a globally linked village, in virtual time,  in the virtual world. That document you’re working on was needed in marketing, oops, since yesterday. The boss wanted your  proposal on his desk  two seconds ago. Deals are now brokered  only in real time.  The economy is knowledge based. And the twentieth century corporate myth that big is good is no longer valid. 

Enter then the corporation that is set up to compete in this evolving world and suddenly the first thing that disappears is time. 

There now never seems to be enough of it. People want instant information and instant gratification. Can’t provide it? Can’t arouse the market’s interests?  Can’t answer their questions now?  Then the consumer, the supplier, the people will simply switch to someone else. 

Welcome to the microwave, remote controlled society.

In this scenario, corporations have little option but to shrink to compete.  They have to become leaner, flatter, and smaller. The casualty of all this though is the human resource, not only those who are shown unceremoniously to the bread line but also the ones that are left behind. For them the workload increases ten-fold  and adjustments are mandatory because it is common knowledge that there are thousands more  looking for work.

Time becomes the new religion.  Not there to be relished, cherished and celebrated for its very existence.  What used to take  four months, now takes  four weeks, then four days, and then four minutes and ultimately four seconds. Multi tasking is the buzzword for success. The typical employee works on project A, stops it before it is completed to brainstorm with someone from finance to get statistics for project B even as the boss storms into the  office demanding the proposal for project C. 

Multi tasking means doing it all; all at once, all the time. It is deemed the core competence of the 21^st.Century employee.

But is it really? 

Or is it just another overrated skill? Designed by corporations pinching on their human resource?  This may be a perennial debate but I just met someone who goes counter to this norm. 

This particular person has done her soul searching, she knows that she is better than anyone else at doing her job, and is aware of the way her competence adds value to the firm. Super smart and super confident she insists on performing singular tasks, completing them before moving onto another. She recognises that much of her projects are not isolated and is willing to perform the tasks of getting information and working with a variety of sources, but only on one project at a time

While working on several things at once may be a natural response to the world in which we find ourselves, I doubt it is the only answer, if it was, the ultimate winners would be people that were all stressed out, over wired,  with no work/life balance and no job satisfaction. 

Instead of multi-tasking how about uni-tasking? 

That is, devoting the time and energy to completing a job and savouring the feeling of having done it well before moving on to something else. Instead of working harder how about just working smarter? Doing what you are really good at 100 times better than anyone else. 

It may be one of those unique moments where the end perfectly justifies the means.

Judette: So how is it going?

Dennis Mc Comie: Well its been going, its been going for the last few months and now I think there is a  snowball effect, whatever arrangements and, whatever tenets and little bits and pieces that we put in place for the last few months are now going to have to…

Judette: Come to fruition  

Dennis: Come to fruition and get to the point

Judette: So we  are ready?

Dennis: Oh yeah, we are  ready alright; we have been ready for awhile. We have never been resting because the shopping list of dos and don’ts are enormous, it is an enormous list. It is always gratifying to tick off things

Judette: And get to the next list?

Dennis:  Yes, it only  means that you are going on to the next list that needs to be ticked.

Judette: But let’s talk about that shopping list. A lot of Trinidadians and there I say those in Tobago are thinking, "what are the messages?" What I am seeing in the newspapers is that reporters  are saying that Port-of-Spain is being “prettified”. But  Dennis I wonder what does the Summit mean to Owen and Sophie in Fyzabad. How do you distil a message that is relevant for a large audience in a geo-political context to Owen and Sophie who live in Fyzabad, run a shop and are  thinking what does this summit mean to me?
 

Dennis: Yes, well I think everybody who is involved in communications would recognise and appreciate that it is a two way street. You can’t keep sending messages to a listener or a viewer and not have feedback or reciprocity and then call that effective communications, so the responsibility, the onus is now on Owen and Sophie to make an effort to find out what the summit means to them on a personal level.

Judette: Ok, so great, but then the right channels must be created for that

Dennis: Yes

Judette: What channels are you all using to communicate the messages of the summit to Owen and Sophie who live in Fyzabad?

Dennis: Every possible communication channel that is available to us. One of the big impulses from the communications department was to try and reach the region, the western hemisphere on the net. And I know, Owen and Sophie might not have a computer, but if they got kids that have a computer at school, we should like to ask them to go to the website because it does answer a lot of the questions. The declaration of commitment for Port-of-Spain 2009 is on the site.

Judette: If I had the time  I would  take issue with that fact but let's move on, what is does this declaration mean? I mean you have such  big, broad  themes in that declaration.

Dennis: This is a remarkable document, there are three main themes; ensuring human prosperity which is the biggest, the second big one is securing our energy and the third big one is environmental sustainable, sustainability is my favourite. 

Judette: My favourite is prosperity especially in light of what's happening globally.

Dennis: Well prosperity for human is the biggest, because what makes a human prosper? You have to have that human healthy, you have to have that human with shelter over his or her head, you have to make sure that that human is able to access food and transport and able to go securely from one place to the next. You have to give that human being hope and you have to give that human being opportunity to fulfil his or her own potential in the environment he or she exist.

Judette: So then are those themes relevant to Owen and Sophie or are they relevant to Owen and Sophie’s children and their children? Is this a generational thing?

Dennis: I am glad you asked that question because if Owen and Sophie have to get up everyday and have to find money to go and buy food for their children, then Owen and Sophie are very much involved in the summit. If Owen and Sophie are concerned about their children having education and on a long-term basis, sustainable educational initiatives that will make them be able to deal with the new world which is being formed by these 34 heads. These 34 heads have decided to come together on one physical space which happens to be Trinidad and Tobago to make very serious resolutions on issues that will impact Sophie’s children for a long-time.

Judette: Those messages are critical Dennis, but for many they have been lost in the context of  the readiness of the  city and  on the and the media reports of the  superficial things that are being done, which does not get to the root of our problems as a country. And maybe that is not for the Summit to solve, but certainly I feel as if the key messages of the summit, the real benefits are b is being taken away so it never reaches the audience,  and I ma talking about locals here.

Dennis: We can not dictate to the media, unless of course you pay for the space, you cannot dictate to the media what they are going to disseminate to the people. This is why very early we had our press conferences and we still are having briefings with the media. We try to impress upon them that this responsibility is bigger, it is not only for them to be able to go off the information they gathered from the national secretariat about the summit, they need to be able to join with us and have a shared responsibility in educating the public and educating Trinidad and Tobago. It is a difficult exercise because we wanted to be able to educate Trinidad and Tobago not only about the aspects of the summit but the way it touches Trinidad and Tobago, because we are the host. So, that we have different responsibilities; we don’t only have the responsibilities of facilitating the heads that are going to be here to talk about issues that will rebound to our benefits, hopefully. We have the responsibility of physically hosting, accommodating these people and the responsibility of ensuring their security and safety while they’re here. And we have also the prerogative also too choose, if we so desire, to make Trinidad and Tobago look good, so that we are proud of ourselves.

Judette: So it’s like Owen and Sophie are having guest over for dinner and getting their house ready.

Dennis: Owen and Sophie having guest over for dinner, they might have gotten a months notice, they might have go two weeks notice, or the aunty might have called from New York the day before… 

Judette: (laughing) Its Carnival right.

Dennis: Yeah it’s Carnival and she is staying there instead of at the Hilton, what are you going to do?

Judette:(laughing) Get ready. I guess the concern is if the house will remain in that order when aunty leaves. The real issue is sustainability.

 Dennis: The fact that the Trinidad and Tobago government has advanced the cleaning up or the cosmetology for us, because we have been doing it ourselves. I think it is something we have to thank the government for.

Judette: Hmmm. 

Dennis: Because we can’t go and tell these people you are coming here to talk about environmental sustainability, when they are seeing smoke on the hills because we are denuding our environment or you are talking about domestic violence and you are beating your spouse.

Judette: So maybe this can translate into some kind of national campaign afterwards about the personal responsibility and government responsibility as well.

Dennis: Very much so. This is an exercise for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago to find out if their democracy, if their governance, if their administration, if their management of themselves are at the standard, at the quality, that they themselves desire.

Judette: Let’s just hope it’s an all inclusive responsibility, shared by every citizen and by government.

Dennis: Well unfortunately, I do not think people feel it is a shared responsibility and it is, and this is what I hope within the next few days we are going to be able to suggest to our people.

Judette: Final question, are we ready?

Dennis: Yes.

Judette: Are we crisis prepared?

Dennis: Yes

Judette: Our communication plans are ready and in place, set to go?

Dennis: Yes, I am so happy to say. And on behalf of Trinidad and Tobago we are proud to be the host of the Fifth Summit of the Americas. 

 I had two brushes with higher education this month.

An undergraduate I know, a management student at the University of the West Indies, said that I should blog about why it takes so long for young graduates to find a job. “It’s like a double edged sword,” she griped. “Employers tell us that they want experience but how can we get that if they don’t hire us?”

It’s a familiar tale so I was happy to share a sure recipe. “You need to discover a small company, tell the CEO how good you are, that you’re willing to make the coffee and run errands as long as you get an opportunity to gain practical, hands on knowledge.” I shared my experience in Boston where I worked at a New England TV affiliate by fetching, carrying and emptying. At nights or weekends though, when the studio emptied, I stayed behind and with the assistance of a generous production manager, I learned to edit, produce and direct. One year later I won a NECTA award for a lifestyle programme I produced with my college classmates.

“Didn’t that take up all your time,” the intern said, “I mean if I do that how on earth am I going to get my studying done.” 

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It was a conscious choice not to become a “crackberrian.”  Among my friends that makes me an anomaly. I am aware of course, of the life advantages of the little black box clutched in your hand with the same tenaciousness the way a baby does an umbilical cord. The blackberry keeps you connected. Switched on. Clued in.  But I swore a long tine ago never to become one those people.

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