I couldn’t believe my eyes. Harold had relapsed! He’d turned back into a two-foot hamster and was pacing to and fro on his little rodent legs, dragging his microsized briefcase behind him.

“You did this to me!” he shouted, pointing a furry finger at me.

Okay, let’s back up a bit. I’m a productivity coach, and a few years ago I helped Harold with, um … a delicate little problem. He had become so overwhelmed with e-mail, interruptions, and tasks that he’d turned into a hamster. Why a hamster? Because, these days, most professionals are running in place at work like hamsters on never-ending, exhausting wheels.

Today, Harold was back, as one very frustrated rodent. He dropped his briefcase and spun toward me.

“Look at me! I’m supposed to be prepping for a huge press conference.”

“Press conference?”

“Yes! I’ve got to address the entire Foster and Schrubb executive team—and the media—in less than three hours. We’re launching a new customer service app, and I am so far behind! I still need to create handouts, brief my team, polish my speech …”

“Wow!” I said. “When did you start feeling so overwhelmed?”

“It started a month ago and … yikes!”

Harold stared down at his arms in horror.

“It’s getting worse. I’m getting furrier, shorter, and more hamsterish. Good grief!”

As he buried his head in his paws, gasping for breath, I bent down to place a hand on his heaving shoulders.

“Quick, Harold,” I urged, “have you changed anything about the way you work since we last spoke?”

Harold’s furry brow furrowed as he considered my question.

“Yes! I attended a full-day time-management class exactly one month ago when this all started. They taught me all about daily lists, prioritizing my tasks with four codes, and getting my inbox to zero but … somehow, it’s only seemed to make me busier and busier.”

Aha! I held up my hand.

“I know what’s wrong, and I’ll explain later,” I said urgently. “But right now, we’ve got to stop the hamsterization process—stat! Harold, you need to discover a powerful new concept called ZIP!”

“What’s ‘zip’?” Harold asked.

“ZIP! is lightning in a bottle … a hurricane in a can. ZIP! is rocket fuel for your career and a spa day for your stressed-out soul!”

Harold rolled his eyes impatiently. “Yeah, and I suppose it does laundry too.”

“Not quite,” I replied with a smile. “But it’s the fastest way to get more done, and that’s what will turn you back into a human being.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“ZIP! focuses on the fastest-growing and most rapidly changing aspect of our lives: technology. It’s a business philosophy that combines core success principles with quick-to-learn, easy-to-use tech tips. I call them ZIP! Tips. It’s the new cure for overwhelmed business hamsters like you.”

“Stop with the infomercial. Give me an example,” Harold demanded, peering at me skeptically.

“Okay, here’s the first core principle,” I said.

image CORE PRINCIPLE #1
Tech Management Is the Fastest Way to Get More Done.

“So it’s more about tech management than time management?” Harold asked.

“Exactly. And ZIP! isn’t just about one technology like Outlook or iPhone; it focuses on all your software and devices and how they interact with each other. That’s—”

“So these ZIP! Tips will reverse the hamsterization process?”

“Yes.”

“Show me,” he insisted, eager to reclaim his humanity.

I scooped him up and popped him onto the chair next to my laptop. Then I paused, looking around the room, as if I were about to reveal a top-secret plan.

“Do you have any long phrases that you need to type every day?”

“Of course,” Harold said quickly. “I’ve got a bunch of them.”

“Give me an example.”

“Well, I have to type my team name, Foster and Schrubb Organizational Development Team, quite a bit.”

I tapped out a quick adjustment on my computer, and then turned the keyboard toward Harold.

“Type in ‘fd,’” I said.

Harold hit the two keys and turned to me, exasperated.

“I think you’re losing it. Why are we—?”

I put my finger to my lips.

“Shh, it’s time to ZIP! Now hit the space bar in … three, two, one, now!”

Harold nervously tapped the space bar, and I yelled, “Bam!”

On the screen, the entire phrase magically popped out: Foster and Schrubb Organizational Development Team.

“Wow!” Harold cried. “How’d you do that? I’ve been typing those fifty flipping letters for eight years!”

“Never again!” I cried. “From now on, the Amazing AutoCorrector is going to zip out your long phrases in a nanosecond.”

Harold began to look hopeful for the first time.

“You gotta show me how you did that magic trick!” he cried.

“It’s magic,” I said. “The kind that happens when you activate your robots.”

image CORE PRINCIPLE #2
Activate Your Robots!

Harold looked perplexed. “Robots? Like C3PO? I don’t have any robots.”

“Yes you do, Harold,” I explained. “In order to ZIP!, you must change the way you think about technology. You have a whole fleet of useful robots, but they’re gathering robot dust in their lonely robot corners.”

“Are you crazy? Where are they?” Harold asked, looking around nervously.

“They live inside your technology. You see, Harold, the robots are here, at your fingertips!”

“So you’re saying that the robots that we’ve been waiting for, the ones that would help us with all kinds of tough tasks, have been right here all along, in our computers?”

“Exactly.” I smiled. “And Harold, you just met your first robot.”

“Wow!” Harold marveled. “So what’s next?”

“First, I need to share a little secret with you.”