by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Your external brain
— From a mash-up of two books: Less Doing, More Living: Make Everything in Life Easier by Ari Meisel, and Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
“Using your memory to store everything is stressful and unreliable,” says Ari Meisel, productivity guru, in his book Less Doing, More Living. He points out, rightly, that trying to hold all thoughts in our head is inefficient. “The problem with trying to remember everything is that in doing so, you run out of space in your head to actually think about the task at hand. What’s worse, it doesn’t always work.”
How many times have we made an effort to remember something and we still forgot? I’m so guilty of this: I know I tied that string around my finger to remember something, and later I couldn’t remember what that something was… I rest my case.
Enter the external brain. “It stores everything reliably, offers instant access, and frees your mind for more interesting work,” says Meisel.
So, where do I line up to get one of these external brains??!
We all have it at our disposal and it’s more low-tech than you can imagine: “The heart [mind?] of the external brain is note-taking. If an idea is in your head, get it out… we have to create idea flow for good ideas to come out… When you let your ideas flow freely, you get more ideas, and that leads to more good ideas.”
You’ve heard me quote Seth Godin before as saying, “You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.” This is exactly how we make that happen. Meisel says the same thing: “Not all ideas are good—out of ten ideas, you may have eight that are bad or irrelevant. But even bad ideas can lead to good ideas. You want to get them out of your head not only because they may be blocking a good idea from coming out, but also because they may come together with some of your other ideas to make a good idea.”
Meisel suggests finding a great tool or set of tools that enable you to capture the info and ideas outside of your head. His favorite app is Evernote. And if you are like most of us who get awesome ideas in the shower, he recommends AquaNotes (water-proof notepad).
On the other hand, in his bestselling book Getting Things Done, productivity guru David Allen, suggests—even for the most high-tech oriented among us—a stack of plain paper to capture each thought in its own sheet or card. Allen recommends:
Write out each thought, each idea, each project or thing that has your attention, on a separate sheet of paper. You could make one long list on a pad, or in some digital application, but… there is a discipline required to initially to stay focused on one item at a time as you process it. So giving each thought its own placeholder, as trivial as it might seem, makes it that much easier.
Go for quantity. It’s much better to overdo this process than to risk missing something. You can toss the junk later. Your first idea may be “Implement global climate change,” and then you’ll think, “I need cat food!” Grab them all. Don’t be surprised if you discover you’ve created quite a stack of paper during this procedure.
According to Allen, “It will probably take you between twenty minutes and an hour to clear your head onto separate notes.” And as you go through this exercise, “You’ll find that things will tend to occur to you in somewhat random fashion—little things, big things, personal things, professional things, in no particular order.” To help you clear your head, Allen has put together a wonderful Incompletion Triggers List that you can review to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Also, you can listen to this podcast where Allen guides you through what he calls a mind sweep session to put down, in paper, what is now occupying space in your head.
“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” – David Allen
Create your external brain and get those ideas flowing!
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to figure out the “external brain” system that will work best for you, and then go through David Allen’s list or mind sweeping exercise to get everything out of your mind.
FUTURE: Once you have created a stack of notes, start prioritizing and processing each one based on your goals. You’ll likely see that some are not all that important, and some others become great ideas that you definitely want to act upon. What is the next action that you need to take? Determine it and take said action (it may take a while to get through all, but keep pushing through). It’s important to take this step because if you don’t do anything, the items from the list “will creep back into your consciousness, since your mind would know you weren’t dealing with [them],” says Allen. If there is no next action to take, then he suggests, trash the item, incubate it, or file it as reference material. That will be your action and your mind will now be unstuck and free to produce more ideas.
Please share the external brain with someone else! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resolutions, Time, Tools, Willpower
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 1
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 2
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 3
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 4
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 5
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 46 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 6
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
We’ve come to the end of this miniseries on how to find a minimum of 5 extra hours per week based on the recommendations of the book Learning to Lead. I hope you have learned a lot of different ways that will help you make the most of your time emergency, that way you’ll be able to crush it when you decide to go into monk mode!
Let’s look at the last 3 concepts from Fred Smith’s 20-point checklist:
18. Put curiosity on hold. This is an important one. Smith emphasizes that we are strapped for time we must swallow curiosity and not ask questions. He says, “I make statements [instead]. Normally in good human relations we ask questions. But if we want to save time, we don’t. If we ask, ‘How’s your mother-in-law?’ it often takes some time to hear the whole sad story. It’s just as warm to say, ‘Hey, I’m glad to see you,’ and keep going… [Or if] I see a group in the hallway… and I enter the conversation, I’ll stay and talk—and there goes my time… Curiosity costs a lot of time.”
19. Stay out of sight. The author advises to lay low: “I try to curb my exposure during a time of emergency. If I stay out of people’s sight, I don’t have to offend them with my hurry.” Work out of home fully or partially if you can for this period of time, or stay out of sight in whatever way works best for you.
20. Leave meetings first. The author relays having fun with many an executive on this point. He says, “I tell them the most important person in the meeting leaves it first. Once I finish my speech, that remark empties the hall faster than anything I’ve used before.” And this is actually true: “The most productive people leave a meeting first. They don’t stand around shaking hands and swapping stories… People hang around a meeting to be liked, not to accomplish anything. The business is done; only the social frills are left. […] Busy people using a time battle plan can’t afford the leisure.’
And there you have it. Now you have the full 20-point checklist to create a battle plan if you ever decide to declare a time emergency. As good as it sounds, the author warns us again, “This plan is not at all about how to speed up. [You] are already going fast enough. What I’m getting at is how to gain some time… you ought to use part of it for loafing. If you’re already panicky, harried, frantic and worn out from the pressure, don’t spend your new time doing more work, or you’ll be right back in the same problem. […] If every time you get an hour you fill it up, you’ll have no concept of what a normal lifestyle is.”
As far as how to use our time, Smith shares some wise advice, “we need to move beyond fighting battles, losing them, fighting again, losing again, and fighting once more. We must move to a new way of life. Waging a battle is certainly better than not winning at all. But battles remain second-best to achieving a lifestyle where we stop worrying about time control… I’ve provided a battle plan. It will work in a pinch. How much better to win the war.”
“Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.” – Thomas J. Watson
I hope you enjoyed this miniseries and learned a lot. What was your biggest takeaway? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: As you put in place these 20 points for going into monk mode, don’t forget the importance of loafing, as the author says. Resting, exercising and spending time with your loved ones are all important activities, make sure you include them in your newfound hours.
FUTURE: As you go through this time emergency mode over the next few weeks, keep a list of the lessons you learn. At the end of the period review it. Using the war analogy of the author, I’m sure this list will be helpful to point you in the direction of how you can win the war as opposed to focusing on fighting a battle again and again.
Know someone who could use an additional 5 hours per week during a time emergency? Please share this post or the entire miniseries with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resolutions, Time, Tools, Willpower
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 1
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 2
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 3
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 4
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 6
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 6 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 5
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
Good morning! How is your time crunch coming along? I hope you are indeed finding/making additional time. So far the points in this miniseries from Fred Smith’s list have focused mainly on external situations or dealing with others. But what about our internal selves and our outcomes? This is as important—if not more—than anything else we’ve seen so far.
Let’s look at how to deal with our energy, our work, and our mind when we are in a time emergency so that we can, optimally, find a minimum of 5 extra hours each week.
14. Protect personal energy. Becoming stressed and pressured for time cuts down energy and alertness, says Smith. “Since I work so much more efficiently when alert, I must protect my energy when time is scarce [so that effectiveness doesn’t suffer].” He emphasizes the importance of sleep, and also says, “I find it very important during such a time to eat less and exercise more.” In terms of the workload, Smith reminds himself, “not to try to accomplish more by overworking. What I can do in fifteen hours is not three times what I can accomplish in five.” Since a person can only have a certain number of productive hours during any given day, it’s important to make them count.
15. Schedule work according to productive hours. Each one of us knows when our most productive and effective hours are (check this miniseries to create the right environment to Be Awesomely Effective). Schedule your most creative and productive things for those hours. You’ll get the most important projects accomplished, and the work you get done will be much more than during the rest of the day.
Want to know when your peak time is? Ari Meisel, productivity guru and author of The Art of Less Doing, has a fantastic (and free!) app for smartphones. It’s called Less Doing Peak Time. Backed by science, Meisel designed it in a way that takes less than a minute every time you tap on it, and over the course of a week, you tap at different times and the app will let you know the window of time when you are at your most productive. Brilliant! (And so easy too!)
16. Compile a list of second-wind jobs. These are jobs that actually refresh you, pull you out of a lull and give you an energy boost or bring about a second wind, hence the name. Smith explains, “Second-wind jobs kill downtime and get me going. I like to do something exciting that I’ve really been waiting to work on… [These jobs] increase my utilization of time.”
17. Discipline self-talk. The author points out that all of us talk to ourselves. The important thing—especially during an emergency—is to discipline the details, and this includes our own self-talk, to focus on achieving the outcome we want. Smith relays an example: “Going to a meeting, I say to myself, What do I want to come out of the meeting with? It’s clear in my mind if I have talked it over with myself. I walk into the meeting with my agenda set and don’t waste time.”
Years ago, my friend Patti DeNucci, author of The Intentional Networker (we will see some ideas from that book in here soon), taught me the power of setting intentions before going into meetings, events, etc. Just as Smith asks above, as you are planning to go to an event/meeting, etc., ask yourself what your reason is for attending and set an intention. You will now have a purpose to be there and to work deliberately in making it happen. This is a great practice, not just for time crunches. Also, as you are approaching your entrance to the venue or meeting/conference room, remind yourself of your intention and you will be focused the whole time on accomplishing it before you leave. Try it out, it works wonders — thanks, Patti!
Come back tomorrow for the last part of this miniseries. We will learn, among other things, why it’s important to leave meetings first.
ACTION
TODAY: Attending a meeting? Going to an event? Having a conference call or just a plain business phone call? Set your intention. What do you want to get out of it? Then focus your time on making it happen. It always works (as long as it’s a good intention for all involved, of course!).
FUTURE: Make sure that you are taking appropriate care of your energy, stress and sleep over the next weeks while you are in monk mode. Go back to this miniseries on how to create 2 awesome hours of work every day. This will help you enormously to get through your time crunch and crush your goals effectively.
Know someone who could use an additional 5 hours per week during a time emergency? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools, Willpower
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 1
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 2
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 3
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 5
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 6
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 18 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 4
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
How is monk mode going? Are you making progress towards your 5 extra hours per week? I hope so!
I also hope that, as I share these ideas with you in this miniseries, you begin to see why it makes sense to apply them only when you are in a time crunch. Albeit, there are some points that I believe can be applied also at other times to make our work much more efficient, such as #11 below.
I’ll let you select your favorites from this installment of the 20-point checklist from Fred Smith’s book Learning to Lead. Happy monk mode!
9. Know your limitations. You do not have to meet with everybody that asks to see you. Smith tells a story of a person who wanted to go by and talk to him. Since he was busy, he asked, “What do you want to see me about?” And upon hearing the response, Smith realized he could not help him and did not see him. “I didn’t need to sit down and talk to him thirty minutes, and then disappoint him. I told him very quickly by phone, without being brutal.” Smith explains, “When I’m pressed for time I must pinpoint the counseling situations where I can uniquely help and then push the others to someone else. But a lot of times, we will see someone out of curiosity… just to find out the story.” Don’t give in to curiosity. Recognize you’re pressed for time and know your limitations.
10. Ask permission to say no. This is a brilliant approach if you’re concerned you’ll disappoint or seem rude by saying no. Smith explains, “When I need to decline something, I want to say no as simply and graciously as I can. When I ask for permission to decline, people generally give it to me. I don’t say ‘If you only knew how busy I am, you wouldn’t ask!’ I just say, ‘Let me ask a favor. May I say no?’ […] I handle it once, cleanly and clearly, and save a lot of time that way.”
11. Distinguish between information and relation. This book was written in 1986 when there was no email, chat, text messages, social media, etc., but the approach Smith mentions applies perfectly to today’s digital communications too. “Those who say to answer every letter when you receive it are missing a very important point. Mail and phone calls come in two kinds: information and relation. When I divide them up, I find most of my mail and calls are information. I can handle them once. But I don’t want my habit to cause me to handle relational things that way.” Smith says he takes care of providing the information that is required once, as it can be given at that point or later, and thus he avoids handling informational requests twice. However, if someone asks a personal question, he avoids saying the first thing that comes to mind: “I ask myself, How will this strike this person?” And given that this approach requires more time and energy to think about, he suggests postponing all relational questions until after your emergency period if you can.
12. Utilize [an assistant] for informational things. In today’s world of automation and optimization, you can use the help of an assistant. Be it an electronic device, an online program, a website, a Virtual Assistant that works remotely, or a person who works next to you, let them handle all requests for information.
13. Deal only with the “driving wheels.” Smith explains, “Every organization has some people whose thinking and action control everyone else’s thinking and action. In order to save time during a period of emergency, I only deal with these driving wheels. They may not be the title people. But if we know our organizations, we can identify the driving wheels and the people I call the ‘idling gears.’ […] If I’m in a hurry, I spend time only with the people who make things happen, who form the opinions. I put the other relationships on hold for a while.”
Come back tomorrow for another installment of this 20-point checklist where you will learn about creating a list that can help you make the most of your downtime during this crunch.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of a time in the past when you met with someone out of curiosity. Now think of the time when you met with someone for a specific purpose. Be aware of that part of you that gives in to curiosity so that, during this period, you are not tempted by it.
FUTURE: As you are moving through this period of time emergency, think about getting assistance for those things that you do that someone else could do, e.g., handle the requests for information. Give that some thought and implement the way it works best for you.
Know someone who could use an additional 5 hours per week during a time emergency? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools, Willpower
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 1
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 2
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 4
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 5
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 6
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 0 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 3
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
So far, In Parts 1 and 2 of this miniseries, we’ve looked at some important basics, such as letting people know that they’ll be seeing less of you for a certain time, cleaning your desk, eliminating the news, being selective on our reading materials and waking up a bit earlier. Today we are going to continue looking at the next installment in Fred Smith’s 20-point checklist as it appears in his book Learning to Lead.
6. Work on the majors only. “Some people have the unfortunate habit—and it is a habit—of listing everything that they have to do as if it were equal with all the others. […] Not everything in life is of equal importance… make a hierarchy of priorities to keep [you] from allowing emergencies to top the list. […] Write down the two, three or four major things [you] simply cannot slight, and be sure only to work on them. These are [your] current majors, the items of greatest importance today. Everything else has to be pushed aside to work on the majors.”
As it relates to this point, on this post, Greg McKeown (author of Essentialism) emphasizes two things:
(a) The idea that we can do all or have it all is a damaging myth because “it results in stressed people trying to cram yet more activities into their already overscheduled lives.”
(b) Prioritizing (or focusing on the majors only) doesn’t mean just saying no. It entails “purposefully, deliberately and strategically eliminating the non-essentials, and not just getting rid of the obvious time wasters, but cutting out some really good opportunities as well.”
Be careful as you work on the majors, as some decisions will be very hard to make and require lots of careful thinking, especially when the opportunity in front of you is very attractive. Try to postpone those opportunities for later, when you are done with your emergency period.
7. Make no radical changes. “The object of the battle plan is to pick up time, not to change.” Since radical shifts require much time to implement, Smith advises against them: “I wouldn’t try to review my habits for spending time. These are my reflexes, and it takes too much effort to change them. I wouldn’t attempt to rework the organization or correct others’ mistakes or get people mad at me and have to go back and apologize. I call these kinds of things ‘rework.’ I save the rework for the general war and concentrate on winning the present battle.”
8. Avoid the wood-hay-and-stubble activities. “Things that flatter [your] ego, satisfy [your] human ambition, make [you] liked—social affairs—are wood, hay, and stubble. If [you] have time for them, they’re perfectly all right… [but] they can drain a lot of time.” Smith suggests making a list of the meetings from which you can stay away comfortably. Lunch with [an organization] every time it meets is not mandatory as you can catch another of those lunches in the future. Under emergency mode, Smith points out he might go into a meeting and say, “Folks, I’m pressed for time. I’m going to have to ask your indulgence. Give me 15 minutes to cover my subjects. You talk them out after I’m gone and then write a memo on what our plan should be.” But he reminds us to do this only during an emergency crunch. “They might let me do it for as long as six weeks, but I would be neglecting my responsibilities if I tried every time.” So just determine what is wood, hay, and stubble for now and avoid it during this period.
Come back tomorrow to read the next installment in Smith’s list on finding 5 extra hours. You’ll learn why dealing only with the “driving wheels” is important during this period. Are you enjoying this miniseries? Please let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Make your hierarchy of priorities and focus on working on your majors.
FUTURE: As great opportunities present themselves during this period, you’ll be tempted to say yes. Think whether they are essential and contribute to your goal during this time crunch or take you away from it. If they take you away from it, politely decline (you’ll learn a great way to do this tomorrow!) or, if possible, postpone doing them until the time you are out of monk mode. Write these opportunities down in a piece of paper and put them in the same box with your unnecessary reading. Once you are done with your emergency period and come back up for air, you can examine them and decide what to do about them.
Know someone who could use an additional 5 hours per week during a time emergency? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools, Willpower
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 1
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 3
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 4
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 5
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 6
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 13 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 2
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
In yesterday’s Part 1 of this miniseries, we learned what the basis must be to declare a time emergency, and roughly how long we can make it last without affecting our work or relationships. We also learned how to announce going into monk mode to the people that surround us in order to get their help and support. So far so good.
Today, we will start unpacking Fred Smith’s 20-point checklist in Learning to Lead. The goal is to help you find five extra hours per week, despite being completely swamped. There’s no time to lose, so let’s get started!
1. Clean off the desk. “To start the battle, sweep away everything you won’t be using in the next six weeks. When I diet I don’t leave food lying around the house to tantalize me. Unfinished work tempts me, makes me want to look at it, pick it up, finish it. I feel guilty about it. So the first step is to clean off my desk.” If cleaning your desk becomes a tremendous chore in and of itself, then grab a box and put all the stuff in there that you won’t need for the next few weeks. Once your emergency plan is over and you are back to normal, you can take the contents of the box, examine them and clean them up. For now, they’ll be fine in a box: out of sight, out of mind.
2. Stop reading the newspaper. “I can pick up three and one-half hours a week right there, and if I only need five hours, that’s a pretty good start,” says the author. If you’re hesitant to do this out of fear someone will ask something and you might appear uninformed, it’s easier to reply, “No, I didn’t see that. What did it say?” The person can tell you in a few minutes. Smith asks himself, What am I getting out of the newspaper that’s worth making my life frantic? In this post, I talk about lifestyle design guru, Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, who decided not to read or watch any news based on four factors. The same goes for TV: “Break the habit of turning on the set without first checking the listings. Make TV watching a planned occurrence,” says Fred Smith. His book was written when there was no easy way to record a TV show, yet nowadays you can record or stream your shows at will, so there’s no excuse for binge-watching when you can do this at a later time.
3. Get up 15 minutes earlier. Smith says, “Our wills may support getting up 15 minutes earlier, but they won’t support getting up an hour earlier. We say, ‘But I should be able to.’ That’s fantasy. We’ve got to be objective about what kind of resolution we have. Fifteen minutes each morning gives me an added hour and three quarters a week. Add that to the previous three and one-half hours and the goal of five extra hours is already reached.”
4. Delay unnecessary reading. Smith recommends, “I would postpone all reading that does not directly contribute to what I am doing during this emergency period.”
5. Read only parts of books. The author says, “I’m surprised at how many people feel they have to read a book cover to cover. If I’m in a hurry, I skim the table of contents, find the subjects I need to know immediately, and read those chapters.” Smith points out that we can still get plenty of ideas that way. Further, nowadays, you can subscribe to online summaries that do a good job of providing the core information in a book. Or I know of a daily blog called EntreGurus that I highly recommend… 😉
Come back tomorrow to check out the next few steps in Smith’s emergency time plan. You’ll learn why it’s important to avoid what he calls the wood-hay-and-stubble activities during a time crunch.
ACTION
TODAY: Get started today. Clean your desk and work area so that you can focus on catching up and working on what you need to get done over the next few weeks. Put your newspaper subscription(s) on hold, as if you were going on vacation. Set your alarm clock for tomorrow 15 minutes earlier than normal.
FUTURE: Keep a box by your desk where you will put the unnecessary reading during this period of time. Once your emergency period is over, you can come back to this pile of reading and determine whether you really want to do it or if it was necessary at all. Sometimes we read materials out of the habit and eagerness to keep up with as much as possible, and also due to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), but nothing happens if we let this batch of accumulated reading material go and, going forward, we just pick up from here.
Know someone who could use an additional 5 hours per week during a time emergency? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools, Willpower
Links to other parts of this miniseries:
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 2
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 3
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 4
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 5
How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 6
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: How to find 5 extra hours per week – Part 1
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
How do you spend time? “Most people spend time like they do money,” says leadership guru Fred Smith in his book Learning to Lead. “They spend until suddenly they run short; then they seek a way to compensate.”
Most books and philosophies teach a disciplined approach to time and money as the best path to prevent either one from slipping away. Yet sometimes life happens and we find ourselves in a crunch trying to find time desperately to complete whatever project we’ve (over)committed to… In Smith’s experience, when he asks his worn-out coachees how much time it would take for them to catch up they say, “If I only had five more hours a week!”
What to do?!
Smith put together a checklist to conduct an emergency plan “as a way to pick up five [or more] hours from any week you choose. It provides immediate and effective relief for those who are swamped.” However, he warns, “This is for emergency use only. As in dieting or spending money, the long-range answer is a better lifestyle that doesn’t require temporary bailouts.” He goes on to say that “this is a battle plan, not a war plan. You shouldn’t continue this emergency plan for longer than, say, four to six weeks.”
Smith suggests announcing our emergency plan to the people around us with a statement of this sort: “Folks, you are not going to see as much of me for the next six weeks as you have. I’ve gotten behind in some very important things I should be doing, because I’ve been doing other things that were needful. I’m going to need your understanding for the next month while I catch up.”
You can also announce it to the world via email with an autoresponder, just as Greg McKeown did when he went into monk mode to write his wonderful book Essentialism: “Dear Friends, I am currently working on a new book which has put enormous burdens on my time. Unfortunately, I am unable to respond in the manner I would like. For this, I apologize.”
People are generally understanding and cooperative. Just make sure that you are indeed working on what you need to accomplish, as opposed to playing golf for hours on end. Smith says, “When you declare an emergency, it’s got to be legitimate.”
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn
Come back tomorrow, as we’ll get started with Smith’s 20-point checklist for finding a minimum of 5 extra hours per week.
ACTION
TODAY: Are you in a time crunch and could use a period of four to six weeks to catch up? If so, block off the time in your calendar so that, as of tomorrow, you will start implementing the techniques that Fred Smith shares in his checklist to put in place an emergency plan.
FUTURE: As you go through the next six weeks implementing the points we are going to see in this miniseries, jot down the lessons learned as you come across them. You will find many ways to improve your time management and effectiveness so that you don’t fall into emergency mode again.
Know someone who could use an additional 5 hours per week to catch up? Please share this post. Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 53 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Welcome adversity in your own style
— From No Limits: Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity by John C. Maxwell
Bummer. Just hit a snag. So what now?
It’s our choice. We can focus on finding a solution or an alternative to the initial plan, or focus on our bad luck, moan, and complain.
Totally our choice, but sometimes it’s not all that easy. In No Limits, leadership guru John C. Maxwell says, “You can’t moan and lead at the same time.” And the same goes for success, “You can’t complain and get ahead at the same time. Moaning about your troubles and moving in the right direction rarely happen together.”
One way of moving forward and avoid feeling sorry for yourself is to personalize the way you see and face adversity and annoyances. Make your point of view about this as unique as you are.
What exactly does this mean?
Maxwell tells the story of how PGA pro golfer Richard Lee handles adversity on the course. When prompted by Maxwell to share the best advice he had ever received, Lee answered, “Welcome the ball.”
Intrigued, Maxwell asked him to explain. “I play golf for a living,” Lee said. “Every shot is important to me. Any shot can either make me or break me in a tournament. Early in my career, my mother-in-law could see how, when I had a bad shot, I would get really disappointed and my negative emotions would start to fill my mind and hurt my play. One day she said to me: ‘Richard, you will always have days when you make bad shots, every golfer does. As you walk toward your ball you will have a decision to make: will I dread seeing the lie of my ball and begin filling my mind with negative thoughts and my body with negative emotions? Or will I welcome the ball and be glad I am a golfer, and realize that I have an opportunity to make a great recovery shot? If you always welcome the ball, regardless of your lie, you will more often make good recovery shots.’ ”
And ever since, wherever Lee’s ball lies, he walks up to it and welcomes the ball, thus making a great difference in his game.
This is a fantastic way of thinking about adversity in terms of making a recovery shot.
How can you personalize the way you see adversity in a way that resonates with you? How can you turn it into something that you welcome and look towards a recovery shot afterward?
“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.” – William Arthur Ward
ACTION
TODAY: Take some time to ponder whether you welcome the ball or you get all bent out of shape about annoyances when they happen. How can you welcome the ball?
FUTURE: Murphy’s Law says that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” We’ve all lived through it. O’Toole said that Murphy was an optimist… and O’Malley’s law crowns them all: “If it can’t possibly go wrong, it will.” This is not meant to be pessimistic but to share a bit of Irish popular humor to give you a good laugh. 😉 The reason why I bring this up is because, in a future, when faced with a challenge, you can ask yourself, “What’s the worse that can happen?” and then move forward. If the outcome is as bad as what you thought, you can deal with it as you had anticipated; if it’s not as bad, then all the better!
Know someone who needs to snap out of a funk? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Creativity, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 3 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: A daily, 5-minute exercise for adding value to people’s lives
— From No Limits: Blow the CAP Off Your Capacity by John C. Maxwell
Today’s post is a short but profound exercise that comes from the fantabulous book No Limits by John C. Maxwell, leadership guru. (The book is really fantastic AND fabulous, so why not combine that into one word?)
Every day think of ways to add value to people. “Spend 5 minutes every evening thinking about who you will see the next day and ask yourself, what can I say to them, give to them, or do for them that will make our time together be memorable, be unexpected and add value to them?”
That’s it. Easy. Simple. Profound. Life-changing for you and for those to whose lives you will add value. Maxwell says, “This exercise will set you apart from 99 percent of all the other people in the world, and if you do this every evening and then revisit the ideas you come up with the next morning to potentially improve them, you’ll be amazed by the difference you can make for other people.”
The value that you add doesn’t have to be in the form of grandiose, elaborate deeds, unless you want to, of course. The author cites the example of having dinner with a couple of friends who were married, and coming up with three ways to add value to them.
First, since he (the friend) had been the publisher of several of Maxwell’s books over many years, the author thought of telling him how much he appreciated helping him grow as an author. Maxwell specifically thanked him for coming up with the title of one of his famous books (Talent is Never Enough)—to show that he remembered and that he was grateful.
Second, Maxwell added how much he admired the couple for their eagerness to learn in every situation, and especially at Maxwell’s conferences (where they would always take a seat in the front row of and take copious notes), despite them being already very successful.
And third, he asked his friend if they could still do another project together: Maxwell wanted his friend to know that he valued enormously his ability to contribute to his life and success, especially because his friend was 82 years old at the time.
In Dr. Kathryn Scanland’s blog, she recall’s Maxwell telling the story of asking his 9-year-old grandson how he was going to be intentional about adding value the next day to the people around him. The boy said he would open as many doors as possible with a smile. At the end of the day, the boy had opened a total of 42 doors, all with a beautiful smile!
So there you have it. Take a look at your calendar every evening and determine what you will be doing the next day and with whom you’ll be meeting. What are the ways in which you can add value?
“It only takes five minutes, but the opportunities to make a difference are endless.” – John C. Maxwell
ACTION
TODAY: Take five minutes to look at your calendar for the rest of the day and determine how you will add value to the people with whom you will meet.
FUTURE: Create the habit of looking at your calendar the evening before and taking 5 minutes to figure out how you will create value for others. Set that as an intention for your meetings the next day. Then give it another 5 minutes the next morning to revisit the ideas and improve them. You will have a beautiful impact on the lives of others, and your life will be all the better for it.
Please add value to someone’s life today by sharing this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 42 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Pick Yourself
— From The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin
In yesterday’s post, the closing quote by author James Altucher was, “Rejection and the fear of rejection is the biggest impediment we face to choosing ourselves.” It reminded me of the importance of dancing with fear and picking ourselves, because no one else will.
We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time waiting to be picked, but the moment we pick ourselves is when we start creating, achieving, and moving forward. Because of this, I wanted to share with you a wonderful passage from the book The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. Here it is, verbatim:
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Pick Yourself
Pick Yourself by Hugh MacLeod @gapingvoid (click to enlarge)
Authority?
You want the authority to create, to be noticed, and to make a difference? You’re waiting for permission to stand up and speak up and ship?
Sorry, there’s no authority left.
Oprah has left the building. She can’t choose you to be on her show because her show is gone.
YouTube wants you to have your own show now, but they’re not going to call you.
Dick Clark has left the building. He’s not going to be able to get you a record deal or a TV gig because he and his show are long gone. iTunes and a hundred other outlets want you to have your own gig, but they’re not going to call you, either.
Neither is Rodney Dangerfield or the head of programming at Comedy Central. Louis C. K. has famously proven that he doesn’t need the tyranny of the booker—he booked himself. Marc Maron didn’t wait to be cast on Saturday Night Live—he started his own podcast and earned a million listeners.
Our cultural instinct is to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission, authority, and safety that come from a publisher or a talk-show host or even a blogger who says “I pick you.”
Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you—that Prince Charming has chosen another house in his search for Cinderella—then you can actually get to work.
The myth that the CEO is going to discover you and nurture you and ask you to join her for lunch is just that, a Hollywood myth.
Once you understand that there are problems waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound. The opportunity is not to have your résumé picked from the pile but to lead.
When we take responsibility and eagerly give credit, doors open. When we grab a microphone and speak up, we’re a step closer to doing the work we’re able to do.
Most of all, when we buckle down, confront the lizard brain, and ship our best work, we’re becoming the artists we’re capable of becoming.
No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.
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Click to enlarge.
Beautifully said. And so true. I am lucky to have one of the printouts of this passage that Seth Godin gave me. It’s a treasure that hangs on the wall of my office. It inspires me every day and motivates me to pick myself, and I want to share it with you in hopes that it will do the same for you. Click on the image on the left to enlarge and print.
What about the lizard at the end?? That’s a reminder of quieting and ignoring your lizard brain as you pick yourself and move in the direction of your dreams. Unless you are in true danger, think of your lizard brain the same way you would of a worrywart aunt: thank her for sharing her (doom and gloom) point of view, and don’t pay attention to it.
“How much responsibility are you willing to take before it’s given to you? – Seth Godin
ACTION
TODAY: Pick yourself! The world needs your gifts. And you’ve been wanting to share them for a long time… Start today.
FUTURE: Create the habit of picking yourself. It’s not a one-and-done thing, it’s a recurrent mindset and attitude to be developed. For those of us who struggle thinking that picking ourselves is arrogant or presumptuous, let me turn it around in the same way it helped me: it’s not selfishness, it’s responsibility, because it’s what will enable you to help yourself and others achieve goals and dreams.
Love this post as much as I do? Please help me spread the love by sharing it with other people so that they can pick themselves! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
