by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Other parts of the miniseries:
Winning the war for time–Part 1
Winning the war for time–Part 2
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 29 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Winning the war for time–Part 3
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
So far we’ve been learning how to win the war for time, from Learning to Lead by Fred Smith. In yesterday’s post, Smith shared his views on investing time as well as earning and demanding respect for our time from others. Today we’ll look at ourselves.
An important point that Smith makes in the war against wasting time is that of our personal habits: “Not all time losses can be blamed on other people. Some things are entirely within us.”
It is helpful if we review our habits every so often, as they can sometimes “deteriorate without our realizing it, until they are hurtful instead of helpful.”
The first mention in the list of worst-offenders is orderliness. At first glance, this looks like a virtue, yet it is necessary to clarify the distinction between being organized versus being orderly: “People who are too fastidious turn orderliness into an end rather than a means—and that takes a lot of time. It’s much more important to be organized.”
Another habit that is not helpful for our time is that of perfectionism. We must guard against perfectionism and be aware when it appears. “Very few things in this world are worth perfecting, and it takes an enormous amount of time to perfect anything.”
Smith makes a distinction: “If you’re perfecting something because you feel… that it needs perfecting, that’s one thing. But if you’re doing it so people will say how good you are… or because you’re afraid of criticism, that’s wasteful. You must decide the degree of perfection your work requires.”
If you are a recovering perfectionist like I am (#NotProud), check out this post on moving forward imperfectly.
Another bad habit is that of overcomplicating the execution of our gifts, thus delaying delivery time on them. “Most people do not really appreciate what they can do best because it’s too much fun! They have [a concept] of work that says it’s supposed to be difficult. This makes a person’s specialty feel like leisure or entertainment, not ‘work’—and that becomes a trap. Fast isn’t always bad.”
Besides these time-wasting habits, the author explains what he calls the three temptations that also drain a lot of time. They are:
- Procrastination: “A lot of procrastination is based on our fear of action. We review and review and review. […] Time means nothing if you don’t have the energy to focus.”
- Rationalization: “Trying to prove to yourself you weren’t wrong. It would be so much easier to say, ‘I messed up.’ […] That would save a lot of time.”
- Indecision: “Many people can make good decisions but they won’t. Because that means putting their ego on the line.”
Also, it goes without saying, but our health is paramount to be able to use our time well. “If a person is sick twenty days a year, that’s an obvious time loss.” While we cannot control getting sick or injured, we can definitely take good care of ourselves to enjoy, overall, a healthy existence, and for our bodies to heal promptly when needed.
As another point in the war plan for time, Smith mentions the need for time out. “I guard two things in life: savings and time alone. I simply must have two days every so often to talk to nobody.” And besides taking the time to be alone, relaxed and refreshed, “time with just a few special people is also strategic.”
We’ve come to the end of this miniseries on winning the war for time. These are the ways in which Smith maximizes the opportunities, not just to save time, but also to use it wisely, profitably, and get a return on his investment. Which one of them resonated the most with you? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Examine your personal habits to see if they enable you to use time wisely or if they contribute to your losing time.
FUTURE: Change those habits that are no longer helpful to you. Here are 5 Strategies for eliminating bad habits and 6 Techniques for Installing Good Habits.
Know someone who is always battling time? Please share this post or the whole miniseries with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Other parts of the miniseries:
Winning the war for time–Part 1
Winning the war for time–Part 3
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 37 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Winning the war for time–Part 2
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
In yesterday’s post, we learned the importance of having clarity on our philosophy on time: Fred Smith, leadership guru, taught us some powerful questions to ask ourselves in his book Learning to Lead to determine why we want to get more out of time.
Today, we’ll see why Smith questions the idea of spending time and, instead, prefers to see time as an investment.
He says, “There are two ways to approach time. One is technological: minutes as units. The other is the philosophical: minutes as meaning. […] Too often people don’t know the difference between a fast track and a frantic track.” Smith enjoys a fast-track life, but he doesn’t relish being frantic. That’s an incredibly important distinction.
“It’s just as foolish to use every minute for activity as it is to spend every nickel you’ve got.”
The author goes on to say, “Some people think they have to spend time, use it up one way or another—while others invest it.” His philosophy is to invest it, which means looking for a return on what he does. “Some of that return will be in dollars or other visible achievement, but some will be more internal. Investing time wisely does something for you. Over a period of time it brings an appreciation, a patina to life; it generates maturity and fullness.”
A key thing to consider, as Smith points out, is that “Opportunity is not a mandate to do. Your mandate comes from what you have chosen to try to accomplish.” And he illustrates this by saying, “If a farmer has a bushel of corn and several different fields in which to plant it, he will pick the most fertile field.”
This is a great concept to keep in mind nowadays, when we all live with FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out, and thus try to do too much as we don’t want to miss any opportunities.
Another important point that Smith makes is that of earning respect for our time.
Just as we respect and value other people’s time and effort, we should expect and demand that people respect ours the same way.
People respect us when we address their problems quickly. “There’s something professional about that,” writes the author. “If through reading as well as living we have developed the intuition, knowledge and experience to be helpful to others, and if we have the courage to go right at the issue and not be afraid of conflict, people will see we mean business with our time.”
In practical terms, the best way to do this is to “train people to think in terms of schedule” by saying things that will signal such respect for our time and that of others.
For instance, “You can set definite times for meetings. Even if the calendar is open, you don’t say, ‘Well, come any time Tuesday.’ Instead you say, ‘I’ll be glad to see you. How long do you think you’ll need?’ or ‘How long will it take us to accomplish what you’ve got in mind?’”
Also, Smith says, “You can telegraph your view of time by cutting the conversation off promptly at the end. ‘Is there anything else that we should talk about, or are we finished?’ This establishes the reason why we’re talking: to accomplish something.”
I like Smith’s approach to time because I think it’s sensible and practical. Come back tomorrow for another installment of this miniseries. Smith will be guiding us through personal habits to avoid wasting time, among other topics.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of times when you have spent more time than you wanted in a meeting or a project. What is the common denominator among all those times? How do you give people access to your time? How can you change that access? Work on the language you use with yourself and with others to think in terms of schedule.
FUTURE: Once you’ve figured out how to improve the ways in which you handle your time with others, begin to test. Slowly but surely, you’ll be getting used to the language that works best in each occasion, to the point where you won’t make the mistakes of the past again. Test and rehearse many times until it all comes naturally.
Know someone who is always battling time? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Miniseries, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Other parts of the miniseries:
Winning the war for time–Part 2
Winning the war for time–Part 3
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 56 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Winning the war for time–Part 1
— From Learning to Lead: Bringing Out the Best in People by Fred Smith (1915-2007)
If you find yourself in a crunch and need to make or find time, Fred Smith, leadership guru, gave us this miniseries a while back: How to find 5 extra hours per week.
However, those tactics are geared to win a short battle for time, as you cannot sustain them for the long run. Enter this new miniseries as a continuation of the previous one, also from Fred Smith’s book Learning to Lead. This time we will focus on, in the author’s words, winning the war for time.
“You can only win the war with a philosophical base,” says Smith. This means asking WHY you want to get more out of time: “Is it because [you] want to become famous or make money? [Are you] part of a peer group that always seems busy? What’s the real reason to squeeze more into [your] days and weeks?”
“These days, haste has become a status symbol. People assume, If I’m busier than you are, I must be more important.”
Smith confesses to being perplexed: “Maybe I’m missing something, but I always thought if you were successful, you had more time, not less. […] Lack of time is a status symbol, and that, to me, is backwards. If you really are somebody, you are in control of your time.”
What, then, should the best approach to time be? A very American idea is that of utilizing time to its fullest. Smith shares his thoughts: “I think optimizing opportunities and talents… is a valid reason to use time well.” And he says that this point of view arises from his philosophical cornerstones:
- Time is simply life’s clock. “Time is a tool—a means in life, never an end. […] Time is not something to be pursued for it’s own sake but for what can be done with it.”
- Life is measured by time. “I have a responsibility to control it,” says Smith. “Most of us don’t let other people spend our money; likewise, we should limit their power to spend our time also.”
- We all have the same amount of time each day as everybody else. “The great achievers of the world don’t have any more time than [we] do. It’s simply untrue to say, ‘I don’t have enough time.’ What is not the same for everybody is energy. Unless I recognize my level of energy and recognize that it comes in ebbs and surges, I won’t accomplish all I could.” (This miniseries can help with harnessing your energy and creating the time and space for being awesomely effective.)
- Know the ultimate purpose of your life. This is the only way you’ll be able to know whether you are using your time properly and wisely. Smith mentions that, if you don’t know that ultimate purpose, you have no way of judging your efficiency.
And I’ll leave you to ponder these thoughts today. Please come back tomorrow for another installment of this miniseries where Smith shares why it’s better to invest time than to spend it.
ACTION
TODAY: Ask yourself: What is your philosophical approach to time? Why do you want to get more out of time? Your answers will help bring you clarity.
FUTURE: With your newfound clarity about your philosophy of time, apply it now to your purpose. What activities do you think will be the best use of your time?
Know someone who is always battling time? Please share this post with that person. Thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 53 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Warren Buffett’s little-known tool for prioritizing
— From Warren Buffett’s 5-Step Process for Prioritizing True Success (and Why Most People Never Do It) as appears in the Live Your Legend blog post by the late Scott Dinsmore. Today the site is run by Chelsea Dinsmore.
We’ve talked about prioritizing before, yet I’m always on a quest for additional tools and hacks that can I bring into my life and my projects.
Today I came across a great story in the Live Your Legend blog. It’s about Warren Buffet teaching his pilot a 5-step process on how to prioritize, and a great, new, little-known tool that everyone should adopt.
The story goes like this (taken directly from the post):
1. Know what you want – List your top 25. One day, a few years back Warren went up to his pilot (we’ll call him Steve) and jokingly said, “The fact that you’re still working for me, tells me I’m not doing my job. You should be out, going after more of your goals and dreams.” Warren then asked Steve to list the top 25 things he wanted to do in the next few years or even his lifetime.
2. Pick your Top 5. Once Steve completed his list, Warren then asked him to review each item and circle the top five that were most important to him. The ones he wanted more than anything. Steve was hesitant because, to him, they were all massively important. After all, that’s why he wrote them down. But Warren insisted that he could only pick five. So Steve spent some time with his list and after some deliberation, made five circles. “Are you sure these are the absolute highest priority for you?” Warren asked. Steve confidently replied the affirmative.
3. Make your Top 5 Plan. Warren now asked Steve when he planned to get to work on these top 5 and what his approach would be. They spent the next while discussing Steve’s plan. Steve explained “Warren, these are the most important things in my life right now. I’m going to get to work on them right away. I’ll start tomorrow. Actually, no, I’ll start tonight.” Steve went on to explain his plan, who he would enlist to help him, and by when all these items would get done. Warren was starting to get excited. With any luck, he would be out of a pilot within weeks…
4. Marry your priorities. Once the Top 5 planning session was over, Warren then asked, “but what about these other 20 things on your list that you didn’t circle? What is your plan for completing those?” Steve replied confidently, “Well the top five are my primary focus, but the other twenty come in at a close second. They are still important, so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit as I’m getting through my top 5. They are not as urgent but I still plan to give them dedicated effort.” To Steve’s surprise, Warren responded sternly, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Steve. Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all cost list’. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”
5. Know your ‘Avoid at all Cost List‘ and stick to it. Warren makes a powerful and somewhat unconventional point here. Most people would suggest ranking their second most important items just below their first. Makes sense at first, but as it turns out, this is the type of behavior that creates some of the most detrimental distractions in making big things happen.
I love the concept of the ‘avoid-at-all-cost’ list and, as of right-this-very-second, I am incorporating it into my life. I think it’s a great idea and another tool for focus, concentration, and success.
By having an ‘avoid-at-all-costs’ list, your mind will not be distracted by the priorities in that list. It’s as if you put them in a vault and forget about them. You can’t get them out until the other ones are done, so you will not spend precious mental energy thinking about those things that are not your immediate focus. Brilliant!
Do you like the concept of the ‘avoid-at-all-costs’ list as much as I do? Let me know in the comments here.
ACTION
TODAY: Set up some time in your calendar to follow Buffet’s 5 steps and create a plan to achieve your goals.
FUTURE: Once you have your plan, focus, focus, and focus on your top 5 priorities. That laser-like aim will enable you to devote all your energy to your top 5 goals and crush them!
Know anybody who could use this 5-step process to prioritize? Please share this post via Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 35 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Maker’s Schedule vs. Manager’s Schedule
— From Paul Graham’s blog by Paul Graham, Co-Founder & Partner, Y Combinator
A few years’ back, Paul Graham wrote a post on his blog where he finally deciphered the incompatibility between scheduling: there are people who deal with their time as managers, and people who deal with theirs as makers. And then there are the hybrids.
Hmmmm, what does all this mean?
Let me explain:
Graham writes in his blog, “The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one-hour intervals… When you use time that way, it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done. Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command.”
The makers are programmers, writers, and anybody who needs large chunks of time to devote to focus on making whatever it is that they do. “They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started. When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in.”
“Each type of schedule works fine by itself,” Graham continues. “Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager’s schedule, they’re in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in.”
Managers and makers beware, now that we know how the others operate. Graham offers a solution that has worked for him: office hours clustered at the end of one day. That way managers and makers can indeed meet, but the meeting is not intruding into precious making time.
But what happens when you are a hybrid of both manager and maker? I know I am. And I thought I was going crazy for having a back-to-back meeting schedule on certain days, and reserving other days for long, uninterrupted chunks of time that I defended vehemently and refused to break up with meetings. On the latter, I’d go into “Monk Mode” as Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, calls it.
I had, not knowing, created maker’s days and manager’s days in my calendar. Thanks to Graham, I now know that this is not a crazy thing to do if you’re a hybrid. You can also partition your day into maker’s hours and manager’s hours.
Graham’s case is also a good illustration. As the founder of Y Combinator, one of the most famous companies to provide seed funding for startups, when he and his team were starting, he “used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no one could interrupt [him]. Then [he’d] sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what [he] called ‘business stuff.’” He explains, “I never thought of it in these terms, but in effect I had two workdays each day, one on the manager’s schedule and one on the maker’s.”
Understanding these two schedules, and the way in which they interact or the way in which you can combine them if you are a hybrid, brought much clarity and peace of mind to me. I hope it will do the same for you and the way in which you use your time.
Are you a maker, a manager or a hybrid? Let me know in the comments here.
A reminder that, tomorrow, starts the 90-day sprint towards the end of the year — woohoo! Check out Achieve in 90 to focus on finishing your 2018 goals!
ACTION
TODAY: Figure out how whether you’re a manager or a maker, or both.
FUTURE: Now that you know about these two types of schedules, you can rearrange yours for your optimal performance as well as the optimal way in which you interact with your team and the outside world. Here’s a great post with some tips on how to do this.
Please share this post with managers, makers and hybrids, they will thank you! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 16 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: There are only 3 things leaders must do to succeed
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
“Are you kidding me, Dave? There may be no ‘I’ in team, but there sure as hell is an ‘I’ in leadership. Now quit [clowning] around and step up and become a leader!”
Wow… Dave Kerpen, social media guru and author of The Art People, recalls being admonished with those words by Robb High, a mentor of his, after Kerpen had mentioned his belief in “everyone being equal, working together as a team, and supporting one another.”
The answer from High? “That’s all fine, Dave. I’m all for teamwork. But every team needs a leader.”
Kerpen says, “In an effort to have everyone feel that his or her voice was heard and that everyone was important, I had failed to become an effective leader.” And while he recognized the importance of what High was saying, “the problem was that [Kerpen] had no specific idea how to become a leader.”
Have you ever been in this position?
“Chances are, you have chosen to become or have been asked to be a leader at some point in you life. But what does leadership mean? Does it mean leading by example? Yes. Does it mean inspiring others? Absolutely. Does it mean doing the right thing (after figuring out what the right thing is)? Yes. Leadership includes all of these things. In fact, leadership can mean many different things to many different people…”
Fortunately, the author met Verne Harnish, a renowned business guru and author of many books, including the well-known Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Harnish told Kerpen there were “three and only three things on which great leaders have to focus… [By] doing those three things well, everything else will fall into place.”
These three things will help you lead whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 or the CEO of your home. The author and his wife have applied it, both, to their business and to their growing family of 5, and it has worked wonders for them.
So, what are those three things?
1. Setting and communicating the overall vision for your team. “This is most important but is often overlooked. What is your grand mission? Your purpose? Your overall vision for how things will be? It’s important to develop this because everything else can fall into place once you have it. Once the vision and mission are established, it is essential to overcommunicate it!” Everything else you and your team do must be in alignment with this always.
2. Making sure you have the right people in the right seats on the team. “Beyond you, it’s essential to make sure you have the most talented, most appropriate people surrounding and leading the way… There are only two questions to consider in making this determination about your people: How capable are they of doing their jobs? And, How aligned are they with your vision and values?”
3. Making sure you have enough resources and money to help the team succeed. “Whether this means applying for more funding, getting creative, or somehow figuring out MacGyver-style, it’s your job to make sure the team has everything it needs to succeed so that the team members don’t need to worry about it.”
ACTION
TODAY: Whether you lead a company, a large or small team, a group of volunteers or your household, make an (informal) audit to see how well you are doing in these three areas.
FUTURE: Based on the results of your audit, determine the changes (or not) you need to make. Do you have, and have you communicated your overall vision? Do you have the talented help you need where and when you need it? Do you have enough money and resources to succeed? Create a plan to begin or continue implementing these three things. And speaking of plans… if there’s something that you and/or your team need to get done before the year is up, sign up for Achieve in 90, my online program to guide you and keep you accountable during the last 90 days of the year.
Cheers to your success!
How about sharing this post with someone you know who is in a position of leadership? Email, Facebook or Twitter.
