by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Productivity, Resolutions, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 33 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leaders and limitations
— From Common Sense Leadership: A Handbook for Success as a Leader by Roger Fulton
As I was going about finding an idea for today, I came across this one that I loved: it’s what leaders do when faced with limitations. Normally, I intertwine my thoughts and takeaways with the idea from the book. Yet, on this occasion, the idea is so brief, so concise and so perfectly written, that I’m taking the liberty of sharing it in its entirety here. Since we are all leaders, whether formal or informal, paid or voluntary, of large corporations or of our households… I think the thoughts apply beautifully to all. Enjoy!
“Leaders understand their own limitations, but they are not necessarily limited by them.
As an example, budgets can limit available resources, but a true leader will find a way to get the job done with the resources available. Staffing three shifts can’t be done with only two people, but a true leader will make the most efficient use of those two people to cover the shifts.
Time is always a limitation. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Yet a true leader will make the most efficient use of time available. Luckily there are some things that know no limits:
Dreams.
Human ingenuity.
Love.
Even though you may not be able to conquer the whole world, you can comfortably conquer a small part of it, even taking into account many of your limitations.”
ACTION
TODAY: Think of some limitations or constraints that you are facing in business or life, and put them to work for you. What are some creative ways in which you can deal with them? How can you make the most out of them? Fortunately there’s no limit to human ingenuity: set some time to brainwrite, and remember that there’s no such thing as a shortage of ideas.
FUTURE: Let’s turn limitations upside down and use them to our advantage. Try imposing a few limitations on yourself or your work to see if you become more efficient and effective. For instance, try to answer most emails in less than 3 minutes (the email game). Or try to finish a particular project or chore in 25 minutes. Need more time? Add another chunk of 25 minutes as opposed to giving it all your morning. How about cutting down meeting time from the calendar’s default of 1 hour to 30 minutes instead, and do it standing up to further keep it short? Cut your daily cooking time in half and devote the other half to playing a game with your family or to start working on a personal project. You can be as adventurous or as traditional as you can with this. Create some limitations and put them to the test, see if they work for you and if you become more efficient as a result of them. Then you can decide whether to keep them or not, or tweak and keep testing until you find the ones that work really well for you.
Know someone who would benefit from reading this post? Please share it via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Leadership, Mindset, Networking, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 25 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Memorable networking in just 3 minutes
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
When we meet someone new we tend to use small talk “because it’s far more socially acceptable than asking pointed questions. But the truth is that by asking better, smarter questions, we can understand the people we meet more quickly and determine rapidly whether they’re friend or foe, a potential business partner or a mate, a future employee or casual acquaintance. Life is short. The less time we waste on the weather, the better.”
And so begins an exercise to help our networking that Dave Kerpen shares with us in his book The Art of People. The exercise is geared to getting to know the person you are meeting “better than you know many of your friends, in just three minutes with just three questions.”
Kerpen mentions he was a skeptic at first, yet once he tried it at a conference, he was convinced immediately of the effectiveness of it. Further, two years after having the conversation with a total stranger, he could still recall the details easily. That is memorable networking!
The three questions are:
- “What is the most exciting thing you are working on right now?” (1 min)
- “If you had enough money to retire and then some, what would you be doing?” (1 min)
- “What is your favorite charity organization and why?” (1 min)
As you can see, these questions bring out our passions, our dreams, and our deep emotions when we answer them. They get to the heart of what makes people tick. Thus, they are guaranteed to break the ice and get to know the other person via the stories that he/she tells. And stories are memorable and relatable.
However, there are many other questions that will produce a similar effect. Craft the ones that suit you in order to bring out the best in the people that you meet, for example, “If you weren’t doing what you do today, what would you be doing and why?” “Who’s been the most important influence on you?” “If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be and why?”
ACTION
TODAY: Try out these questions on someone that you meet (preferably), or someone with whom you are barely acquainted. Pay attention as to how you know each other and how the relationship changes, for the better, in less than 3 minutes. It’s a powerful exercise.
FUTURE: Keep this exercise in mind for the next time you meet new people. If you think it’s awkward to ask them these questions, blame it on us! Simply say, “ I just read this crazy [blog] that talked about asking better questions when you first meet someone. Mind if we try out a couple of these questions and each answer them?”
Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, if you know someone who could benefit memorable networking!
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 39 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Spring cleaning
— From Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Happy Spring! And Happy Fall to our gurupies in the Southern Hemisphere! (Gurupie = blend of guru and groupie = how I fondly refer to the EntreGurus’ community, because we all follow the ideas of the gurus.)
This is a time for cleaning, not just our homes, but also our schedules and our minds. Let’s get rid of all those commitments and thoughts that no longer fit us, and substitute them for those that inspire, enlighten and empower us to reach our goals.
In Essentialism, Greg McKeown says, “Think about what happens to your [closet] when you never organize it… it becomes cluttered and stuffed with clothes you rarely wear. Every so often it gets so out of control you try and purge [it]. But unless you have a disciplined system you’ll either end up with as many clothes as you started with because you can’t decide which to give away; end up with regrets because you accidentally gave away clothes you do wear and did want to keep; or end up with a pile of clothes you don’t want to keep but never actually get rid of because you are not quite sure where to take them or what to do with them.”
“In the same way […] so do our lives get cluttered as well-intended commitments and activities we’ve said yes to pile up. Most of these efforts didn’t come with an expiry date. Unless we have a system for purging them, once adopted, they live on in perpetuity.”
The best approach for our personal and professional closet, as well as our physical one too (why not?), is as follows:
- Explore and evaluate. “Instead of asking, ‘Is there a chance that I will wear this someday in the future?’ you ask more disciplined, tough questions: ‘Do I love this?’ and ‘Do I look great in it?’ and ‘Do I wear this often?’ If the answer is no, then you know it’s a candidate for elimination.” In your life, be it professional or personal, the equivalent is asking, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?”
- Eliminate. “Let’s say you have your clothes divided into piles of ‘must keep’ and ‘probably should get rid of’.” Are you really ready to get rid of them? We usually start hesitating… “If you’re not quite there, ask the killer question: ‘If I didn’t already own this, how much would I spend to buy it?’ This usually does the trick.” In life, the killer question is: “If I didn’t have this opportunity, what would I be willing to do to acquire it?” And if you want to take it up a notch once you have explored your options, the next question is, “What will I say no to?” Of course, it is much harder to say no to opportunities (and sometimes very good ones) than to give your clothes away to charity, but then again, keep going back to the question in Number 1.
- Execute. “If you want your [closet] to stay tidy, you need a regular routine for organizing it.” In business an in life, “once you’ve figured out which activities and efforts to keep—the ones that make your highest level of contribution—you need a system to make executing your intentions as effortless as possible.” Among the many ideas that McKeown suggests for executing the discipline of keeping our personal and professional closets neat and tidy is asking the following questions with each project you are about to undertake: “How will we know when we are done?” “What are all the obstacles standing between me and getting this done?” and “What is keeping me from completing this?” Also, replace the idea of “this has to be perfect or else” with “done is better than perfect.” In the case of an “obstacle” being a person, say a colleague, who is swamped and has not given you what you need, the author says that being kind and helpful is always the best bet. Ask, “What obstacles or bottlenecks are holding you back from achieving X, and how can I help remove these? Instead of pestering him, offer sincerely to support him.”
ACTION
TODAY: Make a list of the commitments that are in your personal and professional life’s closet. Then go through the questions in No. 1 and No. 2 above to determine whether it’s best to keep them or not.
FUTURE: Just as you would give your gently worn clothes to a charity for someone to get a second life out of them, those projects that you undertook at some point deserve to be given a new life under someone else’s attention, work and enthusiasm. I think of those projects as puppies: you love them dearly and they are adorable, but it’s impossible to keep them all; so you make sure that they go to a loving home where they will live a happy life and lack nothing. Same here. Don’t drop all your unwanted projects abruptly (unless you want and there are no consequences). Instead, find a loving home for them. Your conscience will be at peace and the people involved in the project will be grateful. A loving home could be a colleague to chair the committee, a fellow in your industry to take care of a client you can no longer serve, another parent to take your place at your child’s school bake sale, another member of your charity’s board to coordinate this year’s gala, etc.
Know someone who needs to do a bit of Spring cleaning? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Productivity, Sales
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 5 things you need to stop doing now to be more productive at work
— From Time Traps: Proven Strategies for Swamped Sales People by Todd Duncan
At first sight, these five things that we can stop doing now to be more productive at work may seem too basic and plain. I didn’t think they’d make a difference until I gave it some additional thought, and what blew me away was the amount of accumulated time that can be freed up daily and yearly if we simply stop doing them.
Todd Duncan, the author, mentions that if we don’t take an organized approach to working, very likely we will say YES to everything and add it to our already full plates. “This is highly unorganized and allows unproductive interruptions […] to monopolize your time. To begin cleaning up your work schedule, follow these five guidelines to construct boundaries that regulate or eliminate the most common unnecessary tasks that clutter your days.”
- Don’t give your personal digits to customers. This means don’t give out your cell phone number, your home phone number and your personal email address. “Make it simple for them and sane for you: …give prospects and customers only one e-mail address and one phone number. It’s tempting and easy to justify giving out more contact information, but don’t.” Once you give your personal digits out you can’t control what clients or colleagues do with them and when they’ll contact you expecting an immediate answer. Be careful if you don’t want them to interfere with your personal time.
- Don’t give your work digits to friends. “If they already have them, ask your friends to e-mail and/or call you on your personal lines instead.” Sounds a bit extreme, but think about it in terms of your productivity. Your friends are likely to have your personal cell and home numbers, your personal email, and your social media. If there is an emergency, they can definitely contact you.
- Turn off the instant message and e-mail alert functions on your work computer [and your phone]. “The last thing you need is one-liners and alerts popping up on your screen all day. They are too tempting and will whittle away your time quicker than you realize.”
- Don’t answer the phone unless it is someone you are expecting. “Unless you are a retail salesperson whose business comes via phone, or you are expecting a call, you shouldn’t even have the ringer on.” If you fear you’ll be perceived as antisocial, try it for a day or two and see what happens. Let it go to voice mail and retrieve at intervals when it’s convenient for you. Don’t let it sidetrack you every time it rings.
- Don’t check your personal email during work hours. “Very few people [do this], and it adds to your work hours—sometimes several hours a week. Not only that, it adds to your [load of] responsibilities, like e-mailing so-and-so with a phone number, or calling so-and-so with directions, or checking out a Web site, or answering a question that can be answered later.”
“There are others, of course… [but those mentioned] represent the most pervasive but often overlooked, time sappers.”
If you’re saying ‘yeah, yeah, yeah… I know this,’ to these things and you still think they don’t add up, simply look at this conservative estimate of time freed up that appears in the book (the estimate is based on 230 working days/yr):
| TASK |
Time Wasted |
Time Freed |
| Personal e-mails to work address |
30 mins/day |
115 hours/year |
| Personal calls to work phone(s) |
30 mins/day |
115 hours/year |
| Answering every call |
60 mins/day |
230 hours/year |
| Customer calls to personal digits |
60 mins/day |
230 hours/year |
| Instant message & e-mail alerts |
15 mins/day |
57.5 hours/year |
| Total time freed up |
3 hours day |
747.5 hours/year |
If you think this is a high estimate, simply record your time wasters for a week or two, and modify the calculation to suit you. See how much time you can free up. What will you do with those extra hours that you now found? Imagine the possibilities!
ACTION
TODAY: Try stopping these 5 things and see how your day goes. Then at the end of the day reflect on what went well and what didn’t. How can you tweak to your advantage?
FUTURE: Over the next week or two, tally up the time you use in these 5 activities. This is for your eyes only, no need to share it with anyone, so be very honest with yourself—the idea is to find out how much time these tasks are taking—that way you’ll know how much time you’ll save by not doing them. Then, try stopping these five things for a couple of weeks as well. Figure out what works and what doesn’t along the way, and tweak according to your needs. Maybe you can stop all alerts but don’t feel comfortable stopping the one from your biggest client, or from your company’s CEO, or fill-in-the-blank. That’s OK, you will still save some time by stopping the other alerts. You can continue to monitor how many times your client/boss/CEO/etc. calls or emails with an urgent task vs. how many times it would be possible to retrieve it later, at a time that is convenient to you. Tweak and tweak again until you find a rhythm that suits you.
Know someone who could free up some time? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Productivity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Block the block
— From What to Do When it’s Your Turn (and it’s Always Your Turn) by Seth Godin
We’ve all been told that we need to be motivated in order to work or take action on something.
I think it’s important to make a distinction in terms of what we understand and call motivation:
Intrinsic Motivation – this is the reason WHY we do what we do and we take the actions that we take. We work because we need to earn money; we get together with friends because we want to have fun. These examples are simplistic, but they paint the picture. We seldom question this motivation and simply accept it as part of who we are and what we do.
But there’s a second kind of motivation, and that is the one we are talking about here:
Momentary motivation – this is feeling like doing something at a particular moment. Some people think “they need the right cosmic alignment and the proper mood” to start doing their work.
Writers, for example, often cite writer’s block as the reason why they can’t write. “But this is a form of hiding,” says Seth Godin. And I can only imagine that every profession has its own form of a block: the entrepreneur’s block, the lawyer’s block, the architect’s block, the coach’s block, the chef’s block, the nurse’s block, the designer’s block… you’re blocked when you simply don’t find the willingness within you (your mind is not collaborating…) to do the tasks that you must get done, at that moment, to accomplish your work.
What’s the way out? How can you block the block from happening again? Momentary motivation techniques might work, but to ensure that you get rid of the block once and for all, the best antidote is to create a habit.
“A habit of showing up on a regular basis, of writing when it’s time to write [or of (fill-in-the-blank) when it’s time to (fill-in-the-blank)], raising your hand when asked, pitching in every single time. The habit is part of what it means to do work. Your posture of leaning into this opportunity, of connecting and creating and picking yourself: this is your work. How motivated you are today has nothing to do with the opportunity and the obligation you face.”
Building a habit will add consistency to your work, give you a certain routine and schedule, and avoid the block.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the areas in your life where you sometimes experience a “block.” Make a list of the things that the block represents: what are you hiding from? It could be fear of failure (e.g. by being blocked you don’t write, and if you don’t write then there is no chance you’ll fail); it could be fear of success (e.g. by being blocked you don’t write and thus, there’s no opportunity for success, because you fear that if you succeed wildly your friends will leave you); it could be anything. This is as unique as you, be honest with yourself and give yourself the time to really dive deep and understand what the block means to you. It will be enlightening.
FUTURE: Based on what the block means to you, create the atmosphere and schedule the time so that you can build your habit, overcome the block and thrive. What will building your habit entail? Do you need to go somewhere to work without distraction for a period of time with certain frequency? Do you need to prep some physical or digital tools ahead of time so that you can perform? Do you need to declutter your desk (or the kitchen table) to work from there? Make it as easy as possible to create the habit so that you can have the odds in your favor to succeed.
Know someone who needs to get rid of the block? Help them get unblocked today by sharing with them this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 41 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Extreme Pareto
— From The ONE Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (watch the book trailer)
The to-do list is a magnificent tool and companion to our busy lives. Yet since the list can also serve as a catchall for minor, unimportant things, we feel the urge to get them done and cross them off—just because they were on our list. This leads to us being busy, but not necessarily productive: “busyness rarely takes care of business.”
But if we all have the same 24 hours in a day, how is it that some people seem to achieve much and get a lot of things done? What do they do differently? What do they know that we don’t? “Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.”
Enter the Pareto Principle. You may be familiar with this already: it’s the 80/20 rule. It states that, “a minority of causes, inputs, or effort [the 20 percent] usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards [the 80 percent].”
What this means is that 80 percent of our results will come from 20 percent of our focused efforts. Thus, “a to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto’s Principle to it.” The idea is simple, take your to-do list and cull it down to the 20 percent of things that will yield the biggest results.
But why stop there? Gary Keller, author of The ONE Thing, encourages us to practice “Extreme Pareto” to get down to the one item on our to-do list that is the absolutely most essential to our success. He says, “Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing! No matter the task, mission or goal. Big or small. Start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE. The imperative ONE. The ONE Thing.”
“Sometimes it’s the first thing you do. Sometimes it’s the only thing you do. Regardless, doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your to-do list. Apply the Pareto Principle and focus on narrowing it down to the 20 percent of items that you need to get done. Then go extreme, keep applying the Pareto Principle to narrow it down, 20-percent-at-a-time, until you reach your ONE thing. Get that done before anything else, even if it’s the only thing you do all day.
FUTURE: Make a habit of applying Extreme Pareto when planning the week ahead of you by asking: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” Do that ONE Thing, and once you are done, ask again… and repeat. You’ll see that by focusing on the vital few you’ll be able to move forward more rapidly than if you spend your time and attention in the trivial many.
Know someone who’s spread too thin and could benefit from Extreme Pareto? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
