by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 28 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Prioritize your priority
— From Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
In his wonderful book, Essentialism, Greg McKeown eschews the idea that “you can have it all,” because it is a damaging myth. “It results in stressed people trying to cram yet more activities into their already overscheduled lives.” I can definitely relate.
The word priority (meaning “the very first or prior thing”) appeared in our language around the 1400s and continued that way, in singular, for centuries. “Only in the 1900s did we pluralise the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple ‘first’ things.”
The problem with this approach is that we have many competing things, all of them appearing to be the most important, and as we try to juggle them all at once, we give our control away. “When we don’t purposefully and deliberately choose where to focus our energies and time, other people – our bosses, our colleagues, our clients, and even our families – will choose for us, and before long we’ll have lost sight of everything that is meaningful and important.”
“We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people’s agendas to control our lives.”
The key, however, is to be cognizant that prioritizing our priority (I just had to write that!) 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.” There are always going to be trade-offs, and some decisions will be very hard to make and require lots of careful thinking, especially when the opportunity in front is very attractive.
Ask yourself, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?” Remember that when an opportunity presents itself, it’s either “Hell, yeah!” or “NO.”
ACTION
Scales of Justice
TODAY: Figure out what is your one priority. A very simple way to do this is to compare the items on your current list of priorities one at a time, as if you were putting them on the scales of justice, to see which one weighs more. Say you have 4 priorities: A, B, C and D.
- Take A and B and compare them: which one is more important? Let’s say A. Keep A as your priority so far and park B aside.
- Now take C and compare it to A: which one is more important? Let’s say C. Keep C, as it has become your priority so far, and park A aside.
- Now take D and compare it to C: which one is more important? Let’s say C. Park D aside.
With this method you have just determined that your priority is C. Period. Congratulations!
Now look at A, B and D and decide whether they make the highest possible contribution towards your goal. Yes? Great, schedule them in the order in which they’ll make the greatest contribution too. No? Then don’t do them if you can get away with that: delegate them, change them, get rid of them or further park them in your “that would be nice to do” list for a future. Or if you must absolutely work on them, do so only after you have done what you need to do today to advance C.
FUTURE: Question the validity of all you do so that you can focus on your priority. Look at your activities for the upcoming week or for the full month. Which ones contribute toward your goal? Keep them. Try to do away with the ones that don’t. Notice that I said, “try to” because in a week/month it’s going to be hard to focus solely on your goal and get rid of everything that doesn’t fit. We’ve all given control of our agenda to others, so it will take a bit of time to gain it back; but if you make a habit of questioning all actions and activities, in a very near future you’ll be focusing much more (if not completely) on your goal. Another great way to prioritize appears in this post: How to choose what is important? Principles of priority.
Know someone who’s trying to do it all and have it all, and is spread way to thin? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Habits, Parkinson's Law, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 45 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA:
The to-do and to-be lists.
— From The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple by Donna Smallin
Donna Smallin, professional organizer extraordinaire, is a genius when it comes to productivity with easy, helpful, and actionable tips. She suggests creating a master list of to-dos. Then, taking that master list as a basis, take the items from there to create our daily to-do lists.
Further, she has some great ideas as to how to manage the master and the daily to-do lists:
- “Do at least one thing each day that will bring you closer to a long-term goal.”
- “Put the 80/20 principle to work. Only 20 percent of things in your to-do list are priority items…. focus all of your energy on getting those things done.”
- “Evaluate every item on your master to-do list. Move any tasks that would be nice to do, but aren’t necessary, to a separate “would be nice to do” list.”
- “Decide which one thing on your daily to-do list is the most important thing to get done. Do that first.”
- “The secret to getting through your daily to-do list is to put fewer things on it. Just list the three most important things to do that day. If you have time left over at the end of the day, you can always add another task from your master list.”
- “At the beginning of each week, create time in your schedule for each one of your priorities. Then schedule everything else around those things. If having more free time is a priority, schedule your free time first. Then schedule focused work time. Use the time in between for completing routine tasks.”
- “Apply the on/off rule to commitments: before you agree to be on a committee or board, get off a committee or board.”
And the last suggestion from Donna that I want to highlight today (because it’s one that I absolutely love and that is rarely talked about) is THE most important one of all:
“Remember that in the big picture of life, your to-do list is not nearly as important as your to-be list: schedule time to be with the people you love, in the places you love, doing the things you love to do.”
ACTION
TODAY: Create your master to-do list and your to-be list. Schedule your priorities from both to-do and to-be lists today and commit to honoring them. You’ll be glad you did!
FUTURE: As you plan your week/month/time ahead, schedule your priorities from both to-do and to-be lists in your calendar. Next, schedule focused work time, and then everything else. Parkinson’s Law will ensure that you finish your tasks in the time you have allotted for them. You’ll be surprised how much you can get done in little time if you are focused and intent on getting things done. (Expand on this idea by reading this quick post about Capacity.) Further, is there any way you can create synergy and overlap? E.g. Could you go for a jog (to-do: workout) with a friend whom you haven’t seen in a while (to-be: with friends, at the park) and catch up during your run?
Know someone who needs help with his or her to-do list? Someone that could use an a-ha! moment with the idea of the to-be list? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Habits, Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA:
9 Habits to stop NOW
— From: The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Tim Ferriss’ book opened up the doors to the wonderful opportunity of lifestyle design that has become the dream—or the coveted reality—of many people. Beyond the many fascinating ideas and amusing stories that the book shares, sprinkled throughout is a collection of tips and pointers to become super efficient and productive.
One of these tools is what Tim calls “The Not-to-Do List” where he offers a list of 9 habits that we should all stop doing right now for the sake of maximizing our productivity and keeping our stress levels as low as possible. “Focus on one or two at a time, just as you would with high-priority to-do items,” he says.
Here’s the list:
1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers. “It just results in unwanted interruptions or poor negotiating positions.” There are services that can send you a text transcript of the voice mail message immediately after the call to save you time.
2. Do not email first thing in the morning or last thing at night. (I’m so guilty of this one…) “The former scrambles your priorities and plans for the day, and the latter just gives you insomnia.”
3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time. “Request them in advance so that you ‘can best prepare and make good use of the time together’.”
4. Do not let people ramble. “A big part of getting things done is getting to the point.” This may not be as easy as it sounds in some foreign countries, where culture dictates that getting to the point is rude before you go through the appropriate initial niceties that a call or meeting demand. Yet you can always say something to the effect of: I have a hard stop at X time. Since I value our time together, I want to focus on [the issue], so let’s get started on this and we can catch up on personal matters another time, deal?
5. Do not check email constantly—“batch” and check at set times only. Set an auto-responder saying “Due to the high workload, I am currently checking and responding to email twice daily at 12 pm ET and 4 pm ET [or your preferred times and time zones]. If you require urgent assistance (please ensure that it’s urgent) that cannot wait until 12 pm or 4 pm please contact me via phone at [number]. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me accomplish more to serve you better.”
6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers. Analyze your customer base: “which 20% are producing 80%+ of my profit, and which 20% are consuming 80%+ of my time? Then put the loudest and least productive on autopilot by citing a change in company policies. Send them an email with the new rules as bullet points: number of permissible phone calls, e-mail response time, minimum orders, etc. Offer to point them to another provider if they aren’t able to adopt the new policies.”
7. Do not work more to fix overwhelmingness—prioritize. “If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important. The answer to overwhelmingness is not spinning more plates—or doing more—it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life.”
8. Do not carry a cell phone 24/7. Take a digital detox at least one day per week. “Turn [it] off or, better still, leave [it] in the garage or in the car.”
9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should. “Work is not all of life. Your co-workers shouldn’t be your only friends. Schedule life and defend it just as you would an important business meeting.”
ACTION
TODAY: Focus on not doing right away: select the one or two habits you are going to stop doing NOW. Write them down in a card and keep it near you and visible all day as a reminder.
FUTURE: Pick a couple of habits that you’d like to ditch within a month’s time. Tell family, friends or coworkers about this so that they can help keep you accountable. Further, keep yourself accountable with your favorite system (a journal, an X on a calendar, an accountability/habit app, etc.). After the time has passed, pick another one or two habits—or continue to reinforce the previous ones—and keep yourself aware and accountable of your progress until you have eliminated them. Repeat as necessary. For more on the topic you can read this earlier post.
Know someone who needs to stop doing these things right away too? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Planning, Productivity, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 24 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Actualize your dreams during the weekends
–From What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend, a short guide included in What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: How to Achieve More at Work and at Home by Laura Vanderkam
Remember how Laura Vanderkam helped us reframe the way we view our weekends? Well, how about bringing her back in to help with the actual planning of the weekend?
Laura says that, when figuring out what to do over the weekend, the best way to frame the question is to ask, “What do you want to do more of with your time?” And, invariably, with that answer comes the realization that we’re going to need more fingers and toes than we have to count all the things we want to do. So, she suggests creating a List of 100 Dreams and brainwriting “anything you might want to do or have in life.”
The first entries on that list will likely be large, once-in-a-lifetime happenings, such as “…go see the pyramids in Egypt. By Dream 100, however, you’ll be coming up with more everyday founts of joy, which tend to make excellent weekend events.” Further, she suggests, “keep going until you have a good long list of these doable dreams. You could also think of these as a bucket list focused on activities within a two-hour radius from your house.”
Keep the list handy so that, as you plan your weekends, you can access it and check off the items that you are going to do over the weekend. Also, the list is dynamic: you may want to change, add or delete from it according to the things you cross off, additional interests you want to include, or changes in your life’s circumstances that will prompt you to modify things on your list (such as moving to another state).
And don’t forget to include in the list the wishes of your kids, significant other and anyone else who spends weekends with you. You’ll all be creating memories together, so might as well plan for them together and enjoy the anticipation together.
Vorfreude: (German noun) The joyful, intense anticipation that comes from imagining future pleasures.
ACTION
TODAY: Start (and if you have enough time, finish) your list of 100 Dreams. Divide it into things you can do over a weekend and things that require more time than a weekend (save this last one for future planning).
FUTURE: Take your “weekends” list of activities and plan to do them during future weekends. Enjoy doing this!! Laura gives an example about a woman and her husband who “sit down with beers on Friday to plan out their weekends. It’s more about catching up and brainstorming what they’ll do (and drinking beer) than a chore.” Take it easy and have fun, that’s what this is all about!
Have a lovely weekend and let me know in the comments what you are going to do!
by Helena Escalante | Planning, Productivity, Resources, Tools
TODAY’S IDEA:
There is no such thing as a shortage of ideas!
This idea is a segue from yesterday’s post on practicing proactive procrastination to generate ideas. Yet instead of procrastinating and getting bored, today we are going to do the opposite: take action.
How many times, when we need an answer, do we ask “hey, do you have any ideas on…?” only to hear our teammates, or even ourselves, say “no, I really can’t think of anything…” This answer naturally leads us to call for a brainstorming session. But more often than not, during brainstorming sessions everyone tends to agree with a few of the first ideas tossed out and that’s it, we’re stuck again with a less-than-desirable solution.
This happens because, usually, the most vocal people in the group toss out the first ideas and the rest of the group either agrees or keeps quiet, leading to groupthink (“the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility” – Google Dictionary). To avoid this, the concept of brainwriting can be used. It’s very simple: have everyone write their ideas down in paper before either saying them out loud, or passing the list on to the next person as a way to spark more ideas. That’s it.
The process then can follow many different courses (examples here and here). Yet it ultimately follows the course of whatever the moderator wants to do with the many ideas generated.
I recently put this to the test with several friends where the task was to generate as many business ideas as possible in 10 minutes. We came up with over 130. Of course, not all of them were good or viable, but they were all valid for what we wanted to prove to ourselves: that anyone is able to able generate many ideas at once with this method, and that it’s better if you do it as a team because you’ll produce many, many more ideas than as as individual. And once you start discarding the crazy, unviable ideas, you’ll be left with a handful of good, actionable ones that you can start putting into practice right away. As Seth Godin says, “you can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.”
So there you have it. Use brainwriting instead of brainstorming, and you’ll never be at a loss for ideas again.
“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.”
— Linus Pauling
ACTION:
TODAY: Play along with the idea of brainwriting for yourself. Take 10 min and write down as many ideas as you can think of for an issue you want to solve or for a goal you’d like to achieve. Don’t judge the ideas, simply write them all down and let your brain loose while you’re doing this exercise. You’ll see that you can come up with a great amount of ideas and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at yourself. Then discard the bad ideas, take the good ones and implement them.
FUTURE: Get together with a group of friends, colleagues, or family and brainwrite answers to a challenge or problem that you are facing. Alternatively, set a goal (e.g. write down 50 ways to improve a process in your company, or 100 places where you’d like to go on vacation, etc.) and give yourself a finite amount of time, say 10-15 minutes. Then be in awe as to how many ideas you come up with! Vote for the best ones, discard the bad ones, and happy implementing!
Enjoy learning this new process, it’s easy, fun and VERY helpful in all aspects of business and life. Let me know how you did in the comments!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Habits, Planning, Productivity, Time
TODAY’S IDEA:
Create uninterrupted time FOR YOU daily.
Given that we all have 24 hours in a day, how come some people seem to get a lot more done than others? I believe the secret lies in creating the habit of scheduling uninterrupted time on a daily basis and focusing during that time on your priorities.
At plain sight this seems very simple, but in practice it’s not: we’re all busy, not to mention sleep deprived… And the first thing that goes out the window in the face of a looming deadline or lots of work is the time we make for ourselves.
Most of the authors I read and the people I admire prefer to open up a chunk of time in their schedules early in the morning.They accomplish a lot when their minds are fresh and when they are well rested. This is their time, there are no interruptions, and they focus it on exercising, writing, meditating, journaling, reading, or a combination of these or other things that enables them to get closer to their goals.
Mornings are ideal because then you can go on with your day knowing that you have already accomplished, or taken a step towards your main goals. At the end of that day, you’ll feel like you’ve made progress, as opposed to feeling overwhelmed by the lack of time and distractions that would otherwise prevent you from working on your goals. The U.S. Army says: “We do more before 9AM than most people do all day.” This leads me to the amount of time to carve out: whatever is best for you. Experiment at first until you find your sweet spot.
Most of the people I’ve read who have a set morning routine spend anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. Yet Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM), says that, in a pinch, he can do his six morning activities in one minute each and then get going. Could you start with 6 minutes a day if you knew this would take you closer to your goals? Seen this way it doesn’t seem all that crazy, right?
Andy Traub, author of The Early to Rise Experience: Learn to Rise Early in 30 Days, tells us to “publicly declare an end to wasting your mornings,” and reminds us, once a day, to:
“Make one decision that will change a person forever:
That day is today.
That decision is to get out of bed early.
That person is you.”
I am an early bird (and even more after reading these two books!) but my husband is a night owl and he gets a lot done in the evenings and late into the night. Since I’m a witness to these two personalities living together in harmony, I’m not an advocate for one or the other, except for the one that works for you. Or if you simply don’t have time in the morning or the evening, how about during your lunch time? And how about just 5 days a week? That’s the idea behind BoxLunch Lifestyle. Cheryl Johnson, the Founder, says: “Your lunch matters in a way you’ve never thought of before. It can reveal what you value and what might be holding you back. Real changes in how you eat and spend your time start here. Take back your life.”
Whether you do it in the morning, lunch time or evening, please make sure that you are indeed carving out some uninterrupted time on your day to work on your goals. Give yourself the gift of focusing on making your dreams come true. It’s never too early and it’s never too late. Your life will be all the better for it.
ACTION:
TODAY: Schedule some uninterrupted time on your calendar today and honor it like an appointment. What gets scheduled gets done!
FUTURE: Start creating this habit this week. Schedule chunks of uninterrupted time in your calendar and determine what you are going to do with that time. Also, unless you are a cold-turkey kind of person, I suggest starting slowly and building up to it. For example, instead of setting aside 1 hr daily as of tomorrow, start with 20 min during one week, then move up to 40 the following and by the 3rd week you’ll be scheduling one full hour of uninterrupted time for you, that way you’ll be able to assess how much time you need for your goals. Be gentle with yourself if you slip while you are building this habit, there will always be a million things screaming to take your attention away from this time. Just keep coming back to set aside time FOR YOU, daily, to work on your goals.
Let me know how it goes!
