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 | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Resolutions
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 20 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Success is predictable
— From No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline by Brian Tracy
I am a big believer in the “success leaves clues” principle: whatever success means to you, there is someone who, very likely, has already achieved that which you want. And this is a wonderful thing, not only because it proves that it can be done, but also because, by virtue of this person leaving “clues,” you can follow his/her footsteps and achieve your goals.
Success, any way you define it, sometimes seems elusive and unpredictable though. That is, until now. In his great book, No Excuses!, business guru Brian Tracy says that success is indeed predictable: “Success is not an accident. Sadly, failure is not an accident either. You succeed when you do what other successful people do, over and over, until these behaviors become a habit. Likewise, you fail if you don’t do what successful people do.”
Tracy goes on to say that when you are not working “deliberately, consciously, and continuously to do, be, and have those things that constitute success for you,” you default to the path of least resistance, or to the expediency path. Neither of these two paths will lead to success, instead, they will lead to cutting corners and getting things done just to get them out of the way, but not to put in the work to do them right necessarily.
In the book, there’s a quote by H. L. Hunt, who was at some point the richest man in the world. He was asked what the secrets of his success were, to which he replied:
“There are only three requirements for success. First, decide exactly what it is you want in life. Second, determine the price that you are going to have to pay to get the things you want. And third, and this is most important, resolve to pay the price.”
Everyone wants to be successful. And one of the most important requirements is the willingness to pay the price, “whatever it is and for as long as it takes, until they achieve the results they desire,” says Tracy. “But most people are not willing to pay the price. Occasionally, they may be willing to pay part of the price, but they are not willing to pay the whole price.”
At this point you are probably wondering what the price of success is. Tracy answers, “It’s simple: Look around you. There it is! You can always tell how much of the price of success you have paid by looking at your current lifestyle and your bank account.”
One of the prices that we must pay is that of learning all we can, from the experts, so that we can follow in their footsteps before venturing out on our own. Another price to pay is the ongoing nature of our mental and physical fitness: “Achieving success is like achieving physical fitness. It is like bathing, brushing your teeth, and eating. It is something that you need to do continuously, every day. Once you begin, you never stop until your life and career are over and you have achieved all the success you desire.”
Please tell me in the comments here what other prices come to mind!
ACTION
TODAY: Determine what success looks like to you. Then determine who has achieved what you want and start following in that person’s footsteps. Has this person written a book? Or does he/she have a blog? Do they have a seminar or webinar, or an e-course? Can you write to them for an informational interview or advice?
FUTURE: Once you have determined what success looks like to you, make a plan to implement the steps that can get you there. What is the price that you will have to pay? Think, of course, in terms of money, but also in terms of time, opportunity cost, etc. It’s important to know (or at least to have an estimate up front as to what it will take) and to commit. Determine your willingness to do so and move forward.
Please share this post with someone who is doing things right and enjoying the price of success! Email, Facebook, Twitter.
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 | Goals, Growth, Resolutions, Willpower
TODAY’S IDEA:
“Make rituals, not resolutions.”
— From Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain by Peter Shankman. (Read an excerpt here.)
Whether you make new year’s resolutions or you simply resolve to do something any time throughout the year, you have probably experienced failure in that arena. Resolutions fail so much because, while well-intentioned, they are little more than wishful thinking. Rituals work because they become ingrained habits that lead us to the successful outcome we want.
In Peter Shankman’s words: “It’s a process—and not one that comes easily. It takes work, determination, focus and repetition. You need to know that you’re going to fail on occasion. But the end result is worth it, and the trick is to constantly focus on both how you feel when you do it and how you feel when you don’t.”
Peter has a simple four-step process to create rituals:
- Create a ritual that produces positive feelings for you
- Work backward from the reward to set the steps in place to make you succeed
- Build fail-safes, that is, processes in place so that if something fails, some other thing (a reminder, a process, or whatever else works for you) will kick in to help you continue to build your habit/ritual.
- Visualize yourself achieving the goal for which you are building this habit.
But remember that simple does not mean easy, because this is about building a new habit. The key is not to give up if you break the initial streak of continuity and consistency, that’s what Peter refers to as failing on occasion. Yes, you will be out with your friends and keeping up with your diet until you eat the double chocolate fudge ooey-gooey brownie with ice-cream and sprinkles. Don’t beat yourself up, just enjoy it and make sure you learn something from it. Could it be that the diet food is making you hungry and unsatisfied? Maybe you need to change to another diet or eat to satiety more of your allowed foods. Could it be that you are simply tired and your reserves of willpower are depleted? (See this idea). Maybe you can go to brunch or lunch with your friends as opposed to dinner. Use failure as a time for analysis and growth, as opposed to a time for being angry at yourself. Remember Einstein’s quote: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
ACTION:
Commit today to start creating a ritual that will help you achieve a desired goal. What will your ritual be? How will it help you actualize one (or many, why not?) of your goals this year? Can’t wait to hear about this!
