by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Habits, Planning, Productivity, Tools
TODAY’S IDEA:
“A good-day’s work”
— From Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Whether you work remotely or not, Remote offers some gold nuggets for all. One of those nuggets is how to measure progress and what’s a good-day’s work based on reasonable expectations.
In today’s working culture, it’s unfortunate that overwork and lack of sleep reign supreme. These two terrors are widespread; at best they are temporary and can be avoided, but at worse, they are carried as badges of honor horror (!). Working constantly can be a menace, because it can lead to serious burnout before you even know it. And this is true especially if you love your work. Why? Because we’re constantly connected and just a device away… thus it is easy to check email one more time, and to respond to that message at 10 pm to get it out of the way. And if you have 1 hour on Saturday morning, it’s easy to use that time to work on a project instead; or if it’s rainy outside, might as well make the most out of it and start working on the presentation for next week…
I’m not denying the importance of sprints once in a while, but over the long run it’s not sustainable and it’s not healthy. As the book says, there are no “hero awards” for overworking, as the work should be seen as a marathon instead. “It’s crucial for everyone to pace themselves.” This quote opened my eyes:
“One way to set up a healthy boundary is to […] think of a good-day’s work. Look at your progress toward the end of the day and ask yourself: ‘have I done a good-day’s work?’ Answering that question is liberating. Often, if the answer is an easy yes, you can stop working, feeling satisfied that something important got accomplished—if not entirely done. And should the answer be no, you can treat it as an off day and explore the 5 WHYs (asking why to a problem five times in a row to find the root cause). It feels good to be productive. If yesterday was a good day’s work, chances are you’ll stay on a roll, and if you can stay on a roll, everything else will probably take care of itself, including not working from the time you get up in the morning until you go to sleep.”
This is such a simple and basic but oh-so-powerful idea, because you are the judge of your progress and you can learn from this process to keep making it better. I am guilty of loving my work and trying to squeeze as much of it as I can in a day. But I have found that I work so much better and I’m so much more productive when I’m well rested and when I also do other personal things that are important for my physical health and emotional wellbeing. We all really need to take our mind off work for a while to rest and renew, and to come back better and stronger.
ACTION
Whether you’ve been naughty or nice in terms of a “good-day’s work,” keep a log (nothing complicated, any calendar will do). You’ll be able to see progress with all the yes answers, and with the 5 WHYs method you will be able to get to the core of why it wasn’t a good day’s work and solve it right away. If that or other problems keep emerging and you see patterns preventing your progress, analyze them so that you can solve them too. Get to the root: What can you learn? What can you change so that you can have more good days?
I wish you nothing but good days, and would love to hear from you: how do you measure a good-day’s work?
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Leadership, Planning, Tools
TODAY’S IDEA:
Have Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals to keep you going and stimulate your progress.
— From Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins (read or listen to a sample).
Today is the last Friday in January, which means it is National Big Wig Day ™. This is a celebration of “the potential inside of all of us” and the opportunity to lead by example, as any bigwig would do! We are the bigwigs in our lives and today is a reminder that “regardless of title, we can make a difference and improve the lives of others.”
Bigwigs usually have “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals” or what Jim Collins has coined as BHAGs (pronounced “bee-hags”) in his excellent book. Yet this does not have to be a concept exclusive to the most important and powerful persons/companies in the world. We can learn from them and use BHAGs too, because they are “a particularly powerful mechanism to stimulate progress… There is a difference between merely having a goal and becoming committed to a huge, daunting challenge—like a big mountain to climb.”
A BHAG must be “clear and compelling. […] It has a clear finish line, so [you know] when [you] have achieved the goal. […] A BHAG engages people—it reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People ‘get it’ right away; it takes little or no explanation. […]
The essential point of a BHAG is better captured in such questions as: “Does it stimulate forward progress? Does it create momentum? Does it get [you] going? Does it get [your] juices flowing? Do [you] find it stimulating, exciting, adventurous? Are [you] willing to throw [your] creative talents and human energy into it?”
Whether you are going strong with your new year’s resolutions (woo-hoo!) or they have fizzled out (oops!), it’s time to set a BHAG so that, as February rolls around, you don’t lose your momentum. Remember to stretch yourself and shoot for the stars with your BHAG (whatever your stars are) so that you can either arrive at your stars or land very closely in that direction. Keep in mind this great quote by Michelangelo: “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”
ACTION
Based on your new year’s resolutions rituals, goals, or intentions, pick one or two BHAGs (I suggest one personal and one professional) to get you through the rest of the year. Figure out how you will break each one down into manageable pieces month by month. Take some time during the weekend to do this and let’s get started next week on February 1st, deal?
I have my BHAG ready, will you join me with yours? I’m thinking of starting a Facebook group for accountability on our goals and to create a community of like-minded, professional and growth-oriented people. Is this something that you’d be interested in? Please let me know!
I’m cheering for your success!!
P.S. Just for fun, here’s the story behind the term bigwig. (I can’t get over the thought of scaffolding!)
by Helena Escalante | Growth, Mindset, Tools
TODAY’S IDEA:
“Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors.”
— From Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur, by Derek Sivers.
While Derek Sivers uses this idea in terms of being casual when hiring, and it’s fantastic that way, I think it can be extrapolated to so many other areas of life and business where perfectionism creeps up.
When you are performing an action or making a decision, and you hear the voice of your lizard brain stop and think for a moment who you are doing it for. If it’s for yourself, your family, friends, customers or clients, or for a particular intention that you’ve set, that is great. But if it’s to satisfy some invisible jury, or someone’s expectation that weighs heavily on you, or some crazy reason that someone made up to keep you abiding by the etiquette manuals of the Victorian Era… think again. You may be engaging in something that you don’t want to do and, more importantly, that you don’t need to do, simply because of an unrealistic and unnecessary expectation; or your desire to impress or placate someone that simply exists in your mind. This is what Steven Pressfield calls “resistance” or what Jon Acuff means by “perfectionism.”
I know it well because I am a recovering perfectionist. As trite as it sounds, I’ve been my own worst enemy my whole life. I always lived in fear of being inadequate because I judged my work as imperfect. I’d give up at the mere thought of starting something for fear or shame of people thinking my thoughts were crazy and my work would not be good… That invisible, very harsh jury made up of PhDs in Perfection by the University of Perfectville did not exist anywhere but in my mind.
So think twice next time you are about to do something and you hear the voice of perfectionism. Jon Acuff in Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done suggests a great exercise to nip in the bud what he calls our “secret rules” (limiting beliefs) by asking “Says who?”
ACTION:
Next time you hear the voice of perfectionism telling you to do or not to do something ask “says who?” and answer honestly. You will see that the invisible jury of MBA professors out to get you is just your lizard brain in disguise, and you’ll get rid of the critics in your mind!
How have you dealt with perfectionism before? What has worked for you? What hasn’t? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to learn from you!
by Helena Escalante | Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
TODAY’S IDEA:
“The Platinum Rule always trumps the Golden Rule.”
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
We all grew up being taught the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, it’s very likely that at some point you did something that you thought was genuinely good and it turned out to be a mess. Yikes! Welcome to the world and to the human race. What about when someone did something that they thought was great and you were not so pleased? Ugh.
What’s the lesson here? Empathy. Dave Kerpen hits the nail in the head: “Everyone is different, and the truth is that in many cases what you’d want done to you is different from what your partner, employee, customer, investor, wife, or child would want done to him or her.” In light of this, he coined the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would want done to them.”
This is the proverbial walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, yet it is so important and so true. Not until we see someone else’s perspective can we understand them. We yearn to be understood and appreciated: let’s do the same for others.
ACTION:
On any given day there are things people do that aggravate us in minor or major ways; and there are always things we do that aggravate people to a certain degree. Let’s keep this wonderful quote by Stephen M.R. Covey in mind:
“We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”
Hmmmmm, see the difference? Next time you are aggravated, stop and think what the intention must have been—or ask if you get a chance—and you’ll see this makes an enormous difference. Likewise, when someone doesn’t like something you did, try to explain the intention behind it and you’ll likely see the situation defuse as the other person sees where you’re coming from.
Slowly but surely, the empathy muscle will start building up when you see things from this perspective. This way you’ll also be able to take a proactive look ahead and figure out what other persons’ want or need and apply The Platinum Rule.
While this is not a recipe to avoid making mistakes, when you take a more empathic and compassionate look at our fellow human beings, you’ll see that, for the most part, we are all doing the best that we can with the mental toolkit that we have at our disposal at any given moment.
What tips can you share about empathy? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to know!
by Helena Escalante | Leadership, Planning, Resources, Tools
TODAY’S IDEA:
To get to the root cause of a problem, ask WHY five times.
I’ve read this idea in many books, and it’s brilliant! I believe it first started in the manufacturing plants of Toyota in Japan, and it soon spread widely, because it can be applied to virtually any situation, any industry, and even to personal issues where we need to get to the bottom of something.
The idea is as follows: to get to the root cause of a problem you need to ask why (an average) of five times to uncover the issue. For example, let me share a case with which I was familiar:
Problem: It seemed that an outreach campaign for a gym was not working: people were not going into the gym to use the equipment that was being promoted.
Why #1: Why are people not coming into the gym to use the equipment that is being promoted?
Answer: Because people don’t understand how to use it on their own.
Why #2: Why don’t people understand how to use the equipment on their own?
Answer: Because it’s a very particular kind of equipment that requires guidance at first to learn how to use it.
Why #3: Why don’t we offer the guidance that people need at first to use the equipment?
Answer: As a matter fact the gym offers appointments for people to come in and have their questions about the equipment answered.
Why #4: Why aren’t more people requesting to make an appointment to come in?
Answer: People do make requests to set up an appointment, but they are being turned down because trainers don’t have the time.
Why #5: Why don’t trainers have the time?
Answer: Because management never checked with them or their schedules before creating the campaign and simply expected trainers to handle the additional flow.
As you can see, it’s like peeling layers of an onion to get to the core issue. Now we see that the campaign is indeed working because people are requesting appointments to come in, but the gym—at its current staff levels—is not being able to handle the new-client inflow. It’s now up to the gym’s management to figure out the best way to solve this based on the information uncovered. Good thing we asked five times, we wouldn’t have known all this had we stopped at the first why!
This is a very simple but truly great method to get to the bottom of things. If you need more than five, keep asking why until you get to the core of the problem, that’s the only way in which you’ll find out what it is. Then you can move on to solve it, which is the best part!
ACTION:
Share this method today with your colleagues, clients and loved ones. Try testing it out on simple things and you’ll see how rewarding it is to solve some of those mysteries. Think about a problem that you faced in the past and mentally apply this method to see how you would have arrived to the bottom of it. Next time you need to solve an issue where the root cause is not clear, remember to use the five whys; and when you do, please let me know in the comments, I’d love to hear how it worked out for you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes, 57 seconds. → This is a special post to kick off the New Year. It’s longer than the regular daily ones (that you can read in under 5 min), but my hope is that it will spark some ideas and propel you into action.
I will NEVER make New Year’s Resolutions again…
December 31st used to roll around, I’d make tons of great-sounding resolutions, and anytime between late January 1st and January 8th, they would be gone: #resolutionfail. I’d feel like a failure, throw my hands in the air and resign my self to feel like a loser.
Not anymore! Resolutions don’t work for me—and I guess they don’t work for most other people—because they are merely feel-good wishes. But let’s reframe for a second here: what if we take those wishes and turn them into actions by converting them into SMART goals?
SMART is an acronym that is used for setting goals, it stands for:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Timebound
So let’s run through each one of these points to turn a resolution into a goal:
One of my resolutions was to “exercise more.” While that sounds great in principle, it’s setting me up for failure because it’s broadly defined. What does exercise and more mean?
S – Specific
Set your goal in as much detail as possible. In my case: I will do some form of aerobic exercise for 30 minutes a minimum of 5 days per week. My 2 faves are jogging and cycling, but I may change them for variety once in a while: elliptical, stairclimber, swimming, etc., depending on where I am and how much time I have. I will do some form of resistance exercise for 15 to 20 min a minimum of 3 days per week. This can be free weights, body weight exercises or using some sort of equipment at the gym.
M – Measurable
How will you know when you have succeeded? Specify what you are going to measure, that way you will know when you have reached your goal, big or small. By stating that I will do 30 min aerobic exercise a minimum of 5 days per week, I know what I need to schedule and I’ve set a measure for accountability and success. Same with the weights/resistance exercise for 15-20 min at minimum of 3 days per week.
A – Achievable
Can you meet this goal? Given my schedule and time constraints, this sounds like it’s indeed a doable goal. However, I will give myself the gift of flexibility and test it out. If, for some reason, my circumstances change as the year progresses and the goal becomes too hard or too easy, I will allow myself to revisit and fine-tune so that the goal becomes achievable for me again.
Remember that these are YOUR goals, and the more accommodating you are to making them happen, the more you will participate in them and enjoy them.
Peter Shankman in his book Faster Than Normal talks about setting up fail-safes so that you can guarantee that you can get done what you need to get done. A fail-safe is simply a process that you set up so that if A fails, then B kicks in to fix A or to make sure A gets done. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say that I want to get up early to exercise. I set up my alarm clock and when it goes off in the morning I hit snooze. My plan to get up has failed. But what if I also set up the alarm on my phone to go off at the same time as my alarm clock AND leave the phone outside my bedroom? That ensures that I will get up from my slumber to turn it off. And I will jump out of my bed really fast since I don’t want the alarm from my phone to disturb my husband’s sleep. So that ensures I’ll be up… might as well go exercise.
R – Realistic
Given your constraints, can your goal be attained? The expectations you set must be based on reality. My goal is certainly realistic given my fitness level and my work/time constraints. I’m not setting myself up for failure by wanting to go from zero to running a marathon in one week or some other non-realistic goal.
This point is key, because it is here where our wishful thinking can derail us as we start the New Year with grand hopes and expectations for us. Allow yourself to set big goals, but break them down into realistic bite-sized pieces so that you can complete one at a time. Consistency is better than perfection anytime. And remember that there will come a day, or two, or twelve (!)… when you will want to give up. STOP. Do. Not. Give. Up.
The weather may be ugly. Or you have bad hair day. Or you just aren’t seeing the progress you anticipated. Or. Or. Or… Just remember Woody Allen’s quote on those days: “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” And since you showed up, might as well do what you needed to do anyway.
OR… and this a big one… if you are not going to fulfill that day’s habit, then renegotiate the promise you made with yourself. OK, so no exercise today because there is a cloud in the sky (or insert excuse here) and you will simply take it back on again tomorrow. Deal. And this is OK too. Just make sure that you learn a lesson from that missed date. Perhaps you are tired because you didn’t sleep well – what do you need to do to ensure you sleep well so that this does not happen again? Reflect on the valuable lesson that you learned so that you can put fail-safes in place to avoid the same from happening in a future. Also, reevaluate your goal to make sure it is still doable. If not, figure out what necessary modifications you need to make to ensure you meet that goal.
The Realistic part applies not only to the goal itself but also to the process of getting it done. Be flexible and don’t give up.
T – Timebound
This is another key point that goes hand in hand with the Realistic one. When you set up times for performing and for completing, make sure they are realistic. You can get a lot of things done, if you just figure out how many hours it will take you to do so. Enter again our dear friend wishful thinking.
I love this quote from Bill Gates because it is so true: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”
The best way to figure out what amount of time something is going to take is to assign it the time you think it will take. One of two things can happen:
- Parkinson’s Law will kick in. This law states that: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. And if you only have a certain amount of time to do something, very likely you will get it done within that timeframe.
- You will have a realistic assessment of the time that you will need to get that thing done. If you finish earlier than expected, congrats! You can move on to the next thing. Or if you really need more time, by now you’ll be able to assess how much more you need and schedule it accordingly.
And this reminds me of two of Laura Vanderkam’s great books: 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: How to Achieve More at Work and at Home.
The basic premise of both books is that we look at our time in chunks of 24 hours and want to cram as much as possible in that time span with the consequent disappointment, frustration and overwhelm. When we look at a week, we can plan better if we recognize that we have 168 hours. Even if we give ourselves the luxury of sleeping 8 hours a night, that takes only 56 hours away, leaving us with 112 hours to adapt our week to lots of professional and personal things that otherwise we’d never plan on doing.
And if we look at a weekend in a similar vein (from 6 pm on Friday when we leave work and the weekend “officially” starts to Monday at 6 am when the alarm clock goes off) we have 60 hours. Even if we sleep 24 hours, that leaves us with 36 hours to play, do chores or tackle our to-do list – that is almost the same amount of time as a full time job! (40 hours)
Laura’s point in all of this is the importance of planning: what gets scheduled gets done. Scheduling the time and truly devoting it to the activities that will help you achieve your goals is the best way to ensure that those goals will be met and you will be able to check them off your to-do or you bucket list.
As this new year begins, make a list of your goals, break them down into the components that make a SMART goal, and then schedule the times in your calendar, and respect those times as a promise you make to yourself so that you can make sure they get done. If for some reason comes a day or time when you cannot do it (and it will come), don’t beat yourself up, simply renegotiate with yourself (just as you would with any other person if you were doing something for them) and notice what you learn.
Hope this helps! Let me know what your goals are in the comments below. And please, schedule in your calendar 5 minutes at this time next year so that you can tell me how the process went.
I’m thrilled for you and cheering for your success!! 🙂
