This is an extract from a mini toolkit ‘Time Is on My Side, Yes, It Is’ (article +E-Templates) that can be source from this link.
I was promised, by my religious education teacher, when I reached fifty, I would be working a four-day week. The Americans had just landed on the moon, with less computer capacity than your smartwatch. My teacher was certain that the technological advances would be used so ably and willingly by us that it was inconceivable that we would not have an extra day of recreation. Has this happened?
Certainly not. Many of us today have frustrating long commutes, are constantly sleep deprived, are addicted to responding to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram as well as binging on a box set or two. To make matters worse now, once in the office, we are subjected to far too many meetings, scheduled across the day that go nowhere quickly. Everyday pressures of modern life leads us toward the belief that we cannot cope as there is not enough time in the day.
When I was in my thirties, the king of time management was Stephen Covey. He wrote the book “First thing’s first”[i], and developed an international training programme that hundreds of thousands of people attended, around the world, including myself.
What I have discovered, is that with the passing of Stephen Covey, a whole generation of people have not been exposed to time management principles, which has led to an epidemic of time-poor practices. I discovered this when I wrote an article for ‘Accountants in Business’ on time management. It created far more feedback than all my other articles put together. My webinar on the topic had over 250 registrations and these were the responses to the polls.
I would like to make it clear that I am not a paradigm of time management, far from it. However, through exposure to talented managers, meetings with consultants and reading many works by the great management thinkers I have collected a potpourri of solutions that will revolutionise readers’ time management to varying degrees.
1 The Good News- You Have More Time Than You Think
On YouTube, Laura Vanderkam, a time management expert, pointed out that we have more time than we think — 168 hours each week. Let’s say we have joined the growing new-age “sleep movement” and sleep 49–56 hours a week and we work between 40–55 hours a week. That leaves 64–72 hours a week spare.
This explains how my younger sister visits her horse before and after teaching at a school, runs a household and plays in a semi-professional orchestra, leaving her enough time to go swimming in the sea in the summer months, catching up with friends while listening to Irish music and seeing foreign films with her younger son.
We have all have had those times of peak performance where we managed a workload, we considered was the impossible. I want to explain how this happened and remind you, by applying these tools, that you can do it again.
2 First Things First
The father of time management could be Stephen Covey. In his book “First thing’s first”, he observed that great leaders appear less stressed and seemed to have more time on their hands. He adopted the Eisenhower matrix which helps to sort tasks based on the principals of urgency and importance. When assigned to each task, those two factors place the task to the relevant quadrant of the matrix. Covey pointed out that far too often we are firefighting in the “urgent and not important” quadrant. We should, instead, allow such fires to burn themselves out, redirecting our time to the “non-urgent and important” quadrant. The idea being you spend more time in the important but not urgent tasks
He was adamant that the key was “not to prioritise what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
As you can see in the diagram, we should spend more time in the “non-urgent and important” quadrant.
Joel Spolsky, co-founder of Trello and CEO of Stack Overflow, developed the Rule of 5. The concept is that no person should ever have more than five tasks on their to-do list at any given time. Whilst your list may hold more tasks, it might to useful to highlight your five tasks.
A philosophy professor is lecturing to his students. He brings out an empty jar and small rocks. Filling the jar with the rocks, he asks if it is full. “Yes”, they reply. Then he lifts a container of small pebbles and pours them in. “Is it full?”. “Yes”, they reply. Then he lifts a container of sand and pours it in round the rocks and pebbles. “Is it full?”. “Yes definitely”, they reply. Then he pours in a cup of coffee in to the container and it fills up all the spare space.
He explained, “Rocks are the important things in your life — you must give them priority each day otherwise you can’t fit them in. Small pebbles — are the next important things. The sand (your emails, routine meetings, daily chores) — are the least important activities and should be made to fit around the more important tasks”.
“So why the coffee?” a student asks. “To remind you that you should always make time, every day, for a coffee with either a work colleague, a client or a friend.” The professor replied.
The rocks are, of course, the important but not urgent tasks that Covey was pointing us to.
3 Why You Should Eat a Frog Every Morning
Mark Twain once said that if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you know that the rest of your day will be better because the worst is behind you. After all, you’ve already eaten a frog, what’s the worst that could happen?
Far too often we dread a task (Mark Twain’s frog), perceiving that it is either nearly impossible or we simply hate doing it. It creates a dark mood that impacts our ability to focus and complete other tasks.
I learnt on a self-development course to ask myself, when I wake up in the morning, what I don’t want to do that day. The subconscious will answer you back honestly. Your task, when you arrive at work, is to do that very thing that is unpalatable to you. Make that call, organise that appointment, give that reprimand or write that report you have been avoiding. Two things will happen: the feared task will not be so hard to complete, and you will feel much lighter as this great weight is lifted off you. Try it – I hope you find it as useful as I have.
4 Importance of Abandonment at Home and at Work
From the time we were at kindergarten we have had a fear of admitting we were wrong. In our personal lives we have held on to dumb purchases in the hope that one day it will be a good idea. Our houses are cluttered with the past, not giving enough space for our potentially glorious future to unfold.
If I was to go into a reader’s garage what would I find? Maybe an exercise machine that started off life in great excitement as we envisaged a leaner version of oneself. After a couple of weeks in the lounge, it started its inexorable journey to the garage. There to rest under the dust cover for a day in the future when we would use it again, so we could say “I told you so”.
At home the best approach is to have a periodic clear-out. What you cannot sell, give away or send to the recyclers. You will be amazed what you can sell. One friend sold their son’s Lego collection for €3,000 and the buyer thought he had a bargain.
In the world of commerce this trait of “Groundhog Day” is equally damaging. Dr Jeffrey Liker points out that “Most business process are 90% waste and 10% value-added work.” There is thus much that we can abandon. In Toyota, staff are expected to look, every day, for that abandonment, that simplification that can make a process more efficient and reliable.
We will hold on to systems, keep going with projects, keep writing that report that nobody reads because to remove it would mean a loss of face. Let’s get over it.
Management guru, Peter Drucker, who I consider to be the Leonardo de Vinci of management, frequently used the word ‘abandonment’. I think it is one of the top 10 gifts Drucker gave us all. In his final book, where Drucker asked Elizabeth Edersheim to interview him and summarize his life work, one whole chapter is dedicated to this very topic. He said, “Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’ve stopped doing.” He frequently said that abandonment is the key to innovation. He left some rather telling statements.
“If leaders are unable to abandon yesterday, they simply will not be able to create tomorrow”.
“Without systematic and purposeful abandonment, an organisation will be overtaken by events. It will squander its best resources on things it should never have been doing or should no longer do. As a result, it will lack the resources needed to exploit the opportunities that arise”.
In many teams, processes are followed, year-in and year-out, because “it’s the way things have always been done.” When staff question, “Why do we do this?” the manager will often answer, “There must be a reason; so please do it.”
An organisation that embraced Peter Drucker’s abandonment, earmarked the first Monday of every month for “abandonment meetings at every management level.” Each session targets a different area so that over the course of a year everything is given the once-over. This process would work well in all teams except we should meet once a week to discuss at least two abandonments.
The act of abandonment gives a tremendous sense of relief to the team members for it stops the past from haunting the future. It takes courage and conviction from the manager. Knowing when to abandon and having the courage to do so are important leadership attributes.
I have included, in the electronic media attached to this white paper, a book review of Elizabeth Haas Edersheim’s “The Definitive Drucker”[ii]. Browse the book for more on abandonment and other great advice. I consider this book one of the top ten management books I have read. I hope, like me, you too will become a follower of the great Peter Drucker.
This is an extract from a mini toolkit (article +E-Templates) that can be source from this link.
[i] Stephen Covey “First Things First”, Free Press; Reprint edition, 1996
[ii] Elizabeth Haas Edersheim, The Definitive Drucker: Challengers for Tomorrow’s Executives — Final Advice from the Father of Modern Management, McGraw-Hill, 2006.