The Ugly Truth About Your Time

There are many forms of self-delusion, and “I don’t have time” is among the most common. The truth about how we manage and rationalize our use of time is uglier than Mick Jagger with a hangover on Halloween. Here are some of those truths:

1) You’re not busier than everyone else. Believe it or not, everyone feels time pressure, and in very few circumstances can you claim to be any busier than those around you. If you’re a farmer, or you’re on the London Olympic Organizing Committee, you get a pass. Everyone else needs to stop using, “I’m too busy” as an excuse.

2) Society has not conspired to give you less leisure time. With the exception of the United States, leisure time has steadily increased since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in developed nations. The fact that leisure time is completely overscheduled is an issue of how it is managed, not an issue of quantity. It’s kind of like confusing a Big Mac with actual food.

3) You do, in fact, do what is important to you. I’m always amazed that people claim not to have time to do something “important” like volunteer at their children’s school, but do have time to watch 8 or 10 hours of crap TV shows a week. Ultimately, you do do what is actually important – and it’s reflected in your schedule.

4) You can’t have it all. This is an insidious myth we all use to rationalize each other’s dysfunctional behavior. If you work 80 hours a week, you are missing out on something else in your life – like having quality time with your family. To think that you can dictate “quality time”, is to imply that all the other potential time is wasted, and that somehow you have a magic switch that can mystically transform time into “quality”. These are the same people that put “baby to take first steps” into their calendar for a weekend, when they’re around. You can’t schedule quality time.

5) The world will not slow down. Regardless of how long you think humans have been on the planet, there is one constant: the rate of change has continually accelerated. If anything, the rate of change will increase, so strap in, and wear a cup – it’s rough out there.

If you want to gain control of your schedule once and for all, we can help….but only if you’re ready to face the ugly facts about how you currently spend your time.

The Time Management Skills & Techniques Video and Cheat Sheet combo were just added to the Wily Manager membership area, and it’s one of over 90 topics available now.

In it, we show you why most time management techniques don’t work, and how to ruthlessly zero in on your critical tasks and responsibilities while fearlessly ditch the rest.

Next week we’ll be talking about Quick Decisions, and you’ll learn how to make decisions without regrets when you’re forced to think on your feet. You won’t want to miss out – become a Wily Manager Member today.

You’ll get 8 free bonus gifts worth $187, plus instant access to all the existing tools and advice already available in the members-only area. It’s jam-packed with Videos, Cheat Sheets, and other tools…and new content is added each and every week.


World Hunger and Kim Kardashian

The word “project” is probably one of the most misunderstood terms in business today.  The term is used interchangeably to describe a wide variety (and often contradictory) of activities in the workplace.  As a service to Wily Manager readers, we look at a variety of types of “projects”, and their actual definitions:

Projects Around the House (domesticus disasterus).  The primary habitat of these projects are suburban cul-de-sacs where professional males live, who took no more than one shop course in high school, but think they are Bob Villa.

People Projects (exercisus futilitus).  To be clear, we’re not talking about making some suggestions to tweak certain behaviors, we’re talking about trying to change the very nature of another human being.  These projects are most often documented and heard about in female groups of 4 – 6.  The best place to observe such a conversation is in the lobby of a movie theatre following a Nora Ephron film.

Guilt-easing Projects (glad-I’m-not-him-us).  This type of project is where people address the symptoms of a huge (usually social) problem, knowing full well they have done little to rectify the root cause of the problem, but enjoy the illusion of having done something.  Primary Habitat:  North American and Western European urban settings – wherever less fortunate people in affluent societies are to be found.

Phantom Projects (projectus impotentus) This is the project where a group of people (who you would typically rather avoid at cocktail parties) take over a conference room for the better part of a year to build a project plan.  The unfortunate part is that project never starts, much less finishes, and the project plan requires a dedicated server, and a whole room to house the hard copies.  Such projects are most often found in public sector organizations.

World Hunger (projectus ambitious).  This is a commonly misunderstood project.  It is often used as an example of a project that is unachievable, where in reality, world hunger is a problem that is easily solved — we just lack the desire to do so.  Perhaps a more appropriate example of an unachievable project is getting Kim Kardashian to show a trace of dignity or intelligence.

You heard it here first, the unachievable project is now the Kardashian Project.

 

Don’t Waste Your Time Debating a Nuclear Free Workplace

There are three types of things people can expend energy on:

  • Things they control
  • Things they influence
  • Things for which they have concern.

The blessing/curse of living in an affluent society is that we have time to bother ourselves with things that we have absolutely no control or influence over.

At the personal level, I have am now in an age range where males become bald and fat.  I have absolutely no control over my rapidly retreating hairline, so I don’t expend any energy on that.  I do have significant influence over how fat I become, so I work hard to manage to the outcome I want.

On a societal level, I find it fascinating the degree to which we dwell on things that we have absolutely no control or influence over.  A couple decades ago when I was living in Vancouver, there was a raging debate on whether to declare the city a “Nuclear Free Zone”.

Other than making the gortex-wearing granola-heads feel good about themselves, this seemed about as relevant as cream rinse conditioner for Captain Picard.

There’s no chance a nuclear power station would ever be built anywhere near a city of such a size; the city had absolutely no jurisdiction to allow or deny visiting military ships into the harbor, and I’m assuming if there was ever a full scale nuclear Armageddon, that the inter-continental ballistic missiles would not discriminate between those cities that declared themselves nuclear free, and others (that presumably welcomed radioactive destruction).

Civic politicians really need to stick to filling potholes.  It’s what they control, and has a far greater impact on their citizens’ lives.

There is an old adage, that roughly paraphrased says, “Give me the strength to change those things I can change; to accept those things I can’t change; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

There is also a version that talks about having the skill to adequately dispose of the bodies of all those people that piss you off – but I digress.

As a manger, it’s easy to get caught up in things over which you have very little control – like deciding whether your workplace should be declared a ‘Nuclear Free Zone’.

Most managers have more demands on their time than they can possibly satisfy, yet spend far too much time and energy worrying about things they ultimately have little influence over.  Managers who focus their efforts where they can actually make a difference are far more successful.  

We just added the ‘Get More Done by Focusing on Your Circle of Control‘ Video and Cheat Sheet to the Wily Membership area, and it’s one of over 90 topics available now.  in it, we introduce the ‘Circles of Focus’ tool and show you how to conserve your valuable time and energy by targeting activities that are truly important.

Next week is Project Management 101 – we’ll show you how to keep your projects on time and on budget.   You won’t want to miss out – become a Wily Manager Member today.

Busier Than a Squirrel on Speed

I once worked with a client who was perpetually behind the eight-ball – and not in the “everybody is busy” way, either.  She was busier than a squirrel at harvest time on a triple-Starbucks, and a double-hit of Speed.  She claimed this busy-ness extended to her personal life too, where she never had the time to do those things that were truly important.

Then she told me about her addiction to non-scripted television (I refuse to call it “reality TV” because Stargate is closer to reality than The Apprentice).  As it turns out, her problem was not one of too much work, but too little discipline.

She’s not alone.

Back when I was in University, I elevated procrastination to an elegant form of art.  Around the time every semester when I was supposed to be producing term papers, I would find just about any excuse not to do them.  I would do the requisite scheduling of time to get them done, and lock myself in either the school library or my bedroom so something would get done.

As it turns out, I would have been better off going to the pub (where at least I would have had some fun) because those long lock-down periods produced either:

a)    a thorough reading of the complete poetry works of Ezra Pound (more fun than managerial economics) when I was locked in the library

b)   the cleanest bedroom ever, if I was relegated to home.

Luckily, twenty-five years later I’m starting to understand procrastination for what it is: a total and complete lack of discipline.  Dr. Piers Steel recently wrote a book called The Procrastination Equation to help further understanding of this systemic problem.  According to Steel, procrastination affects 95% of the population (I assume the other 5% are buddhist monks who spend upwards of 20 hours per day in meditation).

Dr. Steel spent about 10 years researching procrastination for his book.  He probably could have gotten the research done in five years, if he was more disciplined, but I’m sure his room was as clean as mine was as a university student.  Interestingly, he tags coffee shops as a huge enabler of procrastination.  Add to this ubiquitous internet, television, video games and other people, and it’s remarkable we don’t all live in a catatonic state that Captain Christopher Pike found himself in in the original Star Trek series.

Now… I better get back to my writing – before I head over to the coffee shop.

Why Socrates Drank the Hemlock

About 2500 years ago, Socrates lamented the work ethic of the younger generation.  Apparently, on the way to his day-job as a stand-up philosopher, he’d stop at the Athens Starbucks and wait in line far too long, while the kid working the La Marzucco machine (who looks like he fell down the stairs with a tackle-box given the number of piercings and jewelry he’s wearing) would casually froth one latte at time.  No wonder he drank the hemlock – he was thirsty.

Fast forward in time a couple of millennia, and not much has changed.  Anyone over 40 has at least a mild annoyance with those under 30 and how they work.  The problem is, the bulk of the population is hurling towards retirement faster than Lindsay Lohan is to rehab, and there aren’t many people in their 30s and 40s to replace them.  This means the 20-somethings will be taking over the world in short order – probably well before they are equipped to do so.

Unless organizations get their heads around this, and act soon, our whole society will be immersed in the whims and fancies of people who think popcorn was actually meant to be cooked in a microwave.  Here’s what you can expect:

  • Recognition certificates for anyone who shows up on time for work five consecutive times.
  • Job title inflation – the barista I mentioned above will hence be called the Vice-President of Local Product Production and Distribution.
  • Not wanting to work on sunny days will be classified as a disability.
  • If you ask someone for the 2nd time to get something done, you will be subject to a harassment suit.

Of course, I might be the wrong guy to comment on this – I spent my whole first day at my first real job walking around with my fly open.

The Bureaucratic Decoder — Unveiled

Several years ago I did some work for a large, bureaucratic utility that had only recently been privatized from being a governmental organization.  In some ways, they made the transition to a private enterprise well, but many old bad habits from a public sector culture refused to die.

Perhaps most obvious to those of us from outside the culture was the quantity and poor quality of the meetings.  It is not an exaggeration to say that many managers spent every day listlessly drifting from meeting to meeting, and occasionally answered an email in between.  This was loosely described as “work”.

Most often, when a meeting was scheduled for 10:00, I would be the only one in the room, causing me to behave like Dustin Hoffman’s Rainman, checking my calendar to make sure I had the right time and place, and repeating the meeting request over and over to myself.  I quickly discovered that I needed to run all appointments through the special Bureaucratic Decoder.  Here’s the formula:

  • Meetings that start before 9am are entirely contingent upon traffic and weather.  If either one is not cooperating, the meeting will start at 9.30 at the earliest, and perhaps won’t occur at all if conditions are adverse.
  • Normally scheduled meetings between 10am and 3pm will start at fifteen minutes past the scheduled time to allow people time to use the bathroom, get coffee, and arrive at the meeting.  There may be some stragglers, so time was allocated to bring all people up to speed as they drifted into the meeting.  For those there on time, they may have to listen to the recap four times before everyone is there, so it was generally agreed that showing up on time was a bad idea.
  • If anyone had a meeting scheduled prior to your scheduled meeting, they would be at least 30 minutes late, because the previous meeting would never end on time, and they need their fifteen minute “transition buffer” (see bullet above).
  • If you scheduled a meeting for after 3.00pm, it was considered optional.  This is because all meetings started late, and ended late, and there was no guarantee that this meeting would be over by quitting time, which was the only appointment that was regularly respected in the organization.

It sounds frustrating, but the spotty attendance at meetings actually worked out well.  Rarely were decisions made, and there certainly was no collaboration.  The most important thing was maintaining the status quo, and any attempt at the smallest change was put down faster than rabid Rottweiler next door to a daycare.

If this sounds like your organization, then you better hope you don’t have to compete in the open market.  You’ll be put out of your misery faster than the dog I mentioned above.  In many cases, meetings are a necessary evil at best, and don’t do anything to move the business forward.

Governmental organizations and big utilities may be able to afford such excess… your organization probably can’t.

 

The Scarecrow and Labor Negotiations

The Rolling Stones were right – You Can’t Always Get What You Want.  But that doesn’t stop many people from trying.

I’ve been watching media reports lately of some Labor-Management issues for the same reason you might slow down to get a quick glimpse of a horrible traffic accident – to witness destruction, pain, and suffering from the air-conditioned comfort of your own space.

People tend to entrench themselves along ideological lines very quickly in labour-management disputes.  Without knowing any of the details, or even any of the issues, people somehow feel they are entitled to an opinion.  This works well for the people whose views of the world are shaped by their favorite TV show, and who name their children after movie stars.  However, people with a brain (with apologies to the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz) need to dig a bit deeper before jumping on any particular bandwagon.

It is very rarely that a labor-management dispute has much to do at all with the substantive issues that each side articulates.  More often the disputes are perpetuated by politics, emotional considerations, and issues of procedure that make the Department of Motor Vehicles look like a positively high performing organization.

Perhaps most unfortunately, such negotiations take place on the premise of dividing up a fixed pie.  If one side gets more, the other gets less.  If both sides could get past the crap, they might figure out a way to bake a bigger pie.  But that would require trust, innovation, and initiative — elements in critically short supply in organized labour, and in almost all large corporations.

Don’t Fear Your Numbers

Twenty or so years ago, organizations would hire guys like us to come in and help them define metrics and measures.  Often times there were not adequate data collection and storage systems, so we ended up counting a lot of things manually, and then getting our crayons out to hand draw graphs to represent these indicators.

Skip ahead in time a couple of decades, and organizations are still hiring guys like us to help them with the measures and metrics, but now its usually because they have thousands upon thousands of data points, but no ability to turn this data into wisdom, and ultimately better business decisions.

Blame Microsoft.  They made it easy to have powerful spreadsheets and databasing capability on every desktop relatively cheaply.  Now the guy who runs the janitorial service at the office has a PC with more computing power than the Space Shuttle, and 500 indicators he’s tracking.  Bad news – if you have much more than half a dozen metrics you’re following, that’s not a scorecard… that’s a laundry list.

We also see it in any professional sport.  Did you know that in games that take place on the road, in the Central Time Zone, on odd-numbered days, in the same month as the coach’s birthday, when the starting line-up all had chicken for the dinner the previous night, the team has posted a win 58% of the time?

Now that’s valuable data.

Professional Sports organizations are very fat with cash – they can afford to waste some on useless statistics.  Your organization probably can’t.

You need to figure out what results your organization is trying to produce, and then determine the key drivers of those results.  For many organizations, the goal is to make money while minimizing various forms of risk.  What are the simple key drivers of these things?

Many managers are scared away from data because their accountant and their stats professor from college teamed up to make sure that any numbers were completely incomprehensible to the average human (and thereby keeping them both employed).

Yet, taking just a bit of time to better understand the key numbers in your business is time extraordinarily well spent.  And a fringe benefit is taking those numbers (that you now understand them) back to your stats-prof, or your accountant, and truly baffling them.

 

Idiots, Maniacs and Me

When I drive my car, no matter where I go, there are only three types of drivers on the road:

1)   Idiots – those driving slower than me.

2)   Maniacs – those driving faster than me.

3)   Me

Of course, the fact that to all the Idiots out there, I appear to be a Maniac, and to all the Maniacs, I appear an Idiot is not lost on me.  Nor is the fact that I am simultaneously and Idiot and a Maniac – a pairing that is about as easy to achieve as someone willingly volunteering to go hunting with Dick Cheney.  It’s all part of the dynamic of dealing with traffic, and one of the reasons I’m a huge proponent of Public Transit.

I’ve experienced this same dynamic in the workplace.

However you choose to define success, there are three necessary ingredients:  hard work, smarts, and luck.  The proportion of each may vary widely from situation to situation, but all three elements are always present.

Some managers achieve some success, and think it’s because they’re much smarter than everyone else.  These same people are to be avoided at cocktail parties, and are typically very poor listeners.

Other managers are sure they’ve achieved success because they have always worked harder than everyone else.  These people are the ones that work insane hours, and expect everyone else to do likewise.  They are mostly dysfunctional as human beings, and don’t have time to go to cocktail parties.

Finally, there are some managers who believe they have achieved success because of overwhelming good luck.  They likely suffer from Imposter Syndrome, and don’t believe they actually deserve the success they’ve had.  They will be really thankful to be invited to the cocktail party, but will stand with their back to wall to ensure that no one sneaks up behind them, and asks them to leave.

There are two important things to take from this.

1)   If you’ve done very well, don’t ever discount the role that luck has played.

2)   If you’ve faced some challenges achieving success, you may want to try working smarter, or working harder.

Think about it next time you’re driving to work.

 

Decoding Interview Questions

Many years ago when I was working inside a Fortune 100 company (that shall remain nameless, but it’s a major grocery retailer that starts with ‘S’), I was applying internally for a job for which I thought I was well suited.  One of the well-intentioned, but tragically naïve HR people advised me to “be myself, and be honest and truthful” in the interview.

“Being yourself” at a job interview is about as smart as making toast in the bathtub, and could produce similar results.  Being honest is always a good rule, but you need to tailor the truth to your situation.  In a job interview, they don’t want to hear your honest responses – they want to hear the responses they have pre-written.

With the benefit of a couple of decades of hindsight, and having now sat on the opposite side of the interview table, I offer a deconstruction of that interview many years ago:

Question:  “Are you willing to relocate?”

My Answer: “Right now, I’m ready, willing, and able to relocate anywhere.  At some point, if I have a spouse’s career, or children to consider, then I’ll have to consider all the factors at that time to make the decision.”

The Required Answer:  “I’ll move any time, any place, for any reason, and will do so on one day’s notice.”

 

Question:  “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

My Answer:  “I’d like to be a Facility Manager who is active and involved in his community, and making a positive contribution to society.”

The Required Answer:  “I’ll be working morning, day and night in order to scramble my way up the corporate food chain, and any other considerations are secondary.  I’ll be an empty hollow shell of a man because I will not have taken a day off in the past five years.”

 

Question:  “What do you think your weaknesses are?”

My Answer:  “I sometimes have difficulty towing the line when given certain direction.  For example, our parent company sent us directive X last month that is a clear violation of the local labor code, so I could not legally implement it.”

The Required Answer:  “I work too hard” or “I’m impatient for results” or any other lie I could have trot out to confirm that I was as dysfunctional as the organization.

 

Question:  “Tell us about a time when you became angry at work.”

My Answer:  “My nature is not really that of someone who becomes angry.  Sometimes a bit frustrated maybe, but there are so many important issues in the world that are worthy of my anger, that I find it hard to get angry about things that happen in the workplace.”

The Required Answer:  “I become inconsolably irate when I see employees not pulling their weight.  We pay them a good wage, and they need to earn it.”

I honestly thought these were the responses that were going to separate me from the herd.  Nobody has botched an interaction this badly since the Lee Harvey Oswald prison transfer.  Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

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