Throughout my life and career, I
have learned a variety of practices which, when I remember to do them, help me
use my time better and generally be more efficient and effective. While none of
them deserves a whole chapter, I thought that together they might be worth
sharing. They are,
• Look beyond the next step or task. In equestrian show jumping, it’s not
enough to make it over the first jump when there are two or three in quick
succession—you need to execute the first jump in a way that leaves you prepared
to be successful in the following jumps. Chess is a classic game in which
looking past the next move is critical—Grand Masters see ten or more moves
ahead. The term Pyrrhic victory refers to a general who won a battle, but at
such great cost that it was clear he would lose the war. The next step may seem
obvious, but always try to consider where it will leave you and what comes
after that.
• The problem with a clock striking 13 is twofold: not only is it wrong in
itself, but puts the whole mechanism in question. Too often, when something
goes wrong, we seek to fix the symptom (that the clock stuck 13), but fail to
acknowledge the cause. If fish keep dying in our aquarium, the answer isn’t to
keep buying more fish, but to figure out why they are dying.
• “The journey of a thousand miles begins
with a single step.” This
well-known Chinese proverb reminds us that even an enormous task can be
accomplished, but you have to get started. That said,…
•
You
need to make sure you know where you are going before you take your first step—I once
drove 30 minutes in the wrong direction (towards home, out of habit) at the
start of a twelve-hour overnight trip (meaning it became thirteen hours), which
was really annoying.
•
Part
of making sure you know where you are going is making sure the destination is
worth the effort—and
possible, given your resources: you need to avoid “trying to boil the ocean.”
And…
•
There
may be other reasons to wait to take a particular action. Sometimes there is an “order of
operations” that is important—you may be ready to take action but need to wait
for someone else to complete their part first (you can’t ice the cake before
it’s done baking). As discussed in another chapter (“As Seed Won’t Grow….”),
sometimes the passage of time is necessary before taking action is
appropriate—people often need time to think about a new idea before they are
ready to move ahead. And sometimes there are other reasons that waiting will
allow new options to become available
•
Despite
the previous caveats, you
need to act once they are accommodated, and not allow them to keep you from
taking the first “single step” once the time is right—you have to wait for
tomatoes to ripen, but you need to pick them once it’s time.
• Sometimes you need to take off and “start
driving the car while you are still building it”—often, the timing of completion of a
project may not align with the need for a solution, and you may need to begin
deployment before the project is fully completed. That can carry risks, but
they may be less for starting early than for waiting.
• “Skate to where the puck is going to be”—though taken from hockey, the same
applies to other sports: a wide receiver in football will take off running like
mad to open field, but he is running to a previously agreed position so that
the quarterback can put the ball (which takes much less time to travel) there
at precisely the time the receiver arrives there. Related to issues discussed
in the chapter on Change, you need to remember that things are always changing
and solutions that won’t be deployed for six months or a year need to be
designed for how things will look then, not how they look now. It can be hard
to know how things will look in the future, but you need to consider that, and
do your best.
• Pipelines matter— First, they cause a delay in receiving
the finished product (after it has been finished, but while it is coming
through the pipeline) and that delay should be anticipated. Second, filling the
pipeline has costs that need to be considered. To give a very literal example,
in most households in the US, hot water is created in a single place in the
house and then distributed throughout the house on demand. This means that when
you turn the hot water tap on it can take 30 seconds or so for the water to get
hot water out of the tap because, if hot water hasn’t been used recently, the
water in the pipes between the heater and the tap has cooled down and so you
won’t get hot water until newly heated water arrives from the heater to the
tap. You should, and probably do, anticipate that delay with hot tap water, but
need to build the idea into other plans that involve “pipelines”—they are
pretty common. The cost consideration is that, unless you are using a lot of
hot water all at once, in which case the water in the pipes is still hot, in
order to get a cup of hot water delivered to the tap, several cups of hot water
need to be released from the heater—enough to fill up the pipe between the
heater and the tap. So when I go to use hot water and I want just a little bit,
I try to think about how important it is, knowing that several cups need to be
heated to get the little bit I want.
• Run through the finish line. I’ve seen so many Olympic athletes who
have sacrificed years of life and work to get there, slow down at the finish
line, thinking they had sufficient lead, only to be passed at the last second.
Outcomes in life are often decided by inches or seconds and you never know when
that’s going to be true. So apply yourself to finish out tasks as well as
possible whenever you can. That said,…
• Sometimes getting two projects or goals
90% done is more valuable than getting one 100% done. There are some projects, like running
wire to connect a lightbulb to a power source, that require 100% completion to
be of any use, but there are many projects or goals for which 90% done provides
90% or more of the benefits. Getting the last 10% of a project of goal
completed can sometimes be as costly and/or time-consuming as getting the first
90% done, which means (understanding that we always have limited time and
resources) we always need to consider the value of the last 10% of one project
or goal as compared to that of potentially completing 90% of another. And…
• Sometimes timing is most important—there’s an old saying in journalism: I
don’t need it perfect, I need it Tuesday. Sometimes if something is not
available at the deadline, it’s useless.
• “Put your oxygen mask on before helping
others.” Anyone who
has taken an airline flight has heard this, which may seem selfish, but is
really in the best interest of all—you can’t help others if you don’t take care
of yourself. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that we should always be
self-centered and not take care of others, but that if we sacrifice our own
health and well-being we will not be there to serve.
• End each day by
setting your priorities or work projects for the next day, so you start each
day knowing what you want to do and don’t lose ideas from one day to the next.
Likewise, decide on agenda items for the next meeting before leaving a meeting
so you do any necessary preparation between meetings, don’t drop any balls, and
have valuable things to do at each meeting. In both cases, things may change,
making changes to your schedule or agenda, but you will still have the things
that require follow-through on the list!
• Redundancy can be really important. Depending on the circumstances, having a
spare tire or lightbulb, or a backup power source (like a battery to charge
your phone) can be really valuable. When replacing a process, machine,
software, or other system, don’t get rid of an old system until your new system
is in place and fully tested. Upgrades are important, but they don’t always
work as planned and sometimes need some adjustments before being ready to carry
the intended load. Jumping to them without the old system as a fallback can be
costly.
• Repackage what you already have. When creating something new, begin by
thinking about how you can use what you already have to accomplish your goal
instead of creating everything from scratch. Speaking of packaging,…
• Naming matters. The case of Chilean Sea Bass is a
great example—it didn’t sell well when offered under its real name, the
Patagonian Toothfish, but has become a staple at fine restaurants with its new
name.
• Manage your brand—both personal and organizational. In an
age of influencers, NIL, and endless social media, this concept is practiced
like never before. And yet little things get overlooked and can be critically
important. For instance, if your company gives out gifts, be they umbrellas or
pens or whatever, the quality of those gifts is going to influence the
receivers’ perceptions of the quality of your company or organization. So if
you have a crummy pen, when they’re clicking it and it’s not working, they will
be thinking of you, not the pen company. If they get a cheap umbrella and
they’re standing in the rain and it pops up but flies off the handle and
breaks, they’ll be thinking of your name which is printed on it, not the
company that made it. Managing your brand is important—and, again, in recent
years people have come to understand that managing personal brands (how people
perceive you) is also important, and not just for celebrities, but for
everyone.
• KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) — It’s so easy to overcomplicate
plans and systems. Complication is often necessary, but it’s best to strive for
simplicity wherever possible. Someone from MIT’s Media Lab once told me that
all technology should work like a light switch—it’s very clear how to use it
and it does what you expect every time. Fashion confession: Except on very rare
(usually holiday) occasions, I wear two identical black socks whenever I wear
socks—I buy lots of pairs of the same black socks and I never have to sort
socks and I never wear a non-matching pair. I know that’s not for everyone, but
it’s a way for me to keep that part of my life simple.
• Worst-case scenarios—Whenever I’m in a stressful situation, I
quickly try to think of what’s the worst that could happen and assuming it’s
acceptable, which it usually is, I just accept that that might happen and
relax. Usually the worst-case scenario doesn’t happen, but recognizing it
allows me to consider ahead of time how I would handle a last-minute change in
plans, and accepting it reduces the stress levels. Setting budgets is related
to this—it seems less stressful to spend money when it was anticipated and
budgeted than when it’s unanticipated.
• Watch for unintended consequences—before it was understood that mosquitoes
spread malaria, it was common to place water-filled dishes under legs of beds
to thwart ants; in time, it was realized that doing so caused mosquitoes to
proliferate and so spread both yellow fever and malaria.
• Getting some of the job done moves you
closer to the finish line,
even if it doesn’t get you there. Sometimes. I have a hope of finishing a
project in a day but realize partway through that I can’t get it all done. I
used to be frustrated, but have learned to console myself—and it’s true—that
whatever headway I make today will make the project smaller tomorrow, so I
should take what I can get and know I’m making progress, even if I’m not on the
schedule I originally hoped.
• “Remember to sharpen your axe”—taking the time to restore tools
(actually sharpen you axe!), or to learn new things, or just to rejuvenate
yourself with breaks to eat and exercise and rest will make life more rewarding
and enjoyable. This is related to the idea of the Sabbath (the Hebrew word for
“to rest”). When working on my dissertation I decided to cut my lunch break in
half and extend the day by an hour, thinking I would make more progress. But I
found I was actually producing fewer pages of writing, they seemed less
inspired, and I felt tired all of the time. So I went back to my original
schedule! In addition to resting, an important way to sharpen your axe is to
learn new things—and reading books is one great way to do that!
• Be warned that “labor saving devices” will
raise the expectation of your productivity—that may be fine, because it may be more engaging and
exhilarating work, but it’s good to keep in mind that your targets will
probably move.
• 1+1 is often much more than 2—Collaborative, coordinated effort often
yields better results than working alone—just think of putting up a tent, where
having four or more hands, and people working at a distance from each other
makes things easier, faster, and sometimes, just possible. A great current
example in society is the work of Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas: many
organizations there were working in isolation to serve the homeless, but found
their efforts were much more effective when they worked together—it’s a great
case study from which anyone could learn.
• Good leadership requires HEAT—Hire
or recruit the right people to the team, Empower
them, hold everyone Accountable,
and Thank
people regularly and specifically and authentically for all they do.
Comments
Post a Comment