Where did all the time go?
Rather, where did you put it?
Before we begin…
It begs to be said that we are in a Pandemic. That we are eating and shitting and parenting, baking, working, taking meetings, writing (Holla!), fucking, decorating and redecorating, reading, sleeping, and pacing in smaller and smaller spaces.
Even the most sweeping of homes we can swear have shrinking walls. We bounce between bedroom and kitchen, living room, dens, pantries – or many days we just stick to the bed. I mean, come on: that is where we are going to end up and want to be anyway, right?
If you are [in] my apartment, the one room housing my family is both a bastion and a prison. (Oh, the relief and injustice of commutes once past.)
In the theme of “space” - all the more poignant for the aforementioned reasons.
Harkening to the dictum that what sucked before did not change, and what we dig is still very near. We have adapted. Today is still necessary – and speaking of necessity – we come to time.
If you are lucky enough to rock the clock, have a hankering for the time keeping, you are in Utopia. STOP READING NOW.
What is more likely is that you don’t, or that your thin grasp on your day to day is … where did I put that????
If that is the case, read on …….
Reality check – and objective truth:
Humans are able to execute only six initiatives well each day.
Six. Not six tasks - six initiatives.
Examples:
Task: Brushing your teeth
Initiative: Preparing your physical body for the day
Task: Sending an email
Initiative: Following up with contacts from Networking Group
Task: Calling Mom
Initiative: Committing a period of time for family – this can be a month or a half hour, the specifics pale when compared to the benefit. Make a choice is all.
See the difference? Business (i.e., any work in the professional sphere however you define that or find that to be) falls as such:
Operations
Marketing
Business building
Think of it as:
Maintaining what you have
Getting more
What’s next
Task (for real, but also as a quiz):
What did your day yesterday look like?
Look, I don’t care; this is not a good/bad thing. This is just information. The question I ask – other than “where did the time go” is this: What does your answer say about your job?
If your title is Founder – are the initiatives from the previous day what you would have in your job description? Hire yourself.
Layer on top of that: What is your deepest frustration with your work at present? Not enough clients? Can’t ever seem to move on the next phase? Workdays tipping out at the ten-hour mark. Waking up at 4AM remembering that thing you should have done at 2PM? Missing lunch? Not exercising? Did your spouse or toddler forget your name or that you still live in the house you pay for?
Next: Review the distribution of initiatives executed yesterday and you shall be awakened to the connection between the need and the intake. Thus, if you spend all day in email and you're not bringing in new clients or executing that future aim – What the Hell are you doing up in your inbox and do you need to park it there?
Conversely, if you need new customers and, yes, all you do is network, market, pitch – the amount of your time may BE in marketing, but HOW does that look for – not for you – but for your business/professional aspect?
In other words, What expectations are there for that wing of your operations? How is effort spent and inventoried?
Regardless of whether or not you are an entrepreneur or working person, a firm grip on what to try, how to try, and returns and expectations of effort is essential. This manner puts the weight of benefit and blame both on you, sure. That is not a bummer - it is power. YOU have the power to get busy with what, when, how, and wherefore you wish to work. A keen sense of the management of who you have or need to hire.
Effort is to be rewarded – you are doing it; that is fantastic. My concern and steering address application, though, is for CEOS and conventional career folks to gain and further their focus on the specifics to the relationships of where, how, and why their work time and energies are applied.
Walk around the block. Come back. Write down your six initiatives from yesterday. Look to where tomorrow’s engagements fall. Congratulate yourself for a very good reason: you remembered that working better is doing better – by and for yourself.
