The One Thing More Important Than Time

There are so many great books on time management out there. One of my favorites is The 4-HourWorkweek by Timothy Ferriss, though I don’t agree with his premise, I explain why below. Most of these books fall into a handful of categories. They show: 1. How to prioritize / organize. 2. How to say “No”. 3. Tips and trick on doing more. 4. Having someone else do it.  There may be more categories, but ultimately they are all missing the bigger picture because they focus on TIME, as this limited constant and how to jam more stuff into it. Time management, then turns into breaking down this constant and deciding how to manage (what you will do) with those different parts. Really advanced people call this Life Balance… :D

“Its not about time, its about energy.”

Here is the big challenge, it’s not about time, it’s about energy. Manage your energy and time won’t seem to matter nearly as much, in fact with energy you can even create time. We can break down our lives into three areas, not-work, work and sleep. Let's take the last one first.

 Sleep – About 10 years ago I went through a challenging time in my life after a death deifying car accident, where I just couldn’t sleep. I read everything I could on the topic and even had a good run with Ambien (personal note: don’t push through an Ambien while your hungry, you’ll destroy the kitchen) I was up at 3 a.m. every day, staring at the ceiling, worrying about getting enough sleep. I would push on from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. trying to get back to sleep.

“If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.” – Dale Carnegie

Then I read a quote by Dale Carnegie, maybe one of the wisest people to ever have lived. It was “stop worrying about sleep”, as I remembered it. The full quote is “If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.” I was so impressed with the simplicity of the idea I just went with it. I started listening to my energy, if I needed sleep, I slept and if I couldn’t sleep I did something. I no longer worried about getting enough sleep. Learn to listen to your energy and it’s need to regenerate, sleep when needed, do something that generates energy inside you otherwise. BTW, the more energy you generate the less sleep you will need. These days I don’t sleep that much… but I am a sucker for a killer nap.

“What kills energy more (much more) then doing things you suck at or hate is not knowing if or when that will ever end.”

Work – work is the time when you are at work or are working. Generally you have less control over your time when you are at work, even if you love your job. Everyone has different schedules and they needs to meet, collaboration and communication needs to happen and it requires time. During some of that time you get to manage your energy. The key is knowing what gives you energy and what takes it away. I carry a list with me at all times that lists my passions, what I do well, what I suck at and what I hate (I call this alignment). I share this list with the people I work with and I try to keep in my passions and what I do well as much as possible. When people want me to do a suck or hate, I simply let them know that, and that there might be someone else who could do that better. If they want me to do it anyway, I seek a deadline or a light at the end of the tunnel as much as possible. What kills energy more (much more) then doing things you suck at or hate is not knowing if or when that will ever end.  You can even, at times, use a suck at or hate to build energy if you know when it will end.

“The trick is to minimize the lows and maximize the highs.”   

Not-Work – Not-Work is everything else when you’re not working or sleeping. Despite obligations (which I understand can be enormous) you do have more control over what you do during this period. You should seek to fill at least the early and transition part of Not-Work with as much energy creating actions as possible. When you wake up read an inspiring quote, say a prayer of thanks, go for a run, do whatever builds energy inside you… especially small things. Do this same thing, as you transition from Work to Not-Work, complete one small thing, play your rock out song, call someone and pump them up, the more and the smaller the better. This deliberate timing of building energy has a tendency to last… then the magic happens. You catch two high-energy days in a row… and things start to build. Most things in life are on some type of frequency, with both highs and lows. The trick is to minimize the lows and maximize the highs.   

I first noticed this direct translation between energy and time when I was training for an ultra marathon. With ultras you are running somewhere between 50 and 100 miles, crazy I know. To deal with that much running for that long, some people do a run-walk method of 5 minutes of running followed by 1 minute of walking. What I was able to notice was that during the early part of the training, when I had good energy that 5 minutes was easy, delightful and flew by. Near the end of training, when my energy was bad that 5 minutes took what felt like a half hour. 

Think of a time you had a full days worth of work due, but you started the day right, good coffee, kiss from the spouse, fist bump from the boss. You sat down and got that full days worth of work done in 2 or 3 hours… what happened? It was energy. Similarly, think of the time you worked 6 hours of doing stuff you hated and went home. How much decompression time did you need… the energy was gone. Compare that with a day you work 12 hours, but on something that inspired you, or even just with the right team members. Were you still ready to take on the world after? …you still had plenty of energy. Managed right energy will create time, or at least make it seem considerably more meaningless.         

So I’ll ask you will you continue to manage your time in the ultimate quest of work vs. life balance or will you create it? :D

P.S. The reason I don’t agree with Tim’s premise is he believes you should only work 4 hours, so that you can spend the rest of the time doing what you love. …I believe you should just make what you love your work. :D

13 Learnings from 2013

Very interesting… before writing this I went back and read last years post 2+10, 12 Big Learnings of 2012, I found it very interesting how different the learnings between the two years were. The good news is I didn’t feel like any of the learnings from last year had diminished any… in fact, I found myself shaking my head “yes” while reading them. :D This year’s learnings seem considerably deeper and more original… but not as spirited as last years. (I might write a follow-up when I figure out what happened here).

Similar to last years learnings, which had two big hits followed by two handfuls of one-offs, this years learning has a single big conclusion and then 12 other independent insights. …I hope you enjoy them, and I always welcome clarifications and feedback. :D

1.     It’s All About Energy – I am not talking about oil and gas or even being green. Work, life, people are all about human energy. The energy that won’t let you sleep at night, wakes you up at 4:30 am. The energy you feel in your heart and gut, that makes you smile even though you are all alone. We often discount it completely (unless you are a yoga instructor and certainly in business) due to not being able to define it clearly and having no clear methodology to working with it, not to mention the scary fact that is can’t be measured. Yet, we all know it exists, feel it personally within and love being around people with it. Human energy is the single most important things in people’s lives, yet most of us are stuck in junked up systems and subsystems (mostly maintained by personal decisions) that we don’t take ownership of it. Human energy is managed through a personalalignment exercise and discipline (maybe even stubbornness) but is absolutely the key to almost everything else (within reasonable control).  The really cool thing about energy is, it is the only thing that can create time! …yes, time!

2.     You Have to Train it - Despite what people should have been taught by schooling and society most of us are on different pages. If you want to create something unique like awesome customer experience or a great corporate culture, you have to train people how to meet those expectations.

3.     Blue Ocean Strategy = Education - Blue Ocean strategy is when you create completely new markets as opposed to competing in existing ones. For most of my career, I have been seeking to create Blue Ocean ideas. One thing I didn't understand was how much effort was needed to educate a market to a truly novel idea... its a bunch! :D

4.     The Leadership Equation - Leadership is tough almost magical when you read the stories of the past. I believe that's a good chunk of the leadership problem. Today's leaders are trying to be all leaders to everyone... which would be a super human feat. Truly though people don't expect that, they expect leaders to be really good at just a few things and find others to help with the rest.       Leadership = Authentic (true self) + Consistent

5.     I Can Run - In 2013, I learned how to be a distance runner. I completed a marathon and a few other big runs. I can't tell you how many people told me I couldn't do this ...at times even myself. Even to this day saying that I going to run 26 miles seems insane. What it taught me was that anything can be achieve broken down and with energy.

6.     Create Around Obstacles  - I was exposed to a heavy dose of entrepreneurism this year and in so was exposed to the many obstacles this role faces. As an entrepreneur, your biggest job is to “create” (construct another way) around the "no", "can't have" and the "impossible".

7.     People Change - There is a school of thought that says people (personality) don't change after the age of 30. This is on of my beefs with Strength Finders... People can and do change, sometimes drastically and even after the age of 30. ...btw the change isn't always for the better.

8.     Needed Conflict - I interviewed a person this year and asked how he dealt with conflict... "I avoid it", was his response. At the time,  I thought this was a reasonable answer. It was Pat Lincioni that enlightened me though ...without conflict you destroy teams from the inside out. People still need to give their thoughts on ideas/topics, and when avoid it real-time, people will undermine each other behind the scenes... ultimately destroying trust... and the ability to innovate and work as a team. Without healthy conflict teamwork becomes simple listening.

9.     Culture & Process Accountability - Great cultures are hard to control and are beyond the confront zone of traditional leaders, even as they create amazing amounts of value. I get the question all the time of how do you add process to culture; we want to make sure things don't get out of hand. It's not Culture & Process it's Culture & Accountability. Process says “do it this way”... Accountability says “do what we agreed we would do”. When the fear of loosing control of culture becomes a topic, focus on accountability not process. Oh and the accountability needs to start at the very top. A great quote from Pat Lincioni “If I love somebody, I owe it to them to enter the danger and hold them accountable.”

10.  Mobile First - I don't mean this in just writing applications for phones. When you get people really engaged value starts coming from everywhere all the time... least while sitting at a desk. The ability to capture that value is key. Without a mobile mindset and a supportive infrastructure two things can happen. 1. You loose the value, 2. You loose the person. Organizations of the future must overwhelming embrace mobile.

11.  Everything is Relative – We are all in our own worlds and no matter how aware/self aware you are, its still your starting point to get to reality. In order to work with people you need to first move into their reality (and out of yours). Ya, its great to help people move beyond their reality and see the bigger picture, but the starting point needs to their reality and dealing with that first.

12.  Self Preservation - I am still not sure I understand this one.  I have learned through several direct experiences that there are few people that will put others before themselves. Now, I fully understand putting on your own oxygen mask first, but that not what I am talking about. I'm talking about people who are more committed to the "existing" system and themselves over what makes long term sense or is reasonable fair. I am getting better at reading these people, but just admitting they exist as the majority was a big learning me.

13.  Long Talks - In today’s world everything has been reduced down to the being most “optimized”. I find myself in a state if fear if I am taking up someone time and not getting to the point as soon as humanly possible. Yet, what I have learned is that the breakthroughs exist at the end of long, boring, drawn out conversation. Make time and schedule long, long discussion...   you will miss some emails, but you'll make progress in life.

My own intuition tells me 13 learnings (of this magnitude) in one year are actually too much, and 2013 must have been a turbulent time for me …which it was. The funny thing is I had to cut the list down from 23 and a few others that just never made it on. Nonetheless, I hope you can learn something from these and that you have enjoyed some of the journey with me.

So I’ll ask you… in 2014 will you stay focused on what’s asked of you or will you find a way to do create time …and make 2014 a little longer? :D