Priorities, Priorities, Priorities

Cavemen had it easy, life was simpler, avoid being eaten, get food to eat (hunt), find a partner, make sure you fit into your tribe.... etc......

Cavemen didn't need to worry about doing the paperwork, fixing the house, car, looking after their pension plan etc. We need to find people to trust to help us fix the boiler, look the car, traffic, social media, update our phone, pay the bills, etc unless we have a family office that sorts it out. We all have crisis like a broken boiler, car, traffic jams and so no wonder our primitive brains are overloaded.

Life is more complicated now and so we need to manage our Time, Energy, Attention and Resources better.

UNDERSTANDING TIME

The Building Blocks of your success system.

Two of the most important things we can do that are in our control is what we do with our time, [mental energy (cognitive load) and physical energy] and making the right decisions.

Money

In a job where we work for time

Money is a proxy. It allows us to establish a relative value of our time compared to other people. we choose to exchange 1 hour of effort and if someone can do sometime else eg cleaning our house for less we can outsource that task.

In an organisation/Society it is a method for redistribution/social budgeting. should you invest in A vs B for effort.

TIME

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough” -Seneca

Are you a busy fool?

Time is flow.

We cannot manage time because it moves on. You can’t stop it, but we can manage what we do in that time. (and energy and attention).

How we perceive time depends on how busy we are and the different things we do in that time. If we are doing fun things and are in the flow, we don’t notice the passage of time; but if we are spending it doing something boring it feels slow.

Obviously, you need to figure out what you really want. Many people think they know what they want in a self-confirmation bias. Inertia is the biggest challenge to making a change.

For others, who are not clear about what they want, then “experimenting” and trial and error is the best way to find out what they like and want.

It is particularly easy to jump into action without knowing “why” you are doing it. Thinking is hard, doing is more engaging but unless you are clear about the why you will lose momentum in the face of an obstacle.

We will be fundamentally unhappy if we work with people or clients we don’t like, our work and effort is not valued and does not have a purpose or aim.

In a classic behaviour economics study, students were broken into two groups. Their work was to assemble pieces of Lego into a toy. One group was paid significantly more than the other. In the higher paid group, after they made the toy it was broken up in front of them while for the other group they were praised and their work was displayed.

Can you imagine which group stopped doing the work sooner and were more unhappy. Money was not a sufficient reward. In Hyrum Smith’s classic book, the 10 Natural Laws of Time and Life Management, he says

“The real measure of a successful life is whether or not inner peace is achieved. Inner peace is the transcendent feeling of fulfilment and personal well-being which comes whenever a person is living their life in conformity with their inner core values. The simple concept of making sure your daily activities reflect your deepest core values lies at the very heart of effective time and life management.”

Many of us trade our time for money. In consultancy and professional services, we often charge based on time and materials whereas I prefer to charge based on outcomes.

This helps me make the best use of my time and energy and keep me focused. A billing hours mentality will focus you on billing hours rather than the most efficient and quickest way to do the job.

The problem is that we are prone to fill out or pad the time out rather than do it quickly and efficiently.

Many jobs are based on an exchange of time for money, but the trouble is that it’s not the hours you are paid for but all the other time you need to be able to do that job and live from commuting to washing clothes etc. Every job or activity has things that need to be done that you are not paid for.

How much time does the salesman spend with clients or a programmer vs at meetings, doing paperwork and other “unproductive work”?

Being outcome and goal driven will keep you focused and productive.

Once you systemise your life you will soon see how to be more productive and make better use of your time.

Not all time is the same. There may be 24 hours in the day but not all time is equal. Some jobs take more mental and emotional effort and so by definition you can do less.

Judges have an entire system designed to reduce their cognitive load so that the make good decisions. Making decisions is fatiguing and you need a fresh mind and a good mental and emotional state. Good surgeons know it’s not just about their skills on the operating table and so need good habits like sleep and rest and reduced stress so that they can perform at their best when in the operating theatre.

Productive and successful people understand the importance of what they do in their time. They learn what not to do, what to outsource and systemise their time and effort doing things that create the greatest happiness for themselves. Do you think Bill Gates or Elon Musk make better use of their time than most of us?

Understanding the connection of time and our mental energy/bandwidth is everything. Businesses understands that and so gives you a trade-off. High speed internet costs more than slow internet. We all put a value on time.

Each activity we undertake involves not only the work itself but a whole range of activities. If we want to eat healthy, it’s not just the time in eating healthy but also the time to do the shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning afterwards.

The art to being productive is understanding how you are using your time.

Every activity has a setup time and effort involved. In every business often the success is not achieved by just the task at hand but by systemising what we do. When we are young, our energy and enthusiasm gets us across the line but if we put some effort to putting in the right habits and systems, the time and effort which often causes burnout and fatigue is reduced. It’s about getting the basics right.

In project management we use the analogy of the container, large stones, pebbles, and sand. You put the large stones in the container first – these are your main priorities. Then you add in the pebbles which fill up the spaces between the large stones – these are your day-to-day tasks. Finally, you pour in the sand which flows into all the little crevices between the pebbles – this is everything else going on in your life and demonstrates how easy it is for your mind to get ‘filled up’ with trivia.

THE BUCKET, STONES AND SAND EXPERIMENT

Imagine you have a bucket, and you want to carry as much as possible. You have high value large stones, medium value medium size stones, lower value pebbles and finally very low value sand.

How would you fill the bucket?

Many of us fill our lives with trivial things and then don’t have time for our really important projects.

Do you fill the bucket with sand, or do you first put the large value stones, then where there is space smaller stones and pebbles and then in the remaining space the sand or the other way around?

What are your really important projects and goals and how do you decide and priorities them?

Write down all the projects, goals and dreams that you have, this can include things like a career promotion, building a business, buying a house, car, holiday, hobby, relationship. Have you written down and prioritised those goals and have a plan to execute to make it happen?