Stop Bleeding Time and Money

Use Exceptional Effort because Time = Money

I’m annoyingly active. Make that hyperactive. Most of the time. As a little kid I was like a rabid dog chasing the postman. 

Building toy powered boats to let loose across the pond. My goal was to run to the other side before the boat got there. If the boat faced a headwind I would win. If not, it was neck and neck. With a tail wind I really worked up a sweat.

I turned my Uzi water pistol into a flamethrower. Making a resistance coil, I mounted it in front of the barrel. When connected to a battery it glowed red hot. Hot enough to ignite flammables. Fill the water pistol with petrol and presto! Instant flamethrower. This process also taught me that petrol eats plastic. The flamethrower didn’t last long.

Deciding that it would be cool to take a chicken for the school pet show. I won first prize. That's thinking out of the box. First prize was a ribbon and chocolates. (Yes I did have hair once!)

My busy energy flowed into employed life. When working in corporate recovery I managed several different businesses at once. Dealing with a company director, then authorising purchases, checking revenues are collected and banked, getting huge sums of cash from the back for payrolls. 

It’s an interesting feeling walking out of the bank with $35,000 in cash. All different notes and coins, carefully calculated to be put into individual employee pay envelopes. On one hand I’m thinking, what if someone steals the money from me. On the other, how would anyone even know I’ve got this money. As it turned out no one robbed me. Helps to be tall, I guess.

As I progressed through my work life I noticed I had less and less time. There was always more work than there was day. I started to wonder how this happened. I didn’t want to be this busy. I began to wonder I’m just lazy inside. Surely I should feel a sense of accomplishment with all this work to do? But I didn’t.

I began to look more closely at my time. First up is checking emails. Each email was a task that needed doing. Then there were reports to finish. My team would come to me for advice. Meeting with superiors to deliver reports. Visiting various companies and get updates on their progress. All this needed to be done.

Then I looked more closely at what I was actually doing.

My day starts. Going through my emails, there is a response needed so I click reply and start typing. 

My phone rings. There’s a query from from the caravan manufacturer. It’s urgent. Put the phone down and leave my desk to source the required information. Make copies and scan it to my computer. Then send it off. 

Back to drafting my original email response. Like a bullet through an aeroplane window, all my memory of what I’d previously done has been sucked out of my brain. I re-read the original email to remind myself. Then continue drafting my response. But before I can finish…

Tony comes to me with a query. Sure I’ve got a minute. Tony explains that he’s not sure how to deal with a customer complaint. We talk through the possible options. Agree on a way forward and Tony leaves satisfied and confident.

Back to my original email response. It’s Groundhog day. I don’t remember the detail of the original query and what I’d written in response. I re-read the original email and my partially drafted response. Now I remember. 

I type three words and the phone rings again. It’s Tina, my boss. She wants an update on the latest sales figures for the hotel chain . Boss has called. Better run. I drop my half drafted response and as a good little worker bee, I buzz to get the reports. Take them into Tina’s office. Politely give a brief synopsis. She says thank you and I go back to my desk.

The original half drafted email is still open, staring back at me. I look back with an ‘I don’t know you’ blank face. I need to start over. Again. 

An interesting fact I later learned. People waste over one month every year reviewing the same information without taking action. Just as I did above. I read the email then had to re-read it several times before I was able to finish with it. 

Let’s put that time loss into monetary figures. Say you employ someone at $150,000 per annum. That’s $12,500 every year you might as well put a match to. Think about having $12,500 in a nice pile. Grab hold of my water pistol flamethrower, point it at the money and pull the trigger. How does that make you feel. I just want to cry thinking about it. 

Not bothered by burning twelve grand in cash. Then up the ante. Say you have 100 employees at $150,000 per annum. That’s $1.25 million you are using as a furnace. A very expensive heater indeed. Plus not very good for the environment. 

We bleed huge amounts of time by reviewing information we have already seen. It’s massively costly. Really really expensive. Think about having an extra $1.25 million added to your profit. Any cost you save goes directly to your bottom line. 

Now, if you like burning money then that’s fine. Just follow my steps above to make a flamethrower and have a wonderful bonfire. Enjoy it more with cash roasted marshmallows. If your country has plastic notes (like ours) then it’s likely to create an interesting flavour. 

I don’t like burning money so I don’t know what cash roasted marshmallows taste like. 

I don’t like bleeding time either. You don’t need bandage to stop the blood gushing. Stop it at the cause.

Touch it once

Do not start something unless you are going to see it to completion. 

For example, this is how I deal with emails. Firstly, the alerts are turned off, so incoming emails do not distract me when I’m say, writing. There are set times in my day when I check emails. Outside of those times I don’t look. I stay focused on what I’m doing. When I do look at my emails I scan the unopened subject lines for what might be important. I open an email and I deal with it fully. Either responding or doing whatever I need to, to address the content in the email. Once that is done, I drag the email from my inbox to a separate completed folder. 

I’ve touched it once and finished. 

It don’t need to come back and re-read the email, which is effectively burning cash. 

For bigger tasks I break these into parts. When I’m writing educational material, sometimes it will take months. I break it into smaller parts. Parts that take me less than an hour to complete. After an hour I usually need to get up and stretch my legs. 

During the time I’m doing this task, I don’t allow myself to be distracted. I don’t look at my LinkedIn messages. I don’t look at my emails. My phone is switched to silent. I focus solely on that task. When it’s finished I reward myself by telling myself how awesome I am. Have a break and move onto the next task. 

Exceptional Effort is touching it once. 

How much more Exceptional can you be if your Effort is focused on doing things only once?

If you would like me to send you my Cheat Sheet for how to do this with my Daily Planner, add a comment below saying ‘Yes Please’ and I’ll send you a copy. 

Use Exceptional Effort.

Touch It Once.