🎯 Work Smart Wednesday - August 14, 2024
Regaining control & getting things done, can do vs should do, and a quote from THE management consultant
Work Smart Wednesday
👋 Hey there!
Here is your weekly dose of Work Smart Wednesday
In these emails I will share with you 3 things to help you work smarter.
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1. 💪 Regaining control & getting things done
When we first started together my client, Benoist, complained that he worked a lot but felt like he got nothing done.
A few months later he was able to take a whole month of holiday knowing his team would handle everything, has started paragliding again, and hardly touches his emails.
Benoist had a team, but it felt like he was constantly fighting fires, treading water, swamped, surviving but not thriving. His business was stagnant and it was frustrating.
He worked so hard, why wasn’t it going anywhere?
I asked him to describe his day. He, like many business owners, started his day by dealing with the tasks that he deemed most urgent. He replied to customer emails, he told his team what they should focus on, he dealt with delivery. This felt right, but it was wrong.
The fundamental cause of his problem was a lack of proactivity.
He felt swamped because he started his day by reacting. He reacted to his customer’s emails, to his team’s situations, to orders. These things are important, but WHEN they happen is equally important. Important is not the same as urgent.
When you start your day by reacting to situations it is incredibly difficult to switch to being proactive. A successful business requires you to be proactive. People neglect proactivity due to busyness.
Feeling busy is often very different from being busy.
We are busy when we really do have a lot of things we need to do. Defining “need” is critically important here, and something I always do with clients.
We feel busy when we lack control of what we do. When we react.
With Benoist, we made a simple tiny change that completely turned his business around: the first hour of his day was for proactive time.
He was not to reply to emails, or even his own team, for the first hour of the working day.
Just one hour.
They say “Your email inbox is a to-do list created by other people." If you want to get the most important things done each day, they’re not hanging out in your email. And I’ve never known an email that truly can’t wait an hour.
He was hesitant at first, but committed to the change.
That one change alone allowed us to get more done in a week than had been done in a year previously.
We worked on things that made a real different to the business. We introduced a 3PL, we overhauled his ads strategy, we introduced proper forecasting.
I have only been working with Benoist for a short time, but in that time we have:
Significantly improved his revenue
Allowed him to take his first proper holiday in years. He took a month off, and his business didn’t burn down (much to his dismay!).
Replaced low value manual work like packing and shipping with high value work like strategy (and time off!).
A few months can make a big difference. 5 hours per week is PLENTY to make a significant improvement in your business, even including time you spend with a coach like me. You don’t need as much time as you think.
What would I suggest for you? It is always hard to be specific without more context of your situation, but I yet to see a person where switching to being proactive for the first hour of the day doesn’t significantly improve their business and their life.
Don’t deal with email for at least the first hour of your day. Nobody will begrudge an hour, your customers won’t mind, and your business will thank you for it.
1 minute 28 seconds video: Benoist has completed conquered his emails
54 second video: Revenue is up, and everything is easier
Benoist: “I really have the strong feeling I could close my eyes and say, Anam, go for it”. His business now pretty much runs itself. The dream.
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2. ⚖️ Can do vs should do
Nothing stays valuable forever.
When I started my first business I spent almost all of my energy doing the things I thought I should do.
Failing that, I spent my energy on what I thought was the best thing to do. It was a rookie error.
I spent so much time trying to identify what was best, that I didn’t do as much as I could. An idea is great, but execution is where true value exists.
I found that sometimes it was important to accept doing something that is simply okay. Switching from doing the best to doing the easiest catapulted my business from struggling to successful.
Done is better than perfect, and the value of work degrades over time. The longer you leave a task, the less valuable it often becomes. But we all go through stages and phases, sometimes we really cannot bring ourself to do a certain task and that is okay. I use to fail to take into account the value of timeliness. I continued to push hard or mentally punish myself for not doing tasks that are no longer valuable.
This ties in to a point I have made it Work Smart Wednesday before, the tasks you should do will change at each stage of the business. This principle is fundamental to business, and why you often find that great founders make awful CEOs (and vice versa!).
What tasks SHOULD you do? This article, and tool, will help you to define what is best for you to do right now. I strongly recommend checking it out.
3. 💡 Quote I'm pondering
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all” - Peter Drucker
People spend a lot of time doing things that shouldn’t be done, both in their personal and professional lives.
They often become the best person at a job they hate. Or reach inbox zero. Or spend a lot of time and energy doing something for someone that then goes unappreciated.
Why? Was that the best use of your time?
Personally, I like to take this to an extreme. I take time to consider actions that I take with clients, friends, even my family, and what impact it will have.
In my professional life, I ruthlessly cut all tasks that I feel won’t drive my business forward significantly. Examples:
I don’t care about inbox zero at all
I kill projects that I feel have become distractions (even if they are profitable!)
I am more than happy to give people refunds the moment it feels like a bad fit (bad customers are less likely to be retained. I cut, refund, and run!).
In my personal life, I realised that the frustration from doing things that went unappreciated existed because I had incorrectly estimated the value of a task to a person - just because it was difficult for me it doesn’t mean it was valuable for them.
I was efficiently completing personal life tasks that needn’t have been done. Now, if something goes need to be done, I questioned how efficiently it needs to be done.
I applied the value lessons from my professional life into my personal life and my personal life significantly improved, my relationships became much healthier. What I stopped doing is personal to each individual, everybody values things differently, but includes things like sending birthday cards or baking cakes for people or making detailed event plans.
Some of the simplest things I have done that added the most value:
Sent my Mum a CD she had casually mentioned she wanted. It was unexpected and showed her I listened, cared, and thought about her despite being elsewhere.
Started recording “family interviews” with family members. A one hour chat, recorded, where I simply ask them about their lives. I go armed with prompts, but it is largely unscripted. Very few people will have ever tried to speak with them on their terms about their life. Help your family feel truly known and cared about.
Followed up with friends, family members, and clients about personal life situations. For example, I know it is exam results day next Thursday and I have a reminder in my calendar to follow up with my brother about his children’s results (and to ask the child, too!).
Asked my client how their wife was doing after surgery. We are all more than our professional persona, I like to show that I care about people as people.
What things are you currently doing well that you shouldn’t do at all?
What things do you do perfectly when okay is good enough?
That's it! I can't wait to hear what you think. What did you find most useful? What do you want more or less of? Reply to this email now and let me know
Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I want to know about it😊
Have a great week,
John
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