Behind the Mike

There is a line in the Bible that says “If the eye be single, the body is full of life. If the eye be evil, the body is full of darkness.” What that says to me is that if you know where you are going it is a lot easier to get there.

We should have three kinds of goals: (1) Immediate goals, i.e. those things that have to be addressed daily. (2) Intermediate or short term goals, those that need to be addressed weekly, monthly and quarterly. (3) Long term goals, those that need to be addressed six months or longer.

All goals can and do have sub-goals or steps by which we achieve the major goals. We should also differentiate our goals. Goals do overlap but by in large, we should assess them along the lines of categories like personal goals, physical goals, spiritual goals, business goals, family goals, community goals, financial goals and leisure goals. The list can be as long as your mind’s eye can see.

The next key is to write out a goal statement, establishing a list of the tasks, resources and deadlines to get the job done.

Get the answer to these “who, what, when, where, how, and why” and you will have clearly established the goal statement. It must be done in writing or it becomes a dream, not a goal. Write it out and share it with someone. Accountability is the key.

The most important one on the entire list is the “WHY” question. My friend Joel Weldon, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame is fond of saying “You can eat an elephant if you do it a bite at a time.” You can accomplish almost any goal if you do it a step at a time.

However, the key are bite sized pieces. Zig Ziglar, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, says we do not reach our goals for four reasons:

1. We have been told about goals but not sold on doing goals.
2. We have not been shown how to set a goal. Answer the ‘who, what, when, where, how and why” questions and you will have set your goal.
3. We are afraid we might fail.
4. We are afraid we might succeed.

That is sad but true. People are more afraid of success than they are of failure.

The most critical part of the goal setting process is what I affectionately refer to as an Accomplishment Narrative.

An Accomplishment Narrative is a verbal description of how one thinks one would feel AFTER you have accomplished your particular goal.

You should be a generous as possible with your feelings. Use flowery language that makes the goal worthy, achievable and worth all the effort! You must envision the payoff.

Let us assume you wanted to lose 50 pounds weight over one year. Describe in vivid words how you envision feeling after you have accomplished your goal. Here is what your Accomplishment Narrative might look like: “I feel terrific now that I have lost 50 pounds over the past year. I no longer take insulin and I no longer take all those medications. I am happier, healthier, better looking and more likely to live longer now that I have shed all those unwanted pounds. Best of all- all the girls find me sexier! I feel terrific! Life is good!”

If the gain is not greater than the pain, you will not accomplish the goal! Remember, irritation drives change. That which irritates you is what drives you.

Why do you think Thomas Edison sought to improve on the invention of the light bulb? The first light bulb was built by Humphrey Davy (an Englishman) in 1809. Thomas Alva Edison improved the invention and based his improvements on a patent he purchased from inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans who patented their bulb in 1875.

I think Edison and his predecessors were so ticked off at having to read by candlelight that they set about the process of bringing light to the world. When Edison decided “Let there be light” he made the world a better place for all of us with his goal. Your goals should be just as noble and honorable.

The great Italian philosopher, Berra, (Yogi Berra), once said “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” There is a lot of truth in that statement. Make a decision, even if it is wrong.

Someone once asked Yogi: “What time is it Yogi?” His response: “Do you mean now?” Another Yogism that was actually Satchel Paige’s was “How old would you be if you did not know how old you are?”

My favorite Yogism of all was “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.” True enough, ninety percent of everything we do should be second nature. Making decisions should be second nature. Correcting ourselves after we made bad decisions should also be second nature.

How can you know where you are going if you do not know where you have been? One of the best exercises one can do is that of a time robber analysis.

This process requires you to keep score on where you spent your time. Do it for a month and I promise you, your life will change forever.

Try logging the things that steal your time like the phone calls, the walk-in traffic, the internet, junk snail-mail and e-mail, the tweets and other social media interruptions.

Next, determine how bad it is. How many hours a day did you lose doing these things? What was the percentage of lost effectiveness was caused by it? What was the percentage of lost efficiency? Be honest; you would only be lying to yourself. No one is going to grade you, though perhaps it would be wise to have another monitor you to keep you honest.

Some things we cannot help. It has been said that we lose two years of our life standing in line, on hold on the phone and waiting for the traffic light to change. Find a way to use that time.

Next, you need to make a list of the causes of these things, i.e. an open door policy, answering your own phones, not screening your calls and so forth.

Now comes the tough part, making a list of the proposed solutions to these very problems. For most leaders, it boils down to getting middle managers to make decisions. With the flattening of the management structure in the new millennium, fewer people are forced to make more decisions. Ready, fire, aim! Decide for heaven’s sake.

One of the best exercises one can go through is a self-assessment test where you examine your attributes. Check the one’s which best describes you:

__ENERGETIC & HARDWORKING

__ACCEPTS SUCCESS GRACEFULLY

__ACCEPTS DEFEAT GRACEFULLY

__OPEN TO CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

__TAKES RESPONSIBILITY

__A GOOD LEADER

__A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTER

__A GOOD PARENT

__RECOGNIZES OWN PREJUDICES

__TRUSTWORTHY

__LIKES TO WORK ON A TEAM

__A LONER

__HAS A GOOD SENSE OF HUMOR

__TAKES PLEASURE IN ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OTHERS

__KEEPS TEMPER

__HIGHLY MOTIVATED

__DOESN’T NEED OWN WAY

__ACCEPTS THE PAIN OF GROWTH

__LIKES CHALLENGES

__QUALIFIED IN CURRENT POSITION

__NOT SATISFIED WITH THE STATUS QUO

__CREATIVE IN FINDING SOLUTIONS

__ASSERTS OWN NEEDS

__A “DOER” GETS IT DONE

__ACCEPTS OTHER PEOPLE

__DOESN’T FEEL VICTIMIZED

__CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

__LIKES ANALYZE & PLAN

__WORKS WELL UNDER PRESSURE

__LIKES DETAILS & FIGURES

__LIKES STRUCTURE

__PLEASING PERSONALITY

__KNOWS WHAT THEY WANT

__ENERGETIC & HARDWORKING

__ACCEPTS SUCCESS GRACEFULLY

__ACCEPTS DEFEAT GRACEFULLY

__OPEN TO CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

__TAKES RESPONSIBILITY

__A GOOD LEADER

__A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTER

__A GOOD PARENT

__RECOGNIZES OWN PREJUDICES

__TRUSTWORTHY

__LIKES TO WORK ON A TEAM

__A LONER

__HAS A GOOD SENSE OF HUMOR

__TAKES PLEASURE IN

__ ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OTHERS

__KEEPS TEMPER

__HIGHLY MOTIVATED

__DOESN’T NEED OWN WAY

__ACCEPTS OTHER PEOPLE

__ACCEPTS THE PAIN OF GROWTH

__LIKES CHALLENGES

__QUALIFIED IN CURRENT POSITION

__NOT SATISFIED WITH THE STATUS QUO

__CREATIVE IN FINDING SOLUTIONS

__ASSERTS OWN NEEDS

__A “DOER” GETS IT DONE

__DOESN’T FEEL VICTIMIZED

__CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

__LIKES ANALYZE & PLAN

__WORKS WELL UNDER PRESSURE

__LIKES DETAILS & FIGURES

__LIKES STRUCTURE

__PLEASING PERSONALITY

__KNOWS WHAT THEY WANT

As you assess the things on this list, it will help you with your own personal self-assessment inventory or your strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, if you are analytical type, perhaps detail and bookkeeping might be a more appropriate area for you. If you are not, trust me, detail-driven work is more like a sentence than penitence.

When you have completed your self-assessment inventory, it will help you in establishing your goals, which involve three things:

(1) Solution to your time management problems.

(2) A commitment to a solution.

(3) The behavior you must change to be more effective.

Pogo may have summed it up best: “We have met the enemy and it is us.” Time is the scarcest resource we have and unless it is managed effectively, nothing can be managed. Like real estate, time is a scarce commodity, a limited thing.

There are two questions you should pose to yourself. Where does your time go? Where should your time go?

One of the best exercises that you can go through is a time log assessment where you study exactly where your time went. Take a look at your daily tasks and study your day in 15 minute time periods

Assess the relative priority of each activity and analyze in retrospect how that action should be handled in the future.

When you do a prioritization break them into four categories:

(1) Important and urgent (must be done by you immediately).
(2) Important but not urgent (family fits here a lot as they are critically important but not always urgent)
(3) Urgent but not important (those fires that need to be put out before they spread).
(4) Routine.

We deal best with “routine” with what I affectionately refer to as the four “D’s”:

• Do it (handle the paper once, solve the problem not, do not postpone anything. As Doc Holiday in the movie Wyatt Earp once said, “Why put off killing someone tomorrow when today will do?”
• Dump it (some problems handle themselves with a little time).
• Delay it (Ben Franklin would not open his mail for two weeks because by the time he got around to it, the problems had been solved).
• Delegate it (pass it on for more qualified people to handle).

SOME ADDITIONAL ISSUES TO RAISE

1. Once you have completed your daily assessment, determine where you could improve.
2. If you failed to achieve a task on your list, why did you fail?
3. Did you efforts contribute to your short term, intermediate and long term goals?
4. What activities could have been delegated?
5. What could have been done sooner?
6. Did anything distract you?
7. What was it and why?
8. Did you recover immediately?
9. Did you achieve your objective?

What was your longest period of totally uninterrupted time (excluding meetings and lunch)? Here are some good questions to ask:

1. WHICH PERIOD WAS MOST PRODUCTIVE?
2. WHICH PERIOD WAS LEAST PRODUCTIVE?
3. IS IT A NORMAL PATTERN?
4. WHAT COULD YOU CHANGE TO IMPROVE?
5. WHAT WAS THE MOST FREQUENT INTERUPTER AND WHY?
6. WHAT PART OF IT CAN YOU CONTROL?

To take control of interruptions, you must first define them and secondly establish some steps to control them. Make a list of the five “biggies” that plague you and the best way to handle them. Remember, winners keep score so it is important to know the score.

To best keep score, you need a scorekeeping system. My favorite electronic system is Outlook Express. My favorite paper system is Daytimer, if you prefer paper.

I like the Daytimer system because it provides four distinct sections in which one can work. I would use the top right hand quadrant of a Daytimer for meetings and appointments I have scheduled for the day.

The top left handed area would be used as a “call list” or “to-do” list.

The bottom left area would be for dreams and goals and the bottom right area would be for receipts for IRS.

In the insurance world, appointments might run in two hour segments, so we recommend that you always utilize even number hours to schedule your day, i.e. 8 am, 10 am, 12 noon, 2 pm, 4 pm, 6 pm and 8 pm.

The insurance man’s world offers seven opportunities to set appointments in the course of the day, giving each two hours to accomplish. Utilize whatever applies to your world.

The information in the segment would include the client’s name, address, phone number and whether you sold them anything or not. Your segment would be whatever applies to your world.

The social scientists say we can accomplish about 14 things in the course of a day, including appointments, phone calls, letters, e-mail, bill paying and so forth.

When today ends, write down all the things you failed to accomplish today on tomorrow’s to-do list and scratch off the things you accomplished today.

Writing things out clarifies the importance of various tasks and allows you to prioritize the most important down to the least important. This is critical to your success. I utilize an A-B-C-D system.

1. Has to be done today (urgent and important).
2. Could be done today if I have time (important but not urgent).
3. Could be done this week (not important and not urgent).
4. Means four things: Do it, Dump it,
   Delay it or Delegate it.

There is nothing more satisfying than scratching something off of your to-do list. I must confess that I have actually done something that I forgot to put on my list and then wrote it on the list so I could have the pleasure of scratching it off the list. Yes, I am sick.

The bottom left hand quadrant is a great place to have your short term, intermediate and long term goals on a post-it note that you can move from day to day, i.e. a new car, a new house and so forth.

The bottom right hand segment is where you want to keep up with your cash and credit card receipts for Uncle Sam. IRS wants to see 90 days of good consecutive record keeping for legitimacy.

In our second segment, we examine some other myths regarding time. The ninth myth is the fable of the overworked executive. Are they really overworked or do they simply have poor work habits? Clarence Randall once wrote “Pity the overworked, disorganized martyrs.”

The tenth myth is the legend of the open door policy being the best policy. Open doors do not always improve the manager’s effectiveness with his or her team. In most cases, it makes it easier for subordinates to make their problems your problem. Monkey, monkey… who has the monkey? Let me make this the boss’s problem and then I can go home and have a nice weekend while he or she solves it.

Smart executives tell their subordinates to bring me two possible solutions before you pose a problem and your recommendation for which solution is most appropriate.

Remember, open doors can lead to open season and the decision-maker can easily become the target. Smart execs tell their people that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution and they allow their people to make a decision. Moreover, they do not penalize them if the decision is wrong. We should reward courageous behavior, not flagrant behavior.

Effective people are virtually unanimous in their desire for a quiet hour. I am up between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m. every day, by choice, not by chance. I like my quiet time before the phones start ringing at 8:00 a.m. Those are my most productive hours of my day.

The 11th myth is the falsehood of problem identification being problem solving. Nothing could be further from the truth. Are you a symptom?

The 12th myth is the fable that shortcuts are timesavers. . How much more time will it take to do something over? If you do not have time to do it right the first time, when will you find the time to fix it?

No one can elect not to spend time or to spend it at a different rate. In life, we have to expect the unexpected and account for it in advance.

The greatest business meeting in the world is the Million Dollar Round Table for the life insurance industry. Despite the fact that MDRT routinely seats 7,500 or more people for their programs every year their programs are always on time. Why? Every thirty minute slot is actually scripted for twenty minutes, leaving enough downtime for breaks and speakers who go overtime.

The late, great Coach Vince Lombardi had his players always set their watches 15 minutes ahead of schedule. If Lombardi called a meeting at 8:00 am, you had better be in your seat by 7:45 am or you will be running laps. Period! End of story. If you arrived at 7:46 am, you were late even though you were 14 minutes early.

Decisions are such a critical part of everyday and we learn very early in our lives that we are challenged with choices. Hastening a decision without critical facts can create bigger problems. My nephew John Michael Aun was the victim of a recent head-on collision when someone hit his vehicle while they were illegally on the wrong side of the road. He and his buddies are alive today because they made a good decision to wear seatbelts.

The 13th myth is the false impression of a time shortage, that no one has enough time. And yet, everyone has all the time there is. Time is not the problem. It is how we use our supply of time that is the problem.

Many of us have confused priorities such as working on second things first. The 14th myth is that time flies or time marches on. Does it? In actuality it is ever present and even “timeless.” We all have the same identical supply.

Myth 15 is that time is against you. It is if you did not appropriate it properly. Doctors are notorious for over scheduling patients. I actually sent my doctor a bill for my time once. He thought I was joking until I deducted the amount of my invoice from his payment. He was never late again.

IN OUR NEXT SEGMENT WE’LL EXAMINE SOME KEY ADVICE ON TIME FROM THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER POGO.

The title of one of my best selling audio training programs is “Winning the Time Wars.” While it has been on the market for thirty years, the principles covered in the program are timeless.

I affectionately subtitled the training program “How to Build a 26 Hour Day.” The fact is we cannot create time; we can only control the 24 hours we have been awarded.

You have heard all the trivial expressions about time marching on and time healing all or that time will take care of it.

We have all used all of the excuses like I do not have the time, or time ran out. Coaches love to say “We did not lose; we just ran out of time.”

The social scientists say that only one out of every 100 people (1%) say they have enough time to accomplish everything they need to accomplish in the day.

Forty percent of all people admit they need about 25% more time to get everything they need accomplished every day. Fifty percent want 50% more time.

There are many myths about time management that have existed for centuries. Myth number one is the myth of activity. Activity does not mean achievement. They two should not be confused.

Make no mistake; you must have activity to have achievement but all activity is not worthy activity. Still, my philosophy is simple: When in doubt, gallop. We have all heard all the old expressions that active people get the most done. Wrong! Active people do the best job of prioritization.

The second myth about time is that the higher the decision-level the better decision that is made. Actually, the closer you are to the situation the better the decision and sometimes that happens from the bottom up and not the top down.

The third myth is that people who are paid more make better decisions. Wrong again. They are paid more because they are worth more. You deserve your pay no matter how good or bad it is. You deserve your life no matter how good or bad it is.

The fourth myth is the delayed decision improves the quality of the decision. Maybe, maybe not. I believe in ready, fire, aim philosophy. Carnegie said if you are right 51% of the time you are a winner. Make a decision and then adjust.

So many people, especially the analytical types, suffer from paralysis by analysis. They defend their situation by saying they need more facts. More often than not, they lack courage to decide. That is why leaders who are good decision makers make more money. They are more afraid of not deciding than they are of failing.

The fifth myth is the myth of delegation. Delegation does not save time, worry or responsibility, it simply postpones it. Delegation becomes abdication.

The sixth myth is the myth of efficiency. The most efficient person is not always the most effective. It is old debate- efficiency versus effectiveness. The answer lay in a correct blend of both.

The best example that comes to mind is do not try to do more cheaply or more effectively that which should not be done at all. Effectiveness is about doing the right things right.

The seventh myth about time is the myth of hard work. There is little that hard work will not solve, but it is not the answer to all your time problems. Activity does not necessarily mean achievement. When hockey players fight, they are very active, but no one is playing hockey. The old joke sums it up best: I was at a fight last night and a hockey game broke out.

The eighth myth is the illusion of omnipotence. Many executives suffer from this problem. They think they have to do everything themselves and that tasks are achieved faster and better if they do it themselves. Perhaps you are terrific at taking out the trash, but when you do, you should pay yourself that wage and not the wage of an executive. Successful people are successful because of their actions and not in spite of those actions.

IN OUR NEXT SEGMENT WE’LL REVIEW THE OTHER MYTHS OF TIME MANAGEMENT.