Some of you reading this are at an age that you grew up watching a certain show on television: The Floppy Show. Duane Ellett was a talented man who brought his dog puppet to life, for 30 years. Every show was shot live, with a studio audience filled with squealing children. A favorite part of the show was when kids were able to come up to Floppy and Duane to tell a joke. A common and frequently (very frequently!!) repeated joke told was “Why did the man throw the car out the window?” Floppy would feign ignorance. The joke teller would gleefully laugh, clap hands together, and shout, “Because he wanted to see time fly”.
To children, this is a funny joke. To adults, this is an every-day occurrence. Rather than creating laughter, this situation creates anxiety about things to do and worry over things left undone.
Time may seem nebulous, but it is very concrete. Unfortunately, it is finite. We can’t create more of it. If we try to steal some from one day (going without sleep to get something done), we lose it on another day (feeling groggy and being less effective).
Walter Isaacson, in his book Steve Jobs, tells many examples of Jobs’ ability to manage his time and be supremely effective. In a one page paper: “Apple Marketing Philosophy”, Jobs stated three most important premises: empathy, focus, and impute. The second premise, focus, was elaborated in this manner: “in order to do a good job at those things which we choose to do, we must eliminate the unimportant opportunities”.
This statement has many important points relating to successful time management. First, “to do a good job”……if you are going to spend time doing something, then make sure you do a good job. Make sure your final product meets expectations. Think about occurrences where you have spent time doing something, but were just doing “busy work” rather than making a contribution. Or, you hurried through a task just to say it was done. If the final product doesn't meet expectations, or meets them only part-way, then your time has not been well managed. A person can be efficient, but not necessarily effective.
Second, “at those things we choose to do”…..if you are going to spend time doing something, make sure it is something for which you have a passion. Yes, I know, we all have to do laundry and get groceries. But when you are managing your time for projects that are impactful, you are much more able to invest time when it is for something you choose to do. Your results are exponential to the time invested.
Third, “eliminate the unimportant opportunities”……if you want to invest your time and manage it well, you must not allow yourself to be distracted. There will always be shiny objects to float in front of our eyes and squirrels to run down our streets. They might even represent awesome prospects. But, to manage your time well, you have to put those opportunities in another corner, kept tightly shut inside a box. Managing your time well will allow you the space to finish your current project, so you can move to the corner and open that box filled with the next opportunity.
To learn more about how to practice this understanding, contact Results Group, LLC at www.ResultsGroupLLC.com or 515-330-2866.
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