I'm So Busy!

Lately, I run into many people who constantly have the same refrain:

“I’m so busy!” or “It's crazy here!” or “I never have the time.” Or my favorite, “I’m so stressed!”

I hate to be critical (as a coach, it’s my job) - but it tells me a lot about you, your personality, and your work habits:

1. You don’t have control of your time or schedule.

People who run around like a chicken without its head tend not to instill confidence with their superiors, peers, team, or customers. What you are telegraphing is that you don’t have control of your schedule and activities. That tells me you’re spending disproportionate blocks of time on the wrong items (not urgent or important) and rushing through areas that are urgent and important.

2. You like to complain and invite people to your pity party.

I hate people like you. Like old people who complain constantly about their maladies, I (and all the people around you) really don’t care about your simple-to-solve issues. Stop using these excuses to complain about things that are happening TO you. Start taking responsibility and change your life by paying more attention to your schedule and priorititizing your activities.

3. You have bad work habits and don’t know how to streamline, delegate or retire duities.

And you’re never going to get a promotion. Too often, when my staff kept complaining about their duties, it told me that they aren’t frequently looking at their workload and streamlining tasks, delegating to their staff (or using technology), or the easiest, stop doing unimportant or lower-echelon activities.

Normally, I have tips after each area to help you stop doing bad things and start doing good things. This week I have one piece of advice: “Stop it.”

That’s it. Try to control you bad behaviors — stop complaining, start focusing on the urgent and important, and start streamlining/delegating/retiring secondary duties.

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE — sign up for a free coaching session with Rich.

Why Retirement Is NOT An Option.

I read a wonderful article in Newsweek the other day — "More Senior Americans Are Working Past Retirement, Willingly" (link). There was a powerful quote from Dr. Leonard Bailey, a 74 year-old heart surgeon who still puts in 80-90 hour weeks and has no plans to retire, "There’s no reason to stop. If you’re constantly thinking new thoughts and dealing with new problems, it refreshes your brain cells and makes new connections."

I LOVE IT. That's the way I am. Even my Dad, who retired after 40+ years working for Electrolux, was asked back by management to keep working because they couldn't find a replacement who knew his job. So he worked an additional 10 years (7 AM-12 Noon) and deftly stayed out of my Mom's hair.

Let's break Dr. Bailey's quote down to not only understand it, but to apply it to our own lives:

"There’s no reason to stop."

There really isn't. Retirement is a societally imposed situation that rips out a major part of our life. Work is a part of our life, our personality, our being and it contributes to the 'adequacy' of our being. I constantly tell clients — you generally sleep 8 hours, you work 8 hours, and you spend 8 hours on personal time. Work is a big part of your life for many, many years. Why stop?

I'm not saying keep putting in 80-90 hours per week, but you can power-down slowly. Ask to only work 4-day weeks and reduce your pay accordingly. Then 3-day weeks. Then 2-day weeks. You get the picture.

"If you’re constantly thinking new thoughts and dealing with new problems"

When was the last time you really sat down and brainstormed about your career or business? Really separated yourself and 'thought new thoughts' about your situation, your position, your industry, your client base and all the people around you?

When was the last time you stopped thinking about your 'problems' and started addressing them as 'challenges'? Carlos Casteneda said, "The difference between  a warrior and an ordinary man is that a warrior sees everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man sees everything as either a blessing or a curse." Start being that warrior in life.

"It refreshes your brain cells and makes new connections"

If you keep the flow of new ideas, new challenges, new people, and new activities in your life, it will refresh your brain and make new connections. If you exercise the muscle — it will get stronger.

Keep working, keep meeting new people, keep stretching your comfort zone, keep learning, and most of all keep making it happen.

One Simple Phrase That Will Change Your Life.

"If the the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, it’s time to water your own grass." Stop trying to compare yourself to others if you always make yourself feel inferior. Stop trying to yearn for a better job, if you don’t first try to make your current job better. Stop making the same mistake again and again because you focus on others and not on yourself.

Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses in your career. Here are some simple tips to help:

How would you rate how effective you are at your current job?

Not how hard you work, how smart? Remember high school . . . do you get straight A’s? Do you do extra credit to ensure that your GPA is at the top? If not, you won’t do any better at your next job. Take night classes, read books, surf the web for knowledge . . . Start watering this lawn.

How many important people do you know in your company?

Outside of your company? Every lawn needs it’s fertilizer – in addition to watering, you need to add a healthy sprinkling of important connections to make your career grow strong.

Are you adding ‘pizazz’ to the current responsibilities you have?

Take a concerted interest in growing your own lawn first. Take work home and see how you can grow your own plot of land first – who can you influence, who can add fertilizer?

Maybe you need to trim your lawn.

Where can you cut? What activities or tasks can be dropped to focus on the more important responsibilities? Who can you delegate to? Hand off some responsibilities that others might want to do?

Are there old cars or rusting play-sets on your lawn?

Time to brush those errant tasks and hangers-on that tend to waste your time and affect the growth of your lawn. Clear out and retire the obsolete activities and the non-essential meetings that take your eye off your lawn.

Are there idiots at night driving on your lawn, making deep ruts with their truck?

Investigate, isolate, and take care of errant peers, bosses, and subordinates who are sabotaging your efforts to grow a strong and healthy lawn. Shut them out of meetings, don’t talk to them and if need be, escalate to the appropriate areas. Also, put up an electric fence around your property — if they decide to go driving again, they will get a real shock!

Try and take care of your own lawn first . . . you might have the best piece of property on the street and not know it until you take action.

How To Be Successful Every Day.

  Time to hit work after a wonderful weekend . . . check your email . . . get ready for all those wonderful meetings . . . and make sure you schedule for all the work coming down the pike this week.

Whoops! Forgot to tell you something . . . Most executives tend to forget that their job isn't supposed to crank out work (okay - that's part of your job - but just follow my thinking for a bit).

You are also expected to IMPROVE. CONSTANTLY.

Of course you work. But to be successful in your position, you need to be a machine. A machine that constantly strives to:

1. Do better.
2. Take on additional responsibilities.
3. Never wear out (keep on running and have a bright smile every day).

But how do you do that? Your schedule is ALWAYS full. You come in early, you stay late, and you bring work home. How are you going to IMPROVE CONSTANTLY?

There are three little letters that will help you do that EVERY DAY:    S   D   R

S = STREAMLINE Regularly look at your workload and apply the 80/20 rule to it. Why? Candidly, if you work day-to-day, you tend to get into little ruts in your work habits, your responsibilities, and your inter-personal connections. Not major ruts - small ones. What eventually happens is that they take over your schedule, eking out more and more time, until you find yourself working 60-70 hours a week and 10-20 hours at home.

These ruts steal precious time from those high-value, high-impact tasks that move you forward quickly. So on a monthly basis, stand back and look at your litany of responsibilities, and make highly critical assessments of each one. See how you can eliminate steps in accomplishing each task. Instead of a report, will an email suffice? Instead of an email, would a quick 2 minute phone call be in line? Instead of a phone call, how about a personal drive-by their office? Cut your email in half by using some quick tips (call me - 203.500.2421).

When you regularly cut small steps out of your responsibilities and accelerate your interpersonal communications, they go faster and get done quicker.

D = DELEGATE Take a close look at your responsibilities and see what ones can be delegated to your staff. Or delegated to technology.

That is your job as a manager - to constantly motivate your team and get them to take on more complex and harder tasks. So give them a taste of what you do. Here's the hint - don't give them the fun stuff - give them the tasks that  you HATE to do. They will feel empowered that they are working on management-level responsibilities and you will have more time for more important things.

Or figure out how technology can come to the rescue. Review reports online rather than printing them out.

You'll find that your day gets more fun and you get to work on the stuff that really matters to your business and your success.

R = RETIRE Which tasks take up a lot of time but don't really deliver the impact that merits their priority?

Begin to prioritize all of your responsibilities and pick off one or two - stop doing them - see what happens. It might be a regular meeting that you have, a report that you do, a task that no one really appreciates. Try it - you might realize that no one notices that it's gone.

Candidly - this one is the hardest one to do - but when you get good at it - you'll find that this step delivers the biggest bang for your buck. Try it!