Chapter 1
You Can’t Get It All Done
by Peter Bregman
Brad is as hard a worker as anyone I know. (Names and some details have been changed.) He’s not just busy, he’s keenly focused on getting the right things done. And it pays off—he is the largest single revenue generator at his well-known professional services firm. A few days before Thanksgiving, Brad flew from Boston to Los Angeles with his family. During the five-hour flight, he decided not to use the plane’s Internet access, choosing to play with his children instead. A five-hour digital vacation.
When they landed, Brad turned on his BlackBerry and discovered that a crisis had developed while he was in the air. He had close to five hundred new e-mail messages.
So much for a digital vacation.
The truth is, we can’t really get away from it. There’s no escaping the nonstop surge of e-mail, text, voice mail, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn—and that’s just the technology-based stream. How can we ever catch up?
We can’t.
The idea that we can get it all done is the biggest myth in time management. There’s no way Brad can meaningfully go through all his e-mail, and there’s no way any of us are going to accomplish everything we want to.
Face it: You’re a limited resource.
On the one hand, that’s depressing. On the other hand, acknowledging it can be tremendously empowering. Once we admit that we aren’t going to get it all done, we’re in a much better position to make explicit choices about what we are going to do. Instead of letting things haphazardly fall through the cracks, we can intentionally push the unimportant things aside and focus our energy on the things that matter most.
That’s what this guide is all about.
There are two main challenges in doing the right things: identifying what they are and then doing them.
To determine the “right things,” we need to make choices that will move us toward the outcomes we most want. Which, of course, means we need to know what our priorities are.
In terms of the second challenge—the “doing” or follow-through—we need tools. Rituals. To-do lists. Delegation skills.
But which tools will work best for you? Which rituals will help you follow through? You might be the kind of person who can read through a book like this, full of great advice, and implement it all at once. I am not. I get overwhelmed and end up not changing anything.
So, here’s one way to use this guide:
- Identify your time management challenges. Do you leave the office with a nagging feeling that you worked all day but didn’t get your most important work done? Are you distracted by little things? Avoiding big, hairy projects? Take this three-minute quiz (see “How well do you manage distraction?”) to discover where you’re distracting yourself the most.
- Find one piece of advice you think will have the greatest impact on your work. Once you’ve identified your biggest challenges, read through this guide and find a tip that speaks to you. Maybe you’re not clear on your “right things.” Maybe the rituals you’re using aren’t working. Maybe you procrastinate. Choose one tactic you think will help you the most. Then do that one thing.
- Do it again. Once that tactic has had an impact on your work, repeat the process. Return to this guide and select another tip.
Because Brad is a paragon of productivity, he decided to put his BlackBerry away and wait to reply to the messages until he was in his hotel room. Then, using his laptop, he attacked the crisis: called his client to allay their concerns, delegated tasks to his team, and sent an e-mail to his team and his client detailing the plan. Within an hour, he had finished, shut his laptop, left his BlackBerry in his room, and enjoyed a fun, chaos-filled dinner with his family—which, at that time, was precisely the right thing for him to do.
| TABLE 1-1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How well do you manage distraction? | |||||
| 1. | Even though it feels like I work nonstop all day, I still don’t get the most important things done. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 2. | No matter what I intend to focus on at the beginning of the day, as soon as I start working (checking e-mail, etc.), I seem to get derailed and lose my focus. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 3. | When I have something important and challenging I want to accomplish, I spend my time doing lots of little things and avoiding the big one. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 4. | When my work gets challenging, I somehow keep interrupting myself by surfing the Web, doing e-mail, and other distractions. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 5. | When I'm on a conference call, I get bored and start multitasking until I miss something important; then I try to recover without making it obvious that I wasn’t paying attention. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 6. | I'm late for meetings and appointments because I try to get one more thing done instead of leaving enough time for preparation and/or travel. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 7. | I feel overwhelmed and stressed out by the number of things I have to do. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 8. | My work day ends in frustration as I think about all the things I intended to accomplish but didn't. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 9. | When I try to make space for my own work, I get interrupted by others and I find it hard to protect my time. | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
| 10. | I don’t spend enough time at work in my ‘sweet spot’ (doing work I‘m really good at and enjoy the most). | Never | Occasionally | Often | Always |
© PeterBregman.com. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Score yourself
Use a separate notebook to write your thoughts.
Number of checks in:
Never ____
Occasionally ____
Often ____
Always ____
Guide to scores
If you selected mostly “Never,” congratulations! You’re already doing a great job of focusing on the work that will give you—and your organization—the highest reward. You likely already have rituals and tactics that make you productive. Look to this guide for some new tips and ideas to expand your collection of productivity tools.
If you selected mostly “Occasionally,” you’re doing pretty well. Perhaps willpower or delegating is helping you focus on getting the right work done. But there’s even more you could be doing to boost your productivity. Perhaps you haven’t experimented with rituals. Perhaps your obsession with e-mail is derailing you. Read on to discover new ideas about how you can get even more of the right work done.
If you selected mostly “Often,” you could use a process to help you get and stay focused on the right work. Resist the allure of “urgent” projects to focus on the work with the greatest long-term rewards. Learn how to craft the most useful to-do lists so that you can power through them and leave work feeling a sense of accomplishment.
If you selected mostly “Always,” you need help. But you know that, because you bought this guide, so you’re already on the path to productivity. Pick your biggest pain point and start there, then return to the Guide as often as you need to.
This quiz is derived from Peter’s book, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distractions, and Get the Right Things Done. For free 18 Minutes tools and resources (including an online version of this quiz off ering more detailed results and feedback), visit http://www.peterbregman.com.
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Peter Bregman is a strategic adviser to CEOs and their leadership teams. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.