In This Chapter

When I speak to groups or consult with individuals, I am amazed at some of the time pressure stories they tell me. The number of items competing for their time and attention and the schedules they’re trying to balance and juggle would leave me in a tizzy. When I ask them how things got to be so hectic, many respond in a way that mystifies me. Their response is similar to the situation where you walk into a room and see a child and a broken toy. You ask the child what happened to the toy. He simply shrugs and says, “It broke.”

Adults who are continually racing the clock to get things done are acting in ways analogous to the child who claims, “It broke.” Such adults are taking little responsibility for their hectic lives. They claim that they’re victims of circumstance.

Unquestionably, the world is becoming ever-more demanding. As much as anyone, I am aware of the information and communication bombardment the typical individual experiences on any given day. Nevertheless, in proceeding through work and life, presumably one begins to understand the importance of being more selective, becoming and staying organized, saying no, maintaining balance, and living in the moment.

Too many people proceed as if they’ve never heard of these notions or, if they have, they pay them extremely short shrift. Such people proceed at full bore. They don’t seem to have established, let alone pursue, priorities; hardly ever say no; and shortchange themselves of essential nutrition, relaxation, and sleep. They seem to convey the message, “The toy is breaking more each day, and I can’t understand why. Soon it’ll be shattered to pieces.”

Living in the moment remains one of the least understood, infrequently addressed, seldom used human capabilities. Too few individuals have any experience or knowledge of living in the moment; it is lost among a flurry of activity—“busy-ness.”

Living in the moment means being aware of your power in the present. While it is not a recipe for getting things done per se, it helps enormously. It is being able observe the finely woven canvas of your career while you are in progress. It is giving yourself permission to be who you are. It is resting when you are tired. It is not having to constantly strive.

Freed from the preoccupation that limits your experience of the present, however, you may feel more present than you have in years, increasing your ability to focus and get things done.

Once you realize what it means to dwell in real time and how far you may have strayed from the mark, there are several things you can do to begin to catch up with today (or at least this week). Many are deceptively simple, but don’t let that obscure the powerful results they offer. Foremost is giving yourself permission to take time-outs at work as you deem them to be necessary.

During my travels, I have been struck by the legions of people in my audiences who seem perpetually overwhelmed. The irony is that these people could take breaks throughout their days and weeks, but they don’t. The biggest obstacle to winning back your time is the unwillingness to allow yourself a break while accomplishing your tasks.

I spoke to one group of executives and their spouses, and learned from many spouses that their executive husbands or wives simply do not allow themselves to take a break. Paradoxically, increasing evidence indicates that executives would be more effective if they paused for an extra minute a couple of times each day. This can be done every morning and afternoon, when returning from the water cooler or restroom, before leaving for lunch, or when returning from lunch. And that’s only the short list.

To insist on proceeding full-speed through the day to get things done without allowing yourself moments to clear your mind all but guarantees you’ll be less effective than those who do.

The Motorola Corporation discovered the hard way that a little instruction here and there didn’t educate their employees the way they had hoped. It certainly didn’t stick with their employees. So Motorola started its own university with its own staff of 300 instructors and an initial annual budget of $60 million, and developed in-house programs and long-term alliances with local colleges.

Why such elaborate procedures? They were implemented to help the organization stay competitive. Similarly, for you to stay competitive, you need to pause periodically throughout the day, every day.

Some of the most productive and energetic people in history learned how to pace themselves effectively by taking a few “time outs” each day. Thomas Edison would rest for a few minutes each day when he felt his energy level dropping. Buckminster Fuller often worked in cycles of three or four hours, slept for 30 minutes, and then repeated the process. He found that in the course of a 24-hour period, he would get far more done than if he had followed traditional waking and sleeping patterns. While this approach isn’t for everyone, it worked for Bucky. By giving himself rest at shorter intervals, Fuller was able to extend his productive hours.

Remember, for most people, the time when they are least alert is between 2:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M. Highest alertness is between 9:00 A.M. and noon, and between 4:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. Your alertness will vary depending on your own physiology and inclinations, as well as on the hours of consecutive duty, hours of duty in the preceding week, irregular hours, monotony on the job, timing and duration of naps, environmental lighting, sounds, aromas, temperature, cumulative sleep deprivation over the past week, and much more.

Look for the time intervals within your own workweek, and even weekends, when you are fully alert and productive in order to efficiently and effectively get things done.

Entrepreneurs, running their own businesses and managing themselves, allegedly would be more inclined to take strategic pauses throughout the day. After all, they’re in charge of their own schedule. Too often, it isn’t necessarily so. The temptation to overwork can be ferocious.

Conversely, if you work for others, perhaps a large organization, you may erroneously believe that pausing for the total of 10 strategic minutes throughout a workday could somehow jeopardize your standing. This misconception is unfounded.

If you are not the CEO of a large organization, the thought of being able to take a nap in the middle of the workday may seem like Nirvana to you. Yet, the 10 strategic minutes I have recommended provide a similar benefit in your quest to get things done. If you can’t take a flat-out nap, 10 well-placed minutes may be your best alternative.

You can’t charge through the day full throttle and expect to be at your peak level all the while. Be realistic. You need to consistently take breaks, perhaps along the lines of half a minute or so every 20 minutes, and a good three- or four-minute break at a minimum every hour, to ensure that you stay sharp, stimulate your circulation, and take care of necessities.

In general, any time you feel yourself getting bogged down with all the tasks you need to complete in the day, take a walk or switch to another task for which you have sufficient energy. Do anything else which will help to minimize tension, keep you alert, and help you to stay more productive throughout the remainder of the day. Think of it this way: execute, reflect, reevaluate, and proceed (see Chapter 5 on the energy of switching tasks). As lunch time approaches, reevaluate what you’ve done, and how you plan to proceed during the afternoon.

If you can work off-site one day a week, or depending on your organization, only once every two weeks, you’ll be in a good position to accomplish certain types of tasks more adroitly than in the traditional office.

Also, if you’re able to telecommute, using your phone, fax, and e-mail to stay in touch with your office, you’ve saved physical commuting time. You have also saved wear and tear on your car, prolonged the length of your wardrobe, and afforded yourself the opportunity to get an extra half-hour of sleep the night before. Furthermore, you have set up an environment in which you can work efficiently.

The tables that follow will help you to track or, at the least, become more aware of where and when you give yourself some time-outs while getting things done. The first worksheet includes nine activities: four at work, three after work, and two during vacation time. Each of these activities has a “Lately,” a “Short-Term Goal,” and a “Long-Term Goal” category. In the Lately column, enter how many times in the past month you have actually engaged in some strategic time-outs and taken what I call “breathing space.” In each Goal column, enter how many times you would like to, say, take a slow and leisurely lunch. In the Short-Term Goal category, for example, you could indicate two times per week.

Be realistic when recording what you have been doing. Be reflective in the short-term goal column, marking down what you can realistically get done. Be visionary in the long-term goal column, marking down what you would ideally like to achieve.

In the weeks and months ahead, review your chart periodically for reinforcement. The advice to take periodic breaks seems so simple, yet you may find it difficult to put into practice.

Have you ever eaten lunch with a colleague and begun discussing ways to approach your work more effectively? After a few minutes, you’re both deep into the conversation, coming up with all sorts of great ideas on how to accomplish your tasks. However, when the waiter comes to take your order or bring your check, what happens? The conversation dies down.

When you both go back to work, those ideas are often forgotten or put on a back burner. Your discussion generated effective ways you can get things done that are now perhaps lost. If you consciously schedule a meeting for the sole purpose of letting the creative sparks fly, you’ll grab control of your time and have some of the most productive sessions you’ve ever had.

I meet with a mentor once a month in his dining room. At a cleared table, we sit across from each other with a tape recorder, discussing problems and issues that face us and ways we can overcome them. Each of us keeps a copy of the tape, takes it home, and makes notes on it. We capture those ideas instead of letting them die.

Look for other ways to shake up your routine for the insights and breakthroughs that may result. Every day and every moment holds great potential for achieving your goals.

Think about flying on an airplane. You have a window seat, and it’s a clear day. As you gaze down to the ground below, what do you see? Cars the size of ants. Miniature baseball diamonds. Hotels that look like Monopoly pieces. Life passing by.

The same effect can take place at the top of a mountain or a skyscraper. As often as possible, when things seem to be racing by too fast, get to higher ground for a clear perspective of what needs to be accomplished.

If you’re among the lucky, perhaps you regularly allocate time for reflection or meditation. If you don’t, no matter. There are other ways to slow it all down. After the workday, listen to relaxing music with headphones and with your eyes closed. A half hour of your favorite music with no disturbances (and your eyes closed) can seem almost endless. When you re-emerge, the rest of the day takes on a different tone and you are able to get more done than you would have at your previous level of alertness.

How many times do you actually let out a good laugh during the day, especially during the workday? Five-year-olds reportedly laugh 113 times a day, on average. However, 44-year-olds laugh only 11 times per day. Something happens between the ages of 5 and 44 to reduce the chuckle factor.

Once you reach retirement, fortunately, you tend to laugh again. The trick is to live and work at a comfortable pace and have a lot of laughs along the way, at every age.

Part of taking control of your career is being able to step back and look at the big picture, being able to see the lighter side of things. Some of your worst gaffes eventually evolve into the things you pleasantly recall, or your best ideas! Pros who survive and thrive, laugh. Enjoying moments throughout the workday can in turn motivate you to accomplish more.

By altering our personal perspectives—our perceptions, our response to stimuli, even the pace at which we proceed throughout the day—we have the opportunity to engage in our careers in a manner that is more manageable, less complex, and more enjoyable. The key is to develop a mind-set that both acknowledges the multitude of items competing for one’s time and attention and concurrently acknowledge that one has the capabilities and the intelligence to rise above the fray.

You possess the distinct capability to adopt seemingly minor work-style changes that result in major gains in peace of mind and getting things done, and know that:

Getting things done is more a mind-set than a set of circumstances. You have the power to alter your thinking and your surroundings so as to accomplish more and maintain a sense of work/life balance.

The Least You Need to Know