Doing More in Order Do Do Less

Morning to all , I am of course making the possibly false assumption you are reading this in the morning.
I want you to take part in yet another challenge. Put down the paper and stare at the watch or cellphone for an entire minute.
Do not do anything during this minute, except maybe sip coffee. After a minute continue reading. Go!
Would you look at that, I got you to spend an entire minute doing nothing. I just made you spend a precious minute of your life on a random and futile task.
The sense of urgency associated with time usage is so deeply engrained in us that you are probably experiencing a mini-apoplectic fit at the fact that I made you “lose” a minute of your time. Some of you will probably never forget this lesson. That is probably worth the minute you spent doing nothing.
We spend our lives trying to fill our time with meaningful activities. We start each day with a precious 24 hours and try to cram as much into it as possible.
We are taught that you can never recover time once you have lost it, that time is money or time is important. Above all, we are told to manage time wisely.
You cannot manage time. Think about it; you cannot tell it to slow down or speed up, you cannot tell it what to do neither can you place it somewhere else.
Time is the immutable trundle of seconds flowing past you into the waste basket of “then”. You cannot waste time either, you merely waste yourself.
What we term as “wasting time” is merely our failure to achieve more or to be better people during our lives. You cannot manage time. You can only manage yourself.
Today, I would like to share with you two tricks to enhancing self-management. I learnt these from Todd Henry’s book ‘‘Accidental Creative” and have found that when I engage in both regularly I am much more relaxed and effective.
Both come out of the fact that due to our pre-conceived training on time usage we feel the need to fill every available moment with productivity.
We cram our time with tasks and projects. Most of these are aimed at fulfilling some deadline at work or the appearance of being busy (checking emails every 10 minutes falls under this category).
We get to the end of a day with checklists that are incomplete, actions that will occur again tomorrow and a false satisfaction that comes from being busy.
Busy does not mean productive, nor does it mean money.
What I am sharing with you will not make you less busy, but it may make you more productive. A warning though, these are not quick fixes. They will not work unless routinely applied. The first thing is set time aside each week to think. Diarise it, stick to it and use this time to be creative and to think about solutions to problems.
This is not a time to plan, do that elsewhere. This is thinking time not design time. Take a problem or problems and think about creative solutions. One way to look at this is to outline the current problem, describe it. Then flip it and describe what it would look or feel like if it were not there or solved. Then let your mind churn through creative and innovative solutions.
For example, how can a supermarket improve the checkout experience of its clients? What does the presence experience look like bored customers, long queues, tellers looking sour, card machines often offline.
What would it look like if solved: smiling customers leaving the shop feeling happy, short queues with quick turnaround?
Solutions, there are hundreds, give away random prizes at the till, put up televisions with fun stuff to watch, jazz up the waiting zone with lights on the floor that change colour when you walk over them, hire a random celebrity to come chat to customers for the day, have a trolley queue race. Creative time is important.
We all know this. How many of you believe that ideas are key to your business’ survival? So why aren’t you taking the time to generate them not as a group either.
You need your own thinking time not a company brainstorming session. The second thing is to do something for yourself. I’m not talking about treating yourself to a shopping spree.
Take up a hobby or activity that requires you to be creative, not for anyone else’s satisfaction but yourself. Find something you can lose yourself in for hours.
I said earlier that most of our tasks are aimed at fulfilling some deadline at work. They are aimed at fulfilling something external to us, for an organisation, company or client. Pick something you can enjoy for you. Now it needs to involve creativity or something challenging, preferably something using your hands.
Watching television does not count. Take up writing, art, pottery, do jigsaw puzzles, take dance lessons, woodwork, gardening, learn to code a computer game.
There is an endless list. Why is this important?
Firstly, it makes you value time spent on you. It also allows your brain to meander and flow while you engage in something with no deadlines and no external pressures. It helps to foster and stimulate creativity.
I know that I seem to be asking you to do more in order to do less, but if you can engage in these two activities on a regular (think weekly) basis you will find that your creativity and idea generation is enhanced, your management of yourself will improve, you will be more effective and more fulfilled.

Zach's Two Planning Universes

Today was an experiment. Depending on your point of view, the experiment was a total success, but only because today went so badly. Confused yet? Allow me to elaborate.

The experiment was to see how my day would go if I didn’t take time to plan it, answered all calls to my phone myself (no secretary answering, no voicemail, no missed calls allowed), and if anyone wanted me I had to deal with them. This was despite having a full diary of appointments to keep, and to top it all it was a Monday.

By midday I had received a dozen calls, been interrupted by staff five times (at least two of which required leaving the room I was in), was mentally in a spin and no longer in control of my day. Due to the increased chaos I found myself degenerating in other areas as well, I checked my emails at least hourly, and replied to them.
Lunch was eaten on the run while two clients sat in my reception.

I had no focus, no direction, and got very little meaningful done at the end of the day. My mania was saved by my gym session at the end of the day, which serves as a buffer that allows me to mindlessly vent any trauma from the day into unfeeling mental and get it out of my system, rather than in- advertently unleashing aggravation in the direction of the beautiful lady in my life.

Perhaps my day sounds normal to you? There was a time when it was normal for me, when I was at the mercy of the flood of life.

Life was simpler once in the pre- cyber days, if you were out the office, no one could reach you.

If they wanted your opinion on something they wrote a letter or made an appointment. People kept appointments on time because you could not phone from your car to say you were running late.
Well, that last point is debatable.

Then the cellphone appeared and email became the norm.

We became connected and the world demanded our attention all the time. We can access mail from home, while on holiday in the Bahamas, and not just at work. Roaming means that we can be contacted anywhere at any time in theory.
I know some people who never switch their phones off; even when asleep they put them on silent so at least they can see your missed calls and texts when they wake up. There is more to distract us from our productivity than ever.
Life went from being a gentle stream to a raging river bursting its banks at every opportunity.

Here is another alternative to my Monday from a parallel universe, where Zach chose not to engage in an experiment just because he needed material for an article.

Zach arrives at his office at 8am, despite having to start the day with a pre-arranged earlier meeting.

The next hour is Zach’s time.

His phone is left with his secretary with a strict no disturb rule as he plans his week. Taking into account the total picture of his life, his current goals for the month, quarter and year, Zach checks where his time and energy can best be spent.

He knows that there is a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, that it is Avril’s birthday, lunch on Thursday, and that he needs to spend at least one evening this week with the beautiful lady in his life on a “Date Night”.

Juggling all this into his schedule (Zach is a little old fashioned and writes his in a diary rather than a new fandangled iPad thingy) by the end of the hour, Zach knows what is happening this week.

• The next hour is spent with his secretary re-arranging any meetings that have to be shifted, seeing what he needs from her this week, replying to weekend emails and returning any calls that have come in.

Rather than simply drifting from crisis to crisis, Zach now has specific goals that he can achieve.

He has a list of the top three priorities for the rest of the week. Now Zach is not stupid, he knows that disasters may occur during the week that could hamstring his best laid plans.

Instead of being rigid, Zach is flexible enough to be able to adapt to curve balls. The only thing that Zach is lacking at this point is an idea, for a really cool article that can inspire others because he chose not to turn his life into an experiment.
Somewhere between being totally unplanned and at the mercy of life’s ebb and flow and, at the other extreme, being so rigid in our regime, that we eventually snap when the pressure is too much, somewhere there is the ability to bend and recover from the unexpected yet still have a structure and system to our life.
There is no perfect system to achieving this but here are a few tips.

• Plan your week at the start of it. This planning time is to be uninterrupted and inviolate.
• Pick three top priorities for the week that have a degree of specifics to them.
• Consider the whole of your life when you are planning.
• If you know you have an energy-sapping meeting on Tuesday afternoon then do not plan a romantic dinner with your wife that night.
• Group similar smaller tasks together, the energy from one will carry over into the other.
• Split up unpleasant tasks with buffers; a coffee break, an email check, small things that allow you to recover your energy. Consider leaving a blank slot to fill with emergencies, you can always drop something else into it later if it is free.
• Consider using “cloud based” tools like a Google calendar, that can be accessed by both you and your secretary to help fill in appointments without clashing.
• This may also save you having to phone her to tell her about a new, urgent meeting you have just created.
• Diaries can still work but need a slightly different dynamic of chunking time that your secretary can play with and not double book you.

You can if you wish still choose not to plan things a bit better.

You can just go with the flow and try surf the waves of life.

Of course, sooner or later one of those waves is going to dump you in the ocean and you will have no say in which beach it spews you up in.

The Right Questions

The ability to ask the right questions is crucial when solving a problem. To many people simply start a brain storming session with an undefined problem. E.g. writing on a board “Market Share” and going “any ideas?”. What about it? Do you want it up or down or sideways? Whose market share even? Which Product?

Rather take it a step further. Keep “Market Share” on the board, but ask..

“How can we increase our market share from x%?

“Which of our products can we lever effectively to impact the market more?”

“What is our current target market and how can we increase it?”

“What new markets can we get into?”

These are sample questions, each scenario will have its own. But now it is easy to discuss each one.

Moving Forward

MOVEMENT, it is always happening. Even now as you sit reading you are moving, your eyes are scanning the page, a breeze may ruffle your hair, there is movement.
Our lives reflect this. There is always momentum in our lives, it can be forward or backwards momentum. As individuals we are never really static.
Even a person, who is stationary while the rest of the world moves forward, is in fact going backwards think of sitting in a moving vehicle while you leave your house, the car goes forwards but you leave the “stationary” house behind.
Enough on the theory of relativity, suffice to say you need to be moving forward or else you will naturally fall behind.
Moving forward generally means hitting your deadlines, setting and achieving your goals, improving your quality of life, improving the environment around you, promotions at work, raises, growth in all areas of your life.
You get the idea? Great. Today I would like to examine some of the hindrances to movement in our lives. I want to take a closer look at the ones that we have control over, I see little point in bemoaning things that we are unable to change.
Being comfortable with where you are has to be possibly the biggest single limit to going forward. You get home at the end of a long day, collapse into the sofa, put your feet up and settle there.
You are comfortable. You do not really feel the urge to move, in fact come bedtime the thought of getting up is just too much.
Even though there is a better, more restful bed awaiting you, would rather just stay put on the couch. Now extrapolate that on a larger scale to the rest of your life.
There is nothing wrong with sleeping on the couch, if that is where you want to stay, but there is a much better solution.
We all reach “couch points” in our lives in different areas. Perhaps you are comfortable with your current income, with the neighbourhood you are living in or your attitude towards life in general.
The question is are you stuck in the couch or have you reached the bed? Related to the comfort issue, yet subtly different is the limitation of apathy.
With apathy you may not be comfortable, but you just cannot be bothered any more. You have been dulled and worn out to the point where change no longer matters.
You find fault with anything that could be better, unable to be pleased, using your excuses to justify your laziness and stinking attitude.
Apathetic people refuse to take responsibility for their movement, they expect the world to be handed to them on a silver plate as though they have earned the right by their mere existence.

They blame their employers, their upbringing, the government, the church . . . in fact they blame anything but themselves for their status quo. When you shift blame you shift responsibility and no longer have to move.
Another way of generating a significant amount of apathy is to become preoccupied with time suckers and mind numbers.
Go ahead spend a few hours on Facebook or any other social media. Surf the web randomly. Play computer games for hours.
Read drivel rather than substance. Catch up seven seasons of a series. Go on waste your time. Each of the listed activities is not inherently bad, if done in small doses they may even be beneficial, but there comes a point where they just sap your creativity and will.
It is like getting fat, evidence suggests that there comes a point where the substances produced by fat cells sap your energy, affect your appetite and end up making you grow fatter as you eat more and drop your will to exercise.
While apathy is the extreme, it is safe to say that we all have an internal resistance to movement. In the same way that the initial inertia of a heavy object makes it harder to start pushing than to keep it moving (think of pushing your car).
There is a part of our brain that seeks to keep us where we are. It will make excuses for you, encourage self-sabotage and point out every reason for failure.
Recognise that this is part of you, put it in its little corner to rant, and move forward anyway by recognising all the benefits to moving.
Your resistance feeds off two great stimuli. The first is the voices of other people. Any criticism by others, any negativity, sets your internal resistance off with an “I told you so” and “what if”.
The “what ifs” are fuelled by the second stimulus to your resistance, the fear of the unknown. The future can be guessed at, predicted and imagined but it still remains an unknown factor.
Regardless of how accurate your predictions there is always the element of doubt that things may not go according to plan. Fear can be paralytic, stops you moving.
Alongside the unknown is the fear of apparent lack. This manifests in the waiting for everything to be absolutely perfect before starting a project.
While you wait someone else is going ahead to do the same process. Now I am not talking about recklessness or stupidity, you still need a solid business plan fleshed out with market research before venturing out.
However, there comes a moment when you just need to bite the bullet and go for it, working the details out as you go, correcting mistakes and continuing to go forward.
Why point out all these reasons Zach? Once you can recognise the enemy you can combat it better. Recognising the hindrances to your progress enables you to take charge and over come them. Stop making excuses and move forward lest you find yourself left behind

Its A Kinda Magic

Wonderful! It exists after all! I could fill this article with superlatives to describe a recent shopping experience. I am currently padding around in my new Actos skin shoes (they are a minimalist footwear that basically resembles a latex sock with a thin sole), they are comfortable, funky, and trendy. The best part though was the incredible service experience I had obtaining them. I found an advert in a fitness magazine, looked up the website (www.actos.co.za) and contacted the South African company that distributes them (getting them into Zimbabwe would entail a little more than standard shipping arrangements). From the outset there was a swift response to my query. The real crunch for me came when I emailed a proof of payment to them. It was 8pm at night, I had just got in from a long and social day and was tidying up a few personal odds and ends before bedtime. Sending the email, I expected a reply the next morning when business hours resumed. No such luck. Rather I had a reply 10 minutes later! That was a dedication to service. The supplier would have been well within their rights to deal with it in the morning but they made a choice to deal with it there and then. That little instance has made me a fan for life.

What I have experienced with my shoes it called 'Brand Crush' by Seth Godin. It is the interaction of the magic of the brand and generosity. The magic is the excitement of a new experience with a product or service, in this case the concept of skin shoes; the epic feeling of walking around almost barefoot. The generosity is the giving aspect, for me the sacrifice of Kathy on the other end of an email late at night to deal with my order. I'm sold, I'm hooked, I never want to wear another shoe (well not quite).

I remember the first time I saw a colour television. It was a bulky number that my grandmother had splashed out on. We gathered at the house the weekend it arrived, a bunch of excited kids and adults. It was carefully unpacked, studied, assembled. We waited as it performed the channel search. Then as the screen exploded into colour we were wowed and amazed. Comments about clarity were bandied about the room. We were in love with the magic, with the experience. A few months later we took it for granted. It took flatscreens, LCD's, and retinal displays to recreate a new level of magic for the television.

The magic part will fade a little over time, I will get used to the experience of wearing the new shoes. The generosity has the capacity to keep me there. Generosity can manifest itself in many ways. At a very basic level by giving something away for free. Facebook gave itself away to users. Now those users are getting a little annoyed by the inevitable commercialisation that has come with the need to please shareholders in a public listing. Generosity wins every time you give a service that is above and beyond the perceived value you are paying. It is not always free; the shoes cost me money but the service I received was priceless.

Fed up with Last Minute Stuff?

So much last minute drama, or letting stuff get on top of you?
Check out this post from fastcompany.com

http://www.fastcompany.com/3003586/6-simple-rituals-reach-your-potential-every-day

Where did all the fun go?

Let's get real for a minute, everyone wants to have fun at work, and everyone wants a cool office. If you are a client you do not want to step into dull boredom when you walk into a building, you want to appreciate life, colour, and have a great time. If you include anything in your business culture make sure that you include fun and honesty. You have a culture by default. Every action, interaction, smile or frown adds to the customer's view of who you are. There is no escaping that fact. Everything you do reflects on your core culture. Think of the opposite of these traits - boring and dishonest. No one wants to be friends with someone who's boring or dishonest let alone do business with them. You remember Jim from the cocktail party, the guy who with the monotone who bored you to tears for half an hour while he described the inner workings of his ant farm, imagine doing business with him, sitting for hours in a boardroom while he drones on about an unimportant technical issue. No one likes boring.

 

These two important aspects of a personal outlook on life work hand in hand.

Separating them would be like taking the fizz out of Coke. Ever been talking to someone and realize they are being dishonest? Even though there might be burst of laughter, lots of free drinks and some extra caviar it destroys trust and the dishonest component destroys the "fun" leaving you with flat Coke. Switch it up. An honest person that never has fun is like going to the moon with a soapstone statue. They weigh you down and when you get there there's no one to share champagne with. There's no enthusiasm in the accomplishment. It's terrible. Add fun and honesty to your corporate culture.

 

Let's talk about the bit fun for now. How to add fun: find the sore and mundane practices and make sure they're no longer mundane.

 

Start with your business card. I have a cool party trick for boring business cards I don't want to keep, I throw them away with a flick of the wrist. If you get it right you can send that card soaring about twenty feet into the dustbin. Business cards can be boring. So mix it up a little, create a job-title for yourself that incorporates humour. Instead of 'Personal Trainer' try 'Torture Specialist', instead of 'Accountant' try 'Number Cruncher'. Get people to have a double take when they glance at it. Use that as the springboard for building a relationship.

 

Think of the process that your clients have to go through. Now liven it up a bit. Take the 'transaction' aspect out of the procedure and get it done with a bit of relationship. Think good quality coffee on entering the building so they have something to drink while they queue, chocolates on leaving. Out of the ordinary quotes like Nando's did with their napkins. Think takeaway coffee cups with smiley faces drawn on them. In fact let us break this down to a simple mundane task of going to the bank to get a withdrawal. It has all the potential for boredom; clinical self-grandiosing décor, queueing for an indeterminate time, bureaucracy, oh yes going to the bank ranks highly on my boredom scale.

 

Imagine going to the bank like this. You enter the bank and the first thing that strikes you is the décor. Yes there are security features tucked away here and there, but for a start the bank is not advertising itself. There are massive wallscapes mounted around the hall for you to admire. As you look closely you realise that they are cartoon comic strips. A fellow client sees you noticing and points out that they change them every fortnight. A smiling barista hands you a fresh cup of coffee. The cup is not plain but has a designer quote on it. You fill in the required form and head over to the teller, there is a quote on the slip to remind you that life is not just about transactions but relationships. Someone got the design right, there are enough tellers on duty to ensure your wait time is minimal. The teller is dressed in collar shirt and jeans, formal yet relaxed. She smiles. Your cash is handed to you in an envelope that says 'Most banks give you cold hard cash. But we are a different bank. And so we are giving you warm, caring cash! Use it wisely!' How different is that. Now I wish I could claim originality for that system but Missouri Bank beat me to it (except the comic strip bit, that was me).

 

I can see some people shaking their heads in disbelief; all that effort, all that extra expense, why should we even bother? Here is why. Competition is real. People will remember you more for the fun service they had than the actual product they got from you. They will keep coming back and they will tell their friends. 'But Zach its hardly professional, people want us to be professional'. I never said it was not. Do not mistake fun for unprofessional. Crude would be unprofessional. But when did being professional become synonymous with boredom?

 

Next excuse please? 'Oh but that was an American example.' We live in a global market, get over it. If you want fun, local, and professional then go have a look at Printworks in Mount Pleasant where the coffee shop is right next to the area you place your order. Or get local company CMedia to do a presentation for you. Local companies, right here that are changing it up.

 

It's to easy to slip into a monotonous, transactional business system where laughter had left the building, and smiles have turned upside down. It is easy to settle for cold, grey, and clinical and be happy with it.

 

It's also easy to slip in a few dishonest comments in today's society. It doesn't last. Broken trust is hardly recoverable. The honesty bit in your culture, do what you say you will. Deliver on time. Keep your word. Fun and honesty promotes trust and gives everyone you interact with positive memory. When becomes your culture you no longer even have to try.