Ask Maynard: How Can I Achieve My Ambitious Career Goals and Also Meet the Demands of Daily Life?

In a previous Ask Maynard post, Laurie Morris asked the question:

My main focus this year is to reach my highest goal ever in funding at my company. How do I manage all of the distractions that are a part of my daily life? I have two children and a husband. The girls have dance 6 days a week and work is a lot of things coming at me all the time. I ideally would love to have an assistant for my life and work but even my boss doesn't have that and somehow does twice the amount of work that I can do. I want to find balance. The other main goal would be my fitness/weight loss goals. I am working on improving my times at the 5k and 10k. I am running and working out about 6 days a week on that and have a training program. Diet and nutrition are always a challenge. Any thoughts? Laurie 

Hi Laurie. Thanks for your questions. First of all, congrats on your recent marriage and it is wonderful that your daughters are healthy and doing well. It sounds like work is going well too and you have important goals. It’s great news, but I understand, it’s a lot.

I’m always optimistic and I think there’s more in all of us. I’m a fan of seeing all the distinct parts of our life as a tapestry in which everything is woven together and stronger and more beautiful that way, but I also know that trying to do it all can led to feeling overwhelmed and also, at times, result in not doing anything well.

You have marriage, family, career and fitness goals. I think you have to think about what you want to do in terms of what trumps what. Here are some tools and tactics that I’ve used and that I think may help.

Brad Smith’s “Crystal Ball” Test

Sometimes you need a framework to help you with the day-to-day conundrums. Brad Smith, the CEO of Intuit spoke at a WIN CEO Summit, and articulated this constant dilemma very well. He describes two categories of moments in life: “rubber ball moments” and “crystal ball moments.” He said of the rubber ball moments, if you drop them, they’ll bounce and come back. With the crystal ball moments, if you let them drop, they shatter and they never come back. Our key in life is to make sure we know which is which.” 

He offered examples in his own life with his two daughters. One is a dancer who had 15 dance recitals last year. She wanted him at every one, but he couldn’t deliver on that. “I knew if I let one dance recital drop it would bounce and next week I’d be at another one. She would be hurt, but it wouldn’t be forever,” he said. Brad defined a crystal ball moment as high school graduation. That happens one time. If dropped, it shatters forever. “I never ever prioritize work over a crystal moment, but I have to make trade-offs at times when it’s rubber,” he said. I’m very very clear about which those moments are.”

Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix

I’ve always tried to manage my time a certain way, but I love how The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey articulates it. His Time Management Matrix helped me understand how so many things get in the way of what really matters. You can read more about it and see the matrix from his book in this article.

Covey’s framework delineates the things that matter today, things that may matter in the future, things that don’t have a lasting impact or don’t matter at all. This matrix clearly revealed that the efforts that merited the most focus were those that were important—but non-urgent (Quadrant 2).

Remember, Quadrant 2 takes deep introspection. It requires investing in what’s most important. This includes your health. If you do not take care of yourself you will not have a productive life. I firmly believe that if you are able to do the Quadrant 2 activities that you need to do for your company and for your family everything else will be beautiful. But neglect Quadrant 2, and you put your company your family and yourself at risk. We all have only so much time in the world, so it’s best to spend it on things that are impactful.

Outsource What You Can

Finally, it’s okay to outsource some of what you can’t do, if you can afford it. You don’t speak to your economic situation, but hiring an assistant to help with tasks or someone to help with childcare can help.

Congrats on all you are trying to do. Take a deep breath and remember to enjoy it too. I wish you luck!