Controlling what's controllable

The entire premise of the entire series of articles is to trigger you to spend some time to reflect. I mostly touch base on time management, but these ideas can be applied elsewhere as well.

When preparing this article this single idea stuck in my mind: why do we care so much about things that are outside our control? ?

Every day is filled with the list of the following events: Flights delayed, traffic jams, rain that ruins our plans, computer systems are down (cheers to you, Microsoft!), sudden problems with the car; The list is endless.

And yet, even though it's obvious these things will happen (the only question is when) we're still very annoyed at them, cursing how difficult life is, and then we feel down all day. ??

It's very normal to be frustrated in the moment, but once you accept that things will break, plans won't work out, weather is going to kill your expectations (thinking of you, Audioriver), then:

? It's much easier to remain in control, not lose your cool, and just think of what can be done next instead.

Taking things for granted is not a healthy mindset in the first place. If you don't ever take a moment to appreciate what you've got now, and your mind is constantly running on high-speed, thinking only in terms of future plans, then you really miss out. Especially when things are hectic - taking that moment to look around and be grateful can really revert your energy on high doses again.

Then it occurred to me that if I was to give anyone a simple piece of advice on time management I'd just tell them to read the title of this article. That's it.

?? Take full responsibility over areas where you have full control, let go of these where you don't, and voila! Much easier said that done, though.

Let's review three strategies that can be used following that principle.

What, why, how technique

What?

Starting with what means knowing all the things you have to do. Do you wish to increase your executing skills? Plan.

Most people don't plan a single day in a week, let alone a month or a year. I always wonder why that is.

In my first article I shared the research that demonstrates that once you begin planning where you'd like to be in five years, and back-track each year, it's much easier to go about your business today. If you know where you want to be in the future, it gives you inner-motivation to focus on today - at least that's the idea.

So, you login into work, and first thing on the list should be to look at what you need to get done. Then you review all the tasks, emails, and set priorities. If everything is an urgent item to get done immediately, then nothing is.

I quickly go through all emails, projects, tasks and then assign categories to each item. I always mark six items that are essential to get done that day, and then set average and low priorities on the rest.

We usually overestimate how much we can get done in a single day, so it's better to ask yourself which 6 things that you will get done will bring about most impactful results, and leave you with the sense of satisfaction of having a productive day.

Don't procrastinate - it's a real temptation (talking from my own experience) to leave the most difficult tasks to the end of the day and begin with the easiest. Then, somehow there's no time left to deal with them - whoops! There's always tomorrow.

? Don't fall for that trap and follow the priorities as you set them up in the morning.

Why?

Look at your list now and ask yourself these questions:

• Why this task?
• Why today?
• Why bother?

Very often we overburden ourselves in tasks that don't bring about any productive results to the business as a whole. Since you selected this item to do, there must be a reason for it.

Read the task again, and perhaps you'll come to the conclusion that it must be delegated to someone else. Perhaps it's not that important for today?

Now, again - be self-aware enough to know that difficult tasks will be tempting to move to another day. If the value is there, don't push this to another day just because there's resistence in your mind and the project is overwhelming.

Finally, should you even care about this task? In regards with emails, the study shows that up to 71% of company emails aren't read. I truly believe it's our fault.

How come? Well, if you keep 10 people in cc, every single department in bcc, and forward this email to yet another department - no wonder people don't read emails.

I always try to keep the list of cc to the bare minimum and remove people that don't need to be in the trail - that already increased how effective my emails are.

?Anyhow, be really honest with yourself whether this email, project, task is something worth investing your time in.

How?

The simplest of all three - now that you have your entire list of tasks to do, ?assign time to each item and look at your calendar to schedule.

If you don't assign any time to any task, then you risk simply not knowing how much time you need for each, and most likely you won't be able to complete your entire list of tasks. Parkinson's law also applies here - the more time you give yourself to do a task, the more the task will take.

Should I spend my time on this task?

My favourite one. Mainly because I used to have this mentality: If I don't do it well, then others won't. ??

As you can see, I used to be a pretty overconfident guy who thought he is a do-it-all employee. Not quite anymore.

True, at HireRight I did move up starting as a researcher, then got through all ranks in customer service, then I got hired as account manager, and finally I'm here, as senior key account manager. Nonetheless, there's no way I can do everything myself, and since I started asking myself that question in the subtitle above, I realized how much more time I have on areas that matter the most.

Everything comes down to understanding what your main duties are. Then ask yourself if there are departments, team members, or companies that can do some of the tasks better than you.

Do you want your teams to have more time on other projects? ?Delegate. Do you want your business to innovate and improve current workflow? Again, delegate. Time is key.

Not everybody agrees - pricing is key is what I keep hearing all the way in my role. Once you decide how much your business hour is worth (more on this in next point, but you can check this article for more), it's usually a prudant busienss decision to have others do the job that you might be able to do for less.

Putting it simple - if your hour is worth $500, then having someone else do the same task with the same quality for $100 is a massive win.

If you can't decide whether your team should do all the work, or whether another company should, run this simple exercise:

Consider value vs cost ratio. Two charts, the first one:

??Value: detailed description of the task, all the resources required to perform it, how to manage the task, how it's perceived by the team, how important it is for their role and development.

??Cost: ratio of: how long the tasks takes to monetary cost of 1 business hour of your team members performing the task + energy cost: time to learn the task, quality, how easy it is to teach others how to do it.

You'll see that you're going to delegate more once you run a similar analysis in your business.

Self-evaluation, self review, key reminders - reasons to allocate your time

Self-evaluation, self review

? I have one hour booked in my outlook on weekly basis to have the time to review in detail how I perform.

You need to allocate in advance time for self-review as it's so easy to be fully immersed in daily routine and responsibilities and lose track of what makes you a good performer. That time that you spend working on your self will pay for itself anyway - why?

If you know how much your time is worth (check my previous article on that) you know that every decision on what to do with your time should depend on its value. If I invest in myself 4 hours a month to increase my efficiency and quality, and I can apply these lessons to my daily responsibilites (in my case: background screening market research, data analysis, bechmark reports, risk analyses, business reviews, meetings with my partners, email traffic, to name a few), what's that gonna do?

??I may be able to prepare a more accurate business review in less time, meaning that I save time on monthly basis.

??I may be able to speed up how I handle emails, again, saving regular time here.

??I may be able to learn how to filter data in salesforce faster, again saving time.

?30 minutes saved here, 1 hour there, and suddenly, these 4 hours invested mean that I save 10 hours a month.

It's similar to the idea present in this book on sales and overall performance:

? Holding webinar on weekly basis with key stakeholders in the business to review how we work.

It's recommended that these meetings cannot be ever skipped, and the agenda is straightforward: let's have a deep-dive view on how we do business, in all the angles that matter most - whether it's product development, delivery, logistics, technology, marketing, workflow, sales etc.

Even Stephen Covey mentioned it in his classic book as he describes:

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw challenges a person to seek continuous improvement and renewal. Overcoming burnout can be achieved by taking time for oneself through physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual renewal.

Key reminders

I have weekly reminder in my outlook to review salesforce and volume data.

I have a monthly reminder to check how my goals progress and track their performance.

I have a bi-weekly reminder to check the logs on current projects and see how they develop.

I have a weekly reminder to call to my parents, check out with my friends how they are.

I have a reminder every quarter to do health-checks on myself.

The list goes and on on, and everything is managed on my calendar.

?If you don't set any reminders, you may lose the work-life balance, and just simply forget to take good care of your body, your family, all the key areas that are worth spending time on.

That is all for today! Have a good week ahead, and remember: knowing and applying are two different things, so if any of the ideas above sounded interesting, try implementing them in the upcoming week ??.