HALF TIME THOUGHTS, EPISODE 30: WHAT’S IMPORTANT NOW

Today’s #HalfTimeThoughts continues my mini-series expanding on the New Year Solutions I laid down in Episode 28.?

This time, I’m talking about the things that matter.

The challenge at play here is a world full of distractions. As a business owner and partner, I’m constantly pulled in (what feels like) 101 directions. Although I consider myself better-than-average at triaging the situation, prioritizing things, and avoiding overwhelm, important stuff still gets left unattended.

I’m certain this is a battle that can never be won – much like I don’t believe there is a singular work-life balance that’s stable and sustainable.

However, focusing on what’s important is a significant challenge where any success, however partial or temporary, is better than not having tried.

I’m going to break the problem into two pieces: figuring out what’s important and getting stuff done.

What’s Important Now

About six years ago, I had the good fortune to spend an hour in the company of Reid Ryan, eldest son of the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, Nolan Ryan, and, at that time, President of Baseball Operations for the Houston Astros?.

The meeting was organized by a group of mid-career leaders that I had joined, focused on educating ourselves in the ways of successful servant leadership – about which we felt our corporate masters had willfully neglected to teach us anything.

Reid was gracious with his time, well spoken, and thoroughly engaging.?He exemplified the power of storytelling in leadership.

Although much of what we discussed that day has been erased from my memory (I need to look for the notes we compiled), one thing has stuck with me very clearly.?A philosophy that allowed Reid to successfully lead people from hotdog vendors to season ticket salespeople to groundskeepers.

What he described was a simple acronym: WIN.?

WIN, he explained, stands for “What’s Important Now?”

WIN, he explained, stands for “What’s Important Now?”?In Reid’s world, every employee – from the executive suite to the stadium bathroom attendants – should be able to answer that question, in real time, at any time.

Why did this mantra bring him so much success?

In a nutshell, because it calls on the individual to figure out what matters and then do something about it.

In the frenetic world of filling seats with baseball fans and providing them with a predictable, enjoyable experience, there’s no room for “sorry, that’s not in my job description”.?While everyone has a clearly defined role to play (the fan experience is a complex, carefully orchestrated dance), what matters most is determined by the customer, not the employee.?

Reid cited numerous examples of employees improvising spontaneously in response to seemingly trivial situations that might otherwise have escalated unnecessarily.

His ability to coach his staff in that way relied on another aspect of his leadership journey – he’d worked in almost every position that fell within the sprawling organization he was leading.

As the co-cowner of Ryan-Sanders Baseball, which owns Class AAA and Class AA teams in Corpus Christi and Round Rock, Texas, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work preparing the field, selling tickets, and serving customers.?

That experience, he was quick to point out, gave him enormous credibility with his team, especially when discussing WIN.

I’m fortunate to have followed an unusual career path, spanning engineering, technology development, technology adoption, venture capital investment, entrepreneurship, and early-stage business leadership.?That gamut of perspectives serves me well as I interact with businesses of all types and sizes, helping them figure out a strategy, clarify their message, and communicate with their customers and other stakeholders.

And, as I run my business, I frequently face the question: what’s important now?

Sometimes it’s not the thing that I was about to spend an hour tackling.

I remind myself that what seems most important to me isn’t necessarily what’s really important to my customer or my other stakeholders

I remind myself that what seems most important to me isn’t necessarily what’s really important to my customer or my other stakeholders (business partner, wife, children, friends…)

My aspiration as we accelerate into 2022 is to remind myself about WIN more often.?I’m going to reprint the question and hang it on my wall (it used to be written in the corner of my office whiteboard) as an ever-present reminder.

Getting Stuff Done

As I put it rather crudely in my New Year’s note, “getting shit done is one of my strong points”.

I’m not prone to procrastination and I stick to a task until it’s finished.?My wife will add that I have a hard time sitting still on the weekend – the dark side of my otherwise virtuous productivity.

To keep things on track, I maintain multiple task lists using ClickUp and I write down ideas and informal to-dos on a desktop dry-erase board.?

However, tools are only as good as the processes they support and the person that’s using them.

To be clear, this is not a case of the bad workman blaming his tools – au contraire, I love my tools.?They surely aren’t what’s at fault here.

What prevents my daily output from aligning precisely with what’s most important are the foibles occupying the 7.8 inches between my ears.

Three main predilections contribute to the problem:

• Blasting through a handful of easy tasks at the start of my day to get on a roll
• Not wanting to start a more complex task unless I can finish it
• Nudging start dates out a couple of days without feeling unduly guilty

I’m an action-oriented person.?Doing stuff makes me feel good.?Sitting still doesn’t.?Getting some quick wins under my belt delivers an early endorphin hit, theoretically setting me up for the day.

However, it also consumes time and mental energy that is consequently not available for tackling more substantial or complicated tasks later.

Productivity gurus and their disciples will be shaking their heads in disapproval.?Famously espoused by Brian Tracy in Eat That Frog!, tackling the hardest thing first is a proven strategy for defeating procrastination.?(For the uninitiated, there’s an old saying that if the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re done with the worst thing you’ll have to do that day.)

Less drastic guidance, such as that offered by the Productive Club, suggests a combination of easy and hard tasks is optimal.?

I’m on the right track, they say, by kicking off with a few easy things to get the dopamine flowing.?But I need to quickly transition over to the most difficult task as soon as my energy and motivation have been kickstarted.

My mistake lies in not restricting myself to a few quick tasks before making the switch.

The Productive Club also recommends that I “reward myself” with a couple more easy tasks once I’ve finished the hard one, before repeating the cycle.?I’ll have to give that a try on days when I have the time and energy to tackle more than one task of the onerous genre…

This brings us to my second issue: not wanting to start something I can’t finish.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply to entire projects that span days or weeks.?I break those down into more manageable chunks.?

What I’m talking about are tasks likely to require a couple hours or more of concentrated effort, which get harder to start and finish as the day progresses.

When I tried to research this issue, all the scholarly advice was aimed at people who have a hard time finishing what they start.?That’s not my problem.?My bad habit is putting off to tomorrow things that I know I’ll want to finish today but probably don’t have the time.

These first two issues are interconnected.?If I can rein in my temptation to do too many easy tasks before switching to the harder ones, I should have less concern about running out of time to get the hard stuff finished.

I also need to get more comfortable with leaving a task unfinished.?My days are relatively predictable – I will surely come back to pick up the thread and finish the work.

I’m going to try blocking out time on the next day’s calendar for finishing any remaining work.?Hopefully, that small act will alleviate the discomfort and let me dive into tasks later in the day even if I don’t end up completing them.

Last, but not least, comes my habit of shifting due dates.

This is an unfortunate consequence of being my own boss.?Accountability for setting and sticking to due dates rests squarely with yours truly, and I’m not doing a good enough job of holding myself to them.

You might ask whether this means I’m setting unreasonable due dates in the first place, since there apparently aren’t any grave consequences for missing them.

A good question, indeed.?Truth be told, many of my “due” dates are artificial.?They help me to keep work turning over so that I don’t accidentally run into a conflagration of urgent deliverables.?While just-in-time is a fine philosophy for a manufacturing operation, I don’t think it works well at a consulting practice.

I’ve made a personal commitment to be less tolerant of my due-date-shifting behavior in 2022.?

Making What’s Important Now, Happen Now

In summary – and for the TL;DR afficionados who love to scroll to the end to find out what an article was about – here are my takeaways on the topic of focusing on what matters:

• The acronym WIN, which stands for What’s Important Now, is a valuable tool for prioritizing what matters.?I’m going to print it out and stick it on my wall where it can act as a constant reminder.?The more often I ask myself that question, the less prone I should be to prioritizing easy tasks over more important ones.
• Knocking out a couple of easy tasks first thing in the morning triggers a dopamine hit and kickstarts energy and motivation.?However, switching to the day’s most difficult or complex task should come quickly afterwards, before too much time and mental energy has been expended.?I need to limit myself to just a couple of easy tasks before making that switch.
• Completing a difficult task should be rewarded with a couple more of the easy tasks, before repeating the cycle.?I need to give this a try.
• Having insufficient time to finish a task should not be a reason for postponing it to the next day.?I’m going to block out time on the next day’s calendar for getting any unfinished work done, freeing myself up to start work that has the potential to overflow the day.
• Setting realistic, firm deadlines and holding myself accountable for meeting them is something to which I must make a greater commitment.?It’s probably not the worst of my time management enemies, but it’s still an area for improvement.

? Footnote: Reid Ryan was demoted by the Astros (and subsequently left the organization) in the wake of the 2019 sign-stealing scandal that saw General Manager, Jeff Lunow, and team manager, A.J. Hinch, suspended by Major League Baseball and fired by the team.?I have no idea how much, if anything, Reid knew about what was going on in the dugout.?Most of the people involved were not within his purview because Lunow ran the team while Ryan ran the off-field operations. ?I hope he has taken the WIN philosophy with him to his subsequent teams and businesses.

Photo by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash