Time to sharpen the saw

For my Saturday night piece, I thought I’d reference one of the best books I have read. 

I was given a copy of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey in 2011 and found that the messages of the book resonated with my own personal values and gave me renewed purpose at a time when I felt my life was stagnating. 

I identified the aspects of my life that I needed to improve and whilst some of the things I wanted to improve were out of my control, I improved all the things that were possible. This included losing a stone in weight in the first six months and never putting it back on. Establishing the right habits is what this book is all about.

Rather than start with the first habit that the book focusses on, I thought that the extra time many of you have currently was a good time to go to the 7th habit, “Sharpen the saw”.

In the book, Covey references the story of the woodcutter who is spending so much time cutting trees that he says he has no time to sharpen his saw. As a result, each tree takes longer to cut down meaning he has even less time to sharpen the saw. 

It’s a vicious circle we can easily fall into. 

Years before Covey referenced the story in his book, Abraham Lincoln said “Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe.”

It seems so obvious, but it’s so easily forgotten. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have told me that they are “too busy to delegate”. Mad isn’t it? We’re all so busy doing what we are doing, we don’t have time to do any preparation. 

Until now of course.

Fellow “Covey fan” and friend of the firm, Steve Backley, of BackleyBlack, has an interesting perspective as an ex-professional sportsman and kindly contributed this video to our YouTube channel. No need for a password this week, we’re using lockdown to get our technology processes sorted!

But what are the practicalities of “sharpening the saw”? 

I’ve often asked owner-managers what their greatest asset is. Some consider it to be their house, some their business. But for most of you, the biggest asset is you. The skills and experience you have built up will help you recover from whatever damage this terrible crisis causes. 

But whilst you continually invest in your business and probably your house, are you investing enough in yourself?

Covey said that a balanced programme for self-renewal needs to include the physical, social / emotional, mental and spiritual. For many of you who are under pressure every day of the week, one or more of those four items can be completely missing from your life. 

Well there’s no excuse any more is there?

The next few weeks is a great opportunity to invest in yourself.

And don’t think that sharpening the saw is about relaxing. We all need some down time but sharpening the saw can be just as much work as the sawing itself. You need to be proactive.

Our first tip is to set yourself one hour of the week when you properly update your “to do” list. Or set one up if you don’t have one. Early or late on Saturday or Sunday works well for this depending on whether you’re a lark or an owl.

The next decision is crucial. Do you put the personal stuff and the work stuff on the same list? That’s up to you but if you’re going to have two lists you need to allocate separate times for both or you’ll just do the list that you prefer! 

I guess one issue in deciding that is that your time is not completely your own unless you are in solitary lockdown. If you are, work time and personal time are pretty much merged so having one list makes sense. 

Then you need to prioritise your list or lists. Don’t go for the old high / medium / low importance strategy. That will result in you avoiding the one thing in your high list that is the most important thing on the list but that you’ve been avoiding.

I would suggest that for the week ahead, in addition to the things that are specific to you it should include all the following:

• Some form of exercise at least once a day. 
• Ensuring that you have sufficient healthy food
• Reading of something that widens your knowledge. The Seven Habits is as good as any book to get started!
• Develop a new skill. This could be something you enjoy or something that will help you when business gets back to normal. Something IT related probably wouldn’t go amiss!
• Set some new goals for the week or month. Thinking too far ahead is impossible at the moment so don’t even try
• Organise one aspect of your home or office. Your future self will thank you for it!
• Clear out little tasks that you’ve been avoiding.
• Complete some instructions for members of your staff that haven’t been furloughed but are short of work. You’ll never have a better opportunity to get things done
• Organise a meeting of your team (presumably digitally) including those that are furloughed. You need to keep in touch, see how everyone is and maybe help them with their own to do lists
• For relaxation, watch something that will expand your horizons. The BBC Travel show is a great way to find out more about all sorts of places that you might visit one day. And if not, there’s always something interesting and educational on BBC4. Try to avoid overdosing on the news!
• Talk. To family, customers (even if you haven’t got much to say other than asking how they are), friends. They all have different perspectives and ideas. Remember, we are all in this together

Most important of all, as Steve said in the video piece, start to commit to a perspective of what’s going to happen and to “being ready” including defining what “being ready” actually means. 

And just remember that every day we are in lockdown is an opportunity for renewal. This is one task you can’t delegate.

The reality is none of us really know how long this is going to go on for. But however long it is, those who have sharpened the saw the best will be more ready than those who haven’t.