Are You Costing Time?

They say "time is money" for a reason. One of the ways we can rack up a lot of expenses (literal and opportunity-wise alike) is through wasting time. But what do I even mean? What's wasted time? Oh, I'm glad you didn't ask.

Decide and then Do

The amount of time chewed up in thinking and rethinking and revisiting and over-analyzing is enough to make another 100 companies successful. (Of course, they'll do that by getting ahead while you wait.) I think being indecisive is probably in my top 3 sins of work. Decide, do something, and if it's the wrong thing, go back and do something else. But stop wasting people's time considering.

Skill Up or Outsource with Teaching

I need to be careful how I say this one, because I firmly believe in learning on the job through opportunities. However, there's a time when it's just better to have someone who knows how to "do the thing." I think what's worth considering at a moment like this is the following: is this a skill I can pay someone else to execute and also teach-while-doing so that the person who needs that skill can learn through the example? Or, is this something where I can definitely give my person time to level up so that they're not going slower than is reasonable.

Just because someone can do something or "get there" doesn't mean it's the best way to accomplish a task. Especially repetitive ones.

Trim Relentlessly

Your calendar is the kitchen junk drawer. You pick up recurring meetings and never much question whether you should be there. Or maybe you've been holding meetings that might be better left a quick Slack (or Teams or whatever) back and forth.

Meetings are the enemy. I have one weekly and one monthly meeting that I think matter most of all. This frees me up for plenty of time for 1:1 coaching with folks in the organization, and plenty of time to fuss around and see what else might be improved upon. If you've got more than a handful (let's say five) standing weekly meetings, question that. Don't let it stand.

Trim relentlessly.

Butt Covering Eats Up Time

If you're spending a lot of time confirming and ensuring and double/triple-checking and you're NOT a surgeon or an airline pilot, stop it. There's not going to be a deposition. You'll spend so much less of your time in meetings talking about what you did wrong than you will in celebrations of your success if you stop worrying at every turn that your butt needs covering.

Heck, it's one of the core values at Appfire: Getting it Right > Being Right

Instead of working in a CYA mindset, maybe work on doing the work that needs doing. And as I said before, unless you're a surgeon or an airline pilot, if you do something wrong, just acknowledge, apologize, and then act to fix the issue. (The famous "three As" of restaurant work.)

Slow is Smooth - Smooth is Fast

This comes from the Navy SEALs. It's a mantra that points out that if you want to get better and faster at your work, learn how to do it smoothly. Learn that taking a little time to master your efforts makes up for everything by figuring out how to succeed more often than not.

I know this sounds counter-intuitive to my previous points, but it's not at all. It's the very center of the point. Because if you're not wasting my/our/your time with the above items, you'll have more time to work smoothly, and smooth is fast.

Take 100 Shots

Now, you're really going to get confused. Yes, stop wasting time. Yes, go slow to go smooth. But holy cats: DO THE THING!

You ever play pop-a-shot at the arcade?

The idea of that game isn't to try and aim incredibly slowly, line up your shot with precision, and get the ball in the net. You're supposed to huck as many basketballs at that net as possible and get as many to go in as you can in a limited time period.

For whatever reason, we think every situation at work is like Lose Yourself by Eminem. "Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity / To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment / Would you capture it or just let it slip away?"

It's almost never like this. SHOOT! Do the thing. Make something happen.

Because to wait/delay/worry/aim incessantly is to deny yourself an attempt to win. And that's wasting time/money (they're the same so often, it's not even fair).

What Are You Waiting For?

That's my last question, and I mean it. I don't know the answer. If you're eating up tons of time and not especially nailing it, what are you waiting for to decide and move yourself to a different mode? What's stopping you? Who are you hoping to receive permission from? You know that no one at work's going to say this to you outright. They'll just wonder why you're not doing more. They'll talk about it with their peers. They'll remember it for their reviews.

This is yours to fix. Just like it's mine to fix. And everyone else who is chewing up time as if it's not finite and not very very expensive.

Tick Tock.

Chris...