Zero

Questions of the week: How do you collaborate with someone who is not responding to multiple pings? I am at stage 6 in Time management, but I am saving zero weekly hours because I have had too much workload in the past few weeks. What can I do? My Time management is not going well; what do you think I should do?

Photo by Алекс Арцибашев on Unsplash

I write this article based on the insight of my conversation with my team in our monthly 1-on-1 call. I speak with each one of my team members. This article is a compilation of a whole week's takeaway. You can subscribe to the?Building our Team?newsletter (1700+ subscribers)

How do you collaborate with someone who is not responding to multiple pings?

You pick up your phone and talk to the person.?

You can conduct meetings over the telephone calls too. It doesn't have to be a Skype meeting. You keep your pen and paper ready and make notes while you talk.

Your objective will be to get the outcome of the meeting in terms of decision points and actionable results. It is clear the other person is too busy to reply to your 5 Skype pings.?

If you want to make this difficult and may be frustrating, call more interesting. You can go for a walk while on your phone. You can climb stairs if you have no other place to move. There is something with how the brain works when you move; the ideas come flowing.?

You don't have to fight the other person, only listen to them and get the easiest answer. In most cases, the answer will be no, don't know or no time. Be prepared for it and have a follow-up question ready.?

The phone is a supercomputer now but remember the fundamental feature of the phone. It was invented to make phone calls :-)

I am at stage 6 in Time management, but I am saving zero weekly hours because I have had too much workload in the past few weeks; what should I do?

1) A runner completes a race.

2) A programmer writes software that works.?

3) A chef cooks the food.?

4) A business person makes profits at the end of the year.

5) A carpenter will make the chair.

6) A student studies to ace the exams.?

Here is the thing,

It may be a little, but they will produce some results, which will always be zero.

1) The runner will complete 5 KM.

2) The programmer will build a basic website.

3) The chef will cook food that will not kill people.

4) The business person will make a profit covering the lifestyle.?

5) The carpenter's chair will be good enough for people to sit on.?

6) The student will not get zero marks in the exam.

Let's do some math on the stages of time management. When someone reaches stage 11, they will achieve the goal of saving 15 hours per week.?

If you are at stage 6, you must save 7.5 hours per week. Let's cut some slack. Even after that, you should save 5 hours a week, that's 1 hour per day.

If you are saving zero hours, I am sorry to tell you that you are not managing your time at all.?

My Time management is not going well; what do you think I should do?

There is a practice that I have read in most of the getting-rich books out there. We can apply it to time management. Now that you know the basics of Time management, you can relate to it. It says when you get the salary, you must pay yourself first. That means the first 10% to 30%, based on which stage of personal finance you are, goes straight into investments. The money that is left is your budget to spend for the month. Doing whatever with that will not impact the fact that you will become rich.

This advice is exactly the opposite for 98% of the world's population. When the salary comes, most of us spend it all, and by the month's end, we have no money left to invest.?

Then we ask the question, how did we end up like this with no money??

Now let's see how this idea works for us in answering the question.?

You start your week by saving 30% of it in advance. So 10 hours is already saved.?

That means you only make a path for 4 hours of productive hours.?

The two hours each day you spend on how to delete - delegate - automate.?

When you're pushed against the wall, you think of a creative solution, and you do that first thing in the morning or go to some quiet garden near you with a pen and paper.?

You become a person who is known for the following qualities

1) You accept your lack of skills and competence in public comfortably?

2) You always have a bunch of ideas and point of view that saves time

3) You become good at identifying the more profitable projects

4) You plan the work in such a way that there are zero mistakes or rework

5) You confidently speak up in calls saves time for the whole team.

The 30% investment upfront will still be on because you will level up the playing field to solve problems your lead could not imagine or hasn't thought of solving. The complexity of problem-solving, automation and communication will go up and up.?

It makes you a key team player and a valuable asset. You pave the path for your growth because you bring value to the clients and, in turn, create profits for the company.?

It becomes easy for your leaders to give you first access to the opportunities that come to the company.?

Once you become a value creator, money is simply the byproduct.?

Let me end this with an analogy. When you learn a skill to make 100 INR, the same skill could help you earn 10,000 INR. But you must redefine your skills to reach the next level of 25,000 or 50,000 INR. The saved time in advance will give you the time to help you learn which skills you can learn to achieve the outcome with less effort.?

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