Put family time in your calendar first and schedule everything else around it.
I’ve always wanted to walk my kids to school. So I do. Every day I have a standing appointment from 8:45am – 9:15am when I can walk them to school. I book breakfasts, meetings and calls around that time.
Sometimes I need to use that spot, but I bet I walk my kids to school more often than you do. And I’ll remember that more than the meeting I could have had.
Ask for your kid’s school calendar from September through June like I do. Book off time on all the dates your kids are available. Those ‘professional development days’ that teachers get off are so random, but they make great days to play with the kids. This is way better bonding time than some school play we watch them in once and try so hard to attend.
I just got the school calendar today for the 2010/2011 school year. I’ll be blocking off ALL the dates they are off school in this week so I’m off work on those days to play with them and make more memories. I’m already looking forward to September. What do you do to have more balance & time with your kids?
I’m not sure why it’s so common, but entrepreneurs tend to overwhelm themselves with guilt for not working around the clock. Often our non-business owner friends wonder why we work so hard, or why we can’t ever ‘disconnect.’
Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it.
And stop feeling guilty about unplugging and taking time off at the random times you need it too. Think of it like plugging in your iPhone. You don’t feel guilty about that.
When writing this post I was sitting in a quiet room with a fireplace up at a Whistler, BC lodge. No people, music, phones or email. Just me sitting beside a window watching the snow fall = perfect environment for me to focus and get some real quality work done.
Being a CEO and running your own business comes with a lot of pressure. It’s critical to take the time to think and be away from the distractions of the business. I coach and mentor CEO’s to find an environment to focus weekly and productivity improves. So will the quality of your work.
Strict Focus Days are helpful. Slowing down every month or quarter long enough to sit quietly and obsess about the future helps fuel more thoughtful decisions about the present and future of your business.
During these times, it’s good to think about the following:
Where in your business could you be focusing more?
Who could you be building better relationships with?
Who are your biggest clients? How could you get more business from them?
Are you taking time to really focus without the trappings of day to day life distracting you (laptop, email, phone)? If not, I strongly urge you to think about taking a Focus Day (or a few) to disconnect from the rest of the world and be alone with yourself and your thoughts.
I’ve looked at my companies metrics or KPIs every week. Back in my College Pro Painters days, we called it the “Weekly RAG” (Results At A Glance) and it was critical to the goal-setting and planning we did weekly to drive the business. If you’re not looking at a dashboard for your business weekly already, how’s that working for you?
To assist me in keeping teams and individuals focused, I’ve had one-on-one meetings each week with all my direct-reports. And I’ve ensured that they had these same one-on-one meetings with those who reported to them. At College Pro Painters, we called it GS&R: Goal Setting and Review. This simple meeting rhythm provided a ton of focus for all of us.
Fortune magazine asked me once, “How do you motivate your employees?” I said, “I don’t.” I continued, “I refuse to try to motivate people. What I want to do is try to take people who are already motivated and inspire them to do the stuff they know they have to do, and give them the systems and tools to create change. Then be there to support them.”
Help align and keep people focused who are already motivated. That’s a recipe for growth.
It’s not as much about setting the goals as it is about getting the damn stuff done.
Too many people write lists. Lists are great. I use them too. However getting stuff done isn’t just about lists and setting goals. That’s only the starting point.
REALLY getting stuff done is about deciding exactly when you’re going to do it and putting that task right into your calendar at a specific time based point.
a) What are you going to do
b) When are you going to do it
All the CEOs that I mentor and coach use this as a tip in getting their way to their goals effectively.
Try that for a week… Prove me wrong. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Are you struggling to stay on task? Do you often feel like you are jumping from here to there and back to here, only to forget where ‘here‘ was?
Good news: You’re not alone.
Bad news: If you don’t fix it, you will be alone (with a struggling business).
Tom Peters, the author of In Search of Excellence,used to say you need to be a “monomaniac with a mission.”
True leadership is saying “no” more than you say “yes”. Saying “no” will allow you to focus on one project rather than taking more on.
As a CEO coach, I always tell my clients that multi-tasking may make you feel busy, but it doesn’t drive results. It’s impossible to get real results while doing two things at once. One of the core things the CEOs I’m mentoring benefit from is me helping them say no to the big shiny objects they are attracted to starting as entrepreneurs.
Every company has them. Most CEOs don’t know who they are. In fact most companies miss the diamonds sitting right in front of them.
Instead of going outside your company and recruiting people, companies need to really get to know their own people first. Every company has diamonds in the rough.
The other day I met with an employee from a well known Vancouver company. The employee is fantastic. Yet due to some internal politics they are being kept in ‘their box’ and aren’t getting any visibility with the CEO and leadership. Shame. Because if the leaders don’t quickly see what this person has to offer a) they’ll leave and b) someone else will ‘hire a superstar’ from outside.
I coach CEOs that they should be spending time each week getting to know the talent they have 2-3 levels beneath them on the Org Chart. CEOs should be figuring out who they have on their bench that are not being challenged yet by their VPs & Directors.
Years ago I found numerous employees who were diamond in the rough but worked in completely different business areas than they do now. By spending time with them on the floor, going for coffee with them, getting to know their personal dreams, and as Tom Peters challenged us to do in his book In Search of Excellence with MBWA (Management By Walking Around), I uncovered the diamonds.
Who are your company’s diamonds? Who will find them first? You or the competition?
It’s really cool how they work: You post the projects or work you need done and people around the world bid on the project, offering their price to get the work done for you. They even provide references and samples for past work they’ve done. Over the last year alone, I’ve had research done by someone living in Karachi, Pakistan, for $2 an hour. I needed to get some contact info, addresses, and information related to venture capital firms and angel investors in Washington state and British Columbia. It would’ve taken me all week to do it and an employee would have cost too much when this person was thrilled to do it for $120 in total. And the output rocked.
I needed to have all of my training DVDs from speaking events transcribed so I used the transcription services of someone in Sweden for $8 an hour. I also had some media interviews that produced content I thought could be useful, so I simply emailed her the files and she typed them all up in Word for me. Many transcription firms used to charge $75-125 an hour for this. Her 20 hours of work was a little more than $125 in total.
I’ve used virtual assistants around the world to work on miscellaneous tasks for me. Even CEOs that I mentor are already starting to outsource work they used to delegate to employees. It just doesn’t make sense to delegate work to people for three to ten times what it costs us when you can outsource using services like this. As long as you’re getting the right quality out of these services, it’s worthwhile.
Nine years ago I gave laptops to all of my employees. The productivity gains that happened when they took their laptops home with them to work for a couple extra hours a week was outstanding – totally worth the investment.
As a business coach, I suggest that you should get everyone in your business using a laptop. My MacBook Air has a 6-hour battery life and I can use it on flights, in the dark, and turn anywhere into my office.
Paper notes are a waste of time and resources. It drives me nuts watching employees sit in meetings handwriting all their notes, knowing many will go back to their desks to ‘type everything up.’
Some people don’t like others using laptops in meetings because they worry that they are checking email. A great little system to prevent that from happening is through the use of a ‘fine jar’. Allow anyone to call someone else out if they suspect them to be using email. If the person is checking email they put $2 into the fine jar. If they weren’t checking email, then the person calling them out pays $2. People will learn to not only avoid checking email in meetings, but to trust that using a laptop in meetings is actually hyper-effective and not a needless distraction.
As a business coach, I believe the number one thing that every company can do in 2010 to be successful is focus. Pure and simple focus.
Too many employees and companies are off plan, stuck in email, wasting time in poorly planned meetings, and chasing after big shiny objects instead of getting hyper focused.
It’s about getting the critical few things done, not the important many. It’s not rocket science. Focused effort will beat everything else, hands down, every time. Prove me wrong
I coach & mentor CEOs in 5 countries. And last year I was the top rated lecturer at MIT’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program. I’m certainly not the smartest guy out there but I can get more done than almost anyone due to one thing. Focus. And when I’m not focused I’m pretty useless just like everyone else.
You may not have a deep love for technology, but you better get used to it. CEOs that resist changing will be left in the dust even quicker as we continue integrating tech into our lives. If the rate of change outside your business is greater than the rate of change inside your business, then you’re out of business. Period.
As a business mentor, I recommend you and your employees learn one tech shortcut each week. Here are shortcuts to Outlook, Gmail and Apple, but these are just the beginning. Shortcuts and quick, savvy web navigation have proven to be faster and increase office productivity.
If something tech related feels complicated or expensive, it probably is. Look for simple ‘tech hacks’ via bloggers and Twitter search to help you before you try and figure it out. ‘R&D’ (rip off and duplicate) should be your mantra when finding tech solutions to make your company faster.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Nine years ago I gave laptops to all of my employees. The productivity gains that happened when they took their laptops home with them to work for a couple extra hours a week was outstanding – totally worth the investment.
You may not have a deep love for technology, but you better get used to it. CEOs that resist changing will be left in the dust even quicker as we continue integrating tech into our lives. If the rate of change outside your business is greater than the rate of change inside your business, then you’re out of business. Period.
