Be Your Best

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

This is that time of the year you tend to reflect on how your past 12 months has gone, how you are doing, and where your are going.  I am not sure which of these two following things presents more pressure to me these days — the clock or the calendar.  Time flies by so quickly that it is easy to fall into measuring time by the calendar instead of the clock.  The reality is that we should be scrutinizing our hours, not our days, in order to maximize our time and be ultra-successful, based on whatever definition of success you have for yourself.  The problem with assessing your day’s or week’s productivity or effectiveness is it allows you to generalize and round, and not reach your true potential.

Measuring your productivity or accomplishment or happiness by the clock seems daunting, but can be very effective. Planning and scrutinizing your time at the hourly level makes you much more accountable to your goals and objectives – no doubt it is more rigorous, but the payoff is significant and worth the effort.  We only have 1,440 minutes in a day, 10,080 minutes in a week.  Sounds like a lot until you translate it into hours: we have only 168 hours in a week.  Keep in mind that you are sleeping a good portion of those 168 hours (a very good use of time that you should track your # of hours on by the way), this is really not that much time if you are not making the most of each hour.

Ok, so planning every hour of your waking day may not seem feasible.  But why not?  I think for many of us (and speaking for myself) it’s because of three things: 1. We/I tend to be a bit lazy with our time without some form of hard deadline (whether it be at work or at home), 2. We are heavily distracted as a rule throughout most days, unless we have proactive disciplines in place to prevent distraction, and 3. We are ‘taught’ by others around us that you do not plan out each hour of every day — it is simply not something that 99.9% of people do.  But these reasons should not prevent you from attempting to do it.  Any amount of precise planning and discipline around your time at the hourly or minute level will increase your productivity, success, and overall satisfaction (no matter how you define these things).  You will simply accomplish more, achieve greater results, and because of this, feel greater satisfaction more often.

The Power of Subtraction

In the book “Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get it Back When You Need it”, Marshall Goldsmith talks about the concept of the Power of Subtraction.  I bring this principle up because when talking about making every hour or minute of every day count, I think this Power of Subtraction concept is something we should all explore to help us.

Goldsmith describes the Power of Subtraction as when something of significance is removed from your life (by choice or by chance), and because this thing has been taken away, we humans (that are motivated) tend to seek out new and better passions and uses of their time as a result.  One example Goldsmith describes is someone who lost their vocal cords due to throat cancer.  This person had been a professional salesperson, who used his voice regularly.   When faced with no voice, he found a new direction, and something far more fulfilling as a result.  We can all use the Power of Subtraction concept proactively to create need and direction, AND to free up time to be used for other things.

Obviously, no one wishes for a disability or illness to take something away.  But the power of subtraction is a tool that we can all experiment with to free up time as well as create space for new direction.  It’s something interesting to think about for the New Year.  The bigger the subtraction, the bigger the opportunity.

New Years Resolutions

I typically don’t create a set of New Years Resolutions, per se, because I feel “why wait ‘til New Years to make a resolution?”  I prefer to nail down more of a ‘plan’ for the year, with goals and objectives.  Call it whatever you like, there is a lot of value in formally establishing goals or resolutions.  Many people, including myself, struggle in creating a personal plan for the year.  It can tend to feel contrived or forced when trying to do it one sitting, and I don’t have all the plan ideas together at a single moment in time.  So, here is what I do, for whatever it’s worth.  I basically have an evolving set of written short/mid/long-term Goals and Objectives (‘resolutions’ I suppose), as well as a running (and changing) list of ’Want to Do’ items (aka Bucket List).  There is really never one point in time I create the plan — I just periodically review it, update it, cross completed stuff off, and add new goals and bucket list items.  Deadlines and due dates are important (critical, actually), and I try to set timeframes for just about everything on my plan with exception of certain bucket list items (deadlines on those are before I kick the bucket — or I will grab one from time to time and set an earlier deadline).  At this time of year, going into the new year, I am not ‘creating’ a plan, but rather I am reviewing my existing evolving plan, assessing results, making some changes, and adding some new goals.  A new aspect I will be adding to the plan this year is some things I will be ‘subtracting’ or not doing —  I need to make space for new goals!  Happy New Year to you, your family, and friends.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford