Read 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done Online
Authors: Peter Bregman
18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done (10 page)
Once you’ve made sure your five (or so) areas of focus reflect those elements, then make tough decisions about what doesn’t fit on your plate.
I decided to step down from the board of an organization, though I found it very worthwhile, because it took a considerable amount of time and didn’t clearly fit in my five. Still, contributing to the community is important to me. So now I do service work with my family. It’s part of the category
Be Present with Family and Friends.
When you decide on your five, commit to spending 95 percent of your time there. The other 5 percent is miscellaneous. Maybe a project on your colleague Jane’s top five doesn’t make your top five, but she needs your help. Maybe
you need to take the car in for an oil change. Maybe you
need
to read all the reviews about the iPad (and then wait in line to buy one). Those are all fine uses of your 5 percent. But if it becomes 20 percent, it means you’re spending too much time on other people’s priorities, your frivolity, and life maintenance, and not enough time on your own priorities.
Sometimes you’ll be faced with conflicts between your categories. I faced that conflict when I was asked to speak at a TEDx conference in Mexico. I think TED and TEDx conferences are fantastic. And my speaking there clearly fit into my priority of
Write and Speak About My Ideas.
But the date conflicted with a party celebrating Eleanor’s fortieth birthday and her father’s seventieth. It was tempting, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider it. But ultimately I declined the conference.
There’s no formula for deciding how to prioritize within the five. But when a conflict arises, think about it, and most of the time you’ll know what to do. If you don’t, here’s a way to decide: Think about where you’ve been spending most of your time lately. If one of the five has been getting the short end of the stick, then choose in favor of that one to balance it out.
And if you still can’t decide? Then pick either—at least you’ll know they’re both worthwhile choices because they’re both in your five.
Last week was the first time in many months that I went to a buffet. I walked up to the line with a little trepidation and a lot of resolve. I felt a little sad, a little conflicted, as
I passed up so many good-looking dishes. It wasn’t easy. It took self-control. But I stuck to one plate, five different choices.
And for the first time I left a buffet feeling good.
Focus your year on the five areas that will make the most difference in your life.
Leverage your strengths, embrace your weaknesses, assert your differences, and pursue your passions. That’s the recipe for the tastiest and most nourishing year. And for a life that will satisfy and reward you. By avoiding a few pitfalls—fear of failure, paralysis, tunnel vision, the rush to judgment—you can keep eating well all year long.
But even after you’ve established your annual focus—the areas where you should be spending most of your time—life gets busy. Days get filled with all sorts of obligations—some important and some not—that will entice you away from the things you decided and know are important.
The solution is in a day. Because a year is lived one day at a time. So how should you spend those days? That’s the focus of
part 3
.
ART
T
HREE
What Is This Day About?
Get the Right Things Done
I
t’s one thing—one
huge
thing—to decide where you want to focus your year. Most people never really think about it as they work furiously toward… well, they’re not really sure.
Still, it’s another thing entirely to
actually spend
your time focusing—day in and day out—on where you’ve decided to focus.
This challenge took me a little by surprise.
I had pressed that
FIND ME
button and flown up in the air, hovering over my life with a bird’s-eye view. I had explored different sides of me—actor, doctor, rabbi, investment manager—and had come to the revelation that I could integrate all these sides while remaining a consultant. In fact, integrating them would make me a
better
,
more valuable
consultant. I just had to change
how
I was consulting so that I could fully express my strengths, weaknesses, differences, and passions.
And I descended back to earth in a slightly different location, one more suited to who I was, who I chose to be. A location from which I could make better—more focused, deliberate, profitable, and meaningful—use of my time. I was thrilled, having found a home that fit, having articulated areas of focus that I would enjoy and at which I would excel.
Then came Monday morning.
Somehow, even though I had tremendous clarity, I still kept doing everything I was doing beforehand. I kept selling the same projects. I kept calling other consultants to do the work with, and for, me. I kept repeating the patterns that would keep me right where I was, instead of move me to where I planned on going.
I tried to change direction. I thought about it. One week, I spent a few hours trying to write an article. But it didn’t go anywhere and I got involved in other work, work I considered at the time to be “real” work, and I gave up.
A few months later, when I was no further along in my plan, I realized that I needed a system. Something that would help me be disciplined and methodical about where I spent my time.
I looked at all sorts of time management systems but they were either too complicated, too time consuming to implement, or too focused on getting everything done.
But that was already my problem: I was trying to get everything done and, in the end, the only things I got done were the things that screamed the loudest.
Over time, I developed my own system to keep myself
centered on my areas of focus and to help me ignore the things that were distracting me. So that with each step I took—each action I chose, each call I made, each time I sat at my computer—I moved further in the direction I had set out for my career and my life.
A daily plan helped me tremendously. I structured my day so it supported me in becoming the kind of consultant I wanted to become. That meant making explicit decisions, ahead of time, about where I would spend my time and where I wouldn’t. It meant lists and to-dos—but not too many—and a calendar that truly reflected who I was and what I was trying to accomplish. And it meant gentle, but consistent, reminders to stay on track.
Because doing work that matters is much harder than doing work that doesn’t. And the desire to escape from hard, meaningful work is ever-present. So it helps to have some structure—not so much that it gets in the way, but enough so you keep moving forward deliberately and intentionally.
Each morning, I ask myself some questions: Am I prepared for this day? Prepared to make it a successful, productive day? Have I thought about it? Planned for it? Anticipated the risks that might take me off track? Will my plan for this day keep me focused on what my year is about?
The chapters in this section will guide you to prepare for—and live—each day so you can answer those questions with a resounding “Yes!” After considering the importance of looking ahead, we’ll explore the best way to create a plan for what
to
do based on your annual focus, while
consciously choosing what
not
to do so you don’t get distracted. We’ll look at how to use your calendar to ensure you actually get all your to-dos done. And we’ll see how a short beep and a few minutes in the evening can help you stay on track. Finally, we’ll pull it all together in the 18-minute plan itself, your key to getting the right things done each day.
This section will pave your path to a fulfilling day that brings you one strong step closer to a fulfilling year.
Dude, What Happened?
Planning Ahead
W
in, my mountain biking partner, and I looked down the ten-foot drop.
“Should be fun,” he said as we backed away from the edge and climbed up the hill to get some runway. I wasn’t so sure. He got on his bike, pedaled to get a little speed, and took the plunge, effortlessly gliding over the rocks, roots, and stumps.
My turn. I felt the adrenaline rush as I clipped my feet into the pedals. My heart was beating fast. My hands were shaking. I took a few tentative pedal strokes forward and inched up. I felt my front tire go over the edge and I started to descend, checking my speed as I weaved around the obstacles.
Suddenly I hit something, and my bike abruptly stopped. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I flew over my handlebars and ended up on the ground, lying beside my bike, front wheel still spinning.
“Dude,” Win said, laughing, “you okay?”
“Yeah.” I brushed the dirt off my elbows. “Dude, what happened?”
Neither of us knew. So I picked up my bike, climbed the chute, and did it again. Not just the chute, the whole thing: the adrenaline, the weaving around the obstacles, the abrupt stop, the flying over the handlebars.
“Dude,” Win laughed again. I was officially in the movie
Groundhog Day
. I climbed back up the chute and did it again. And again. I must have done it five times before I figured out what was stopping me.
Me.
A mountain bike has to be moving fast enough to make it over an obstacle. The bigger the obstacle, the more momentum the bike wheel needs to roll over it. There was one big unavoidable rock, and each time I came upon it I unconsciously squeezed on my brake. That slowed me down just enough to turn the rock into an insurmountable wall.
I needed more speed to keep moving, so I climbed back up and did it again. I stared at the rock and picked up speed, keeping my eyes on it right to the point where I squeezed on my brakes and flipped over my handlebars again.
I knew what I had to do, but I couldn’t do it. It was just too scary. As long as I was focused on the rock, I couldn’t prevent myself from braking.
But I wasn’t ready to give up. So I climbed back up and tried one more time. This time, I decided to focus ahead of
me—ten feet in front of where I was at any point in time. So I would see the rock when it was ten feet away, but I wouldn’t be looking at it when I was going over it.
It worked. I slid easily over the rock and made it down the chute without falling.
I’m a huge proponent of living in the present. If you pay attention to what’s happening now, the future will take care of itself. You know: Don’t regret the past; don’t worry about the future; just be here now and all that.
But sometimes, focusing on the present is the obstacle. Take driving a car, for example. If you didn’t look ahead to see where the road was going, you’d keep driving straight and crash at the next curve. When you’re driving, you never actually pay attention to where you are; you’re always paying attention to what’s happening in the road ahead, and you change course based on what you see in the future.
It’s the same with your day. Some days, I remind myself of me mountain biking down that chute. Doing whatever appears in front of me, when it appears in front of me. I don’t think about a meeting until I’m in the meeting. I don’t think about what’s most important to get done until, well, until it doesn’t get done. When someone appears in front of me and asks for something, that’s who I end up attending to. Even if it’s not the right priority.
Effectively navigating a day is the same as effectively navigating down a rocky precipice on a mountain bike. We need to look ahead. Plan the route. And then follow through.
“You done?” Win asked me, waiting not so patiently at the bottom of the chute.
“Yeah, I think I figured it out.”
“Let’s go then.” And with that, he was off in a blaze down the trail.
Plan your day ahead so you can fly through it, successfully maneuvering and moving toward your intended destination.
Bird by Bird
Deciding What to Do
S
o how’s it going?” I asked Fiorella, the head of sales at a midsize technology company that’s a client of mine. Fiorella and I speak once a week.
“I have a tremendous amount on my plate,” she responded. “I have performance issues with several sales-people in Asia; my U.S. team doesn’t seem to get the new direction we’re moving in—or if they do get it, they’re resisting it. Also, I need to have a strategy conversation with Jean [the head of Europe] and a different one with Leena [the CEO], and that’s just the first few things on my to-do list.”
She needed a minute to take a breath. What she said next surprised me.
“There’s so much to do,” she said, “that it’s hard to get anything done.”
Her statement surprised me, but it shouldn’t have, because I’ve experienced the same thing. You’d think it
would be the opposite—that when we have a lot to do, we become very productive in order to get it done—and sometimes that happens.
But often, especially when we have
too
much to do, we freeze. Or we move frantically, spinning without traction.
Because when there’s so much competing for attention, we don’t know where to begin, so we don’t begin anywhere.
It reminds me of a research study conducted by Dr. Sheena Iyengar, the management professor at Columbia University Business School, whom I wrote about several chapters ago. As you might recall, this was the study where a group of people was offered samples of six different jams available for purchase while another group was presented with twenty-four different jams. The six-jam group was ten times more likely to actually purchase a jam. Because the greater the options, the more difficult it becomes to choose a single one, so we end up choosing none.
That’s what happens when we’ve got too many things to do. We look busy. We seem to be moving. But in reality, we get very little done.
In those moments, we need a way to disperse the fog of overwhelm. We need to break down the tasks into chunks and begin to work through them.