on the chopping block: time wasters and toxic relationships.
by rob nixon
to do what you want when you want means you need to make time available to do what you want to do.
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there are many excuses that people make for not doing something. the poorest, weakest excuse that has no meaning is, “i didn’t have the time.” how can anyone not have the time when we all have the identical same amount of time to use? we all have 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week and 52 weeks in a year. no one gets one second more or one second less.
it’s not how much time we have, it’s what we do with our time that counts.
it’s never a time issue, it’s a priority issue.
so what do you do with your time? does the day just go so fast and you wonder what you have done that day? do you constantly get interrupted by emails, phone calls, clients, suppliers, team members? do you get home tired, kick the dog (not literally), have a beer, watch some tv, go to bed and then wake up and do the same thing the next day? do you feel unfulfilled and dissatisfied?
or do you feel fulfilled every day because you were in charge of your time and you only did things that were uplifting, exciting and energizing?
how do you get to the point where you only do what you want to do and you are super-effective on a daily basis? here are some ideas that have helped me and many accountants i have worked with to become very effective with their time.
your top 3
work out what you actually do by initially keeping a log of what you do on a daily basis. when the list starts to repeat itself, stop keeping the log.
go back through the list and work out the no.1 highest dollar productive activity that you do – the one that you enjoy the most that is the best use of your time. highlight that one. then work out the no. 2 highest dollar productive activity. highlight that one. find the no. 3 highest dollar productive activity and highlight that one.
get rid of the rest. delegate them, don’t do them, or create a system so they do not need to be done at all. get focused on just three things that are the best use of your time on a daily basis. you will find that a lot of your list is administration-focused. you may need to hire an assistant to help you – if you do not have a personal assistant then you are one. my top three are
- marketing (leveraged marketing activities that build brand and generates leads – not one-on-one selling),
- delivery (speaking to many at a time and coaching many at a time) and
- leadership (driving performance in my business, keeping my team on track and looking for the next idea to propel my business forward).
what are your top three?
years ago i was relocating my family from sydney to brisbane. i asked the removalist if he owned a lawn mower. he did not. i said, “now you do,” and i gave him my lawn mower. i have never mown a lawn since.
the moral to this story is that if you do not want to do the task then do not learn (or own) how to use the equipment to do the task. there are people more qualified, cheaper and faster than you to do most tasks.
time blocking
think of your week as 14 half-days. you can achieve a lot in half a day if you have uninterrupted time. if you block time out to do the important things in your life (e.g: working “on” time, sport, family, hobbies) and you are not interrupted then you have a good chance of achieving them. i block out kids’ sports and school events, writing time, annual holidays (10 weeks set a year in advance), exercise time, golf practice and play, date night and short breaks. i then deal with clients and other work matters around the blocked-out time. i have taught many accountants how to use a strategy called “lockdown.” lockdown is when you commit to (say) two hours of uninterrupted time, shut the door, put a sign up, notify the team and get on and do whatever you need to do.
the more time you spend working on your business will mean the less time you need to spend working in your business.
it’s your diary
if you feel out of control with your day and you are constantly interrupted then it is no one’s fault but your own. you have to remember it is your diary – not your clients, suppliers, team members or anyone else’s diary. because it is my diary i take control and have some very strict rules regarding my diary and phone calls.
i do not return phone calls in the typical way, which is engagement in telephone tag. telephone tag is when you call me, leave a message, i call you and leave a message and some point in time (usually an inconvenient time) we finally connect. no way do i do this – it’s a complete waste of everyone’s time. instead, i have telephone appointments for every phone call. if you want to speak with me (and i’ll speak with anyone) then book a 10- or 15-minute telephone appointment with me.
i do the same thing if i want to speak with someone as well – i have some neat scripts around this. i typically have these calls booked on the 10, 15, 20 or 45 of the hour. even if i want to speak with someone i will book the calls at this time. the reason for the odd time is because most meetings start or finish on the hour – and meetings (not mine) are always late. it is also a bit different. i always make the call precisely at the allotted time – i do not let the other person call me – even if they have made the appointment. why? it’s my diary and i am in control of my diary.
i always remember signing up a new client (damian) one year after i initially spoke with him. he said he joined because i called him precisely the time i said i would – one year after the call was initially booked!
managing email
i get as many emails as the next senior executive. i have a pa (brenda) but she does not manage my emails – i manage every single one of them. to manage them, my golden rule is that on any single day i will not have a scroll bar on my inbox. to have only a few emails at a time in my inbox i use some daily techniques that you might find useful.
i do not deal with emails as they come in – i deal with them in chunks throughout the day. i might dedicate 30 minutes to replying to emails. when i reply, i reply quickly and succinctly. my email responses are short and succinct because my view on email is that it is a short messaging tool and file sharing tool – not a conversation tool. come and see me or call me if you want to have a conversation. i file (if need be) quickly into a file folder for later. i delete junk and other useless emails very quickly. i turn the email into a task if i need to – to be actioned later. i never reply if i am cc’d into an email. i rarely reply if there is not a question in the email. i do not have the email alert thing that tells you that you have a new email – what a distraction that is.
before email there was the inbox filing tray that housed the letters, papers, phone call reminders and other files. imagine if you had an old-style filing tray that looked like your current email inbox!
meeting effectiveness
meetings can be such a waste of time. especially meetings that are unstructured and with an unfocused agenda. i will meet with anyone as long as i know what the meeting is about. here are some of my rules around meetings that will enable you to have fewer but more effective meetings.
to get the agenda out of someone i have brenda ask callers, “what would you like to meet with rob about – can you put it in an email please?” the agenda comes through and then we determine how much time is needed to deal with the agenda – normally much less than the person initially thought. in many cases i will have a telephone meeting before a face-to-face meeting. i love “standup” meetings, “walk and talk” meetings, breakfast meetings and coffee meetings. these meeting styles are shorter in nature because it is not as comfortable as a comfortable office chair with endless coffee. although a keen golfer, i do not like golf meetings. they are too long and besides you are there to play golf, not talk business. when a team member comes into my office i always stand up (i do not want to have them get too comfortable) and we have a shorter conversation.
at the start of every meeting (i learned this from my accountant, matt) i always ask, “what do you want to get out of today’s meeting?” i write down the agenda. i always have time allotted to each meeting and at the start of the meeting we determine the time and i always finish before the allotted time – i will do a time check before the end of the meeting (say 15 minutes left) and we will wrap up next steps. i always finish meetings on time.
to get you focused on succinct meetings remember the following saying: “tell them what they need to know, not everything that you know.”
self-imposed deadlines
what is the most efficient week of your year? that’s right, the week before you go on a holiday. you are going to be offline for three weeks and the week leading up to it you are happening. you are very succinct in your communication (your email response might be simply “no” instead of a long drawn-out answer) and you are able to get things done much faster than normal. the reason you are so efficient is because you created a self-imposed deadline.
in the accounting business there are very few real deadlines that must be adhered to. because there are very few deadlines you get quite sloppy with getting things done. getting back to clients takes longer than need be. you get workflow blowouts and there is a mad rush at the end of every month.
if you were to have a self-imposed deadline on every task then this would not be an issue. instead of saying to a client, “i’ll get back to you,” tell them, “i’ll send you the engagement letter by close of business tuesday.” instead of saying to a team member, “come back to me when you have finished the job,” say to them, “when will you be coming back to me?”
you need to have some fun with this and trick your mind into changing gears – hyper gear! i create self-imposed deadlines for everything. i take my laptop to the café to do some writing and my deadline is the battery life. i use the airline seat belt sign (on and off) as my deadline for writing. i say to myself, “i am going to get this finished in this time,” and then i reward myself somehow. sometimes my reward is golf, a coffee, a swim, a walk or maybe even some shopping.
if it is a big deadline (like when i ran the london marathon or my goal to be a scratch golfer or even finishing a book) i will tell many others about my deadline. that way i am accountable to more than myself.
my friend michael tells a wonderful story of when he was coaching a very large homebuilder. their average time to build their houses was 120 days and they thought (because they were the second biggest builder in the land) that they were pretty good. michael was in front of the executive team and he challenged them on their building timeframes. he said to them, “how can you do it in 10?” they thought he was from another planet or on drugs. they protested about the exercise but michael stayed firm. he asked them to brainstorm how they could hypothetically build their houses in 10 days. michael said in a perfect and hypothetical world, “what would you need to start doing, stop doing, continue doing, have a different process, run a different system, use different materials or any other changes to make it close to being built in 10 days?”
he broke them into small teams and off they went and brainstormed for 30 minutes. they came up with dozens of ideas, which were transferred to a series of flip chart papers. at the end of the exercise michael simply said, “just go and do that” – while pointing to the flip chart paper. and they did. they didn’t hit 10 but they did hit 40 days. from 120 days to 40 days. a massive upgrade on cash flow. a massive upgrade on customer service. a massive upgrade on new referrals.
you can’t make any more time. you can be more effective with your time. work out what you have to stop doing, start doing and continue doing to make the time you have count.
toxic relationships
to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, then you need to get rid of toxic relationships and only associate with people you want to associate with. if the people around you are miserable, snarly, sarcastic, negative or just downright nasty – get rid of them.
do not associate with these people. only associate with people who are uplifting, who have similar ideals to you, who are challenging and energizing at the same time. find some new friends and don’t associate with any relatives who are like this as well.
you need to have the right people around you who will support you. you should not need to suffer fools or have anyone around you who has an ulterior motive. sometimes these people are on your payroll and they tend to act like terrorists where they recruit other terrorists. eventually it’s like a cancer spreading quickly through your organization. get rid of the lot of them. make the hard decision and fire them or force them out – you’ll be glad you did.
if you decide to go on a holiday with another family then make sure the family have similar spending ideals to you. if you are generous with your money on holidays (you like dining out, drinking good wine and generally enjoy the finer things in life) and the other family is not generous (they prefer buying groceries and cooking at your villa, cask wine and are generally “tight”) then neither of you is in for a fun time. both parties will be miserable and want the holiday to end. message to self – never go anywhere with these people again!
if you go out for dinner and you decide to split the bill, be wary of your dinner friends who want a different (always lesser) amount because they only had the soup, the salad and one glass of wine versus your steak and three glasses of wine. message to self – never go to dinner with these people again!
if you have a dinner party or bbq at your home and the people you invite promise, “we will have you over next time,” and they never do? message to self – never invite them back to your home again for a function.
for as long as i can remember i have been running or participating in a “mastermind” group. this is a group of like-minded business people who are doing different things from me. we meet each month (normally over a long breakfast), brainstorm ideas and we keep each other accountable.
maybe you need to join a network of like-minded entrepreneurial accountants – in which everyone is striving for the same thing as you. our network of proactive accountants meets every six weeks in small groups in which they learn new ideas, share wisdom and keep each other accountable with their coach. check out www.proactiveaccountantsnetwork.com for more information.
if you need help or support then someone in the world has more than likely done what you want to do. seek them out and ask for their help. it’s my experience that people who are truly successful give back and lend a hand to others.
it’s your choice who you associate with. make some decisions and take action.