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What not to do, and how not to do it! Commentary and Advice
By Paul Lemberg
©2004 All Rights Reserved
How can you get more done?
Can you possibly do more than you already do? Is there room left on your plate for even one more thing? I don't know anyone (successful) who has too little to do. Not one of my clients--nor any of my friends, acquaintances, or people I meet on planes--none of them has ever said they have too little to do.
Doing more to get more done is simply not an option.
The answer? Doing more by doing less.
Less?
Do less?
Are you kidding? How's that going to help? "I don't get enough done as it is," you say, "and there's always more to do at the end of a day!"
Ask this transformational question: Are all my activities providing the greatest possible payback? Or like many people, do you spend much of your precious time on things which produce a _relatively_ lower return?
To do more, you've got to figure out what not to do.
For most people, 100% of the time is filled with
1) routine day-to-day matters,
2) things we told other people we would do, and
3) responding to (often trivial) interruptions. To try to make something important happen, we end up shoving that thing into our schedule.
How well does that work? How well does a five pound bag hold ten pounds of stuff? You get the idea--not very well at all. And, of course, all the important stuff ends up spilling out onto the floor.
For some people, the bag is so full--there are so many to-dos on your to-do list, your reach the uncomfortable state of overwhelm. Your creativity gets totally locked out and your mind can't even consider other, perhaps far more important things.
You've got to figure out what not to do.
I've done casual research on this subject asking audiences of executives what things they do that they know they shouldn't. This list of guilty pleasures includes answering emails as they come in throughout the day, interviewing all candidates for all jobs, purchasing, filing, writing marketing copy and advertisements, signing all the checks, exercising final say on small product changes, and so on.
That's not to say these things aren't important--some are, even vitally so. The question is--are these the MOST important things for YOU to be doing, especially at this point in your organization's development?
Often when I ask these questions, people respond by saying there is no one else who can do THAT as well as they can.
This thinking is typical of what Adam Smith called "absolute advantage." Smith advocated doing all the things which you do better than anyone else. It is obvious, commonsense thinking. The trap for someone who is by nature highly and broadly capable is that you can end up doing everything, reluctant to let go of anything.
To the rescue is 19th century economist David Ricardo's Law of the Comparative Advantage of Nations. In a bold, counterintuitive bit of reasoning, Ricardo said to maximize wealth, each country should devote its energy to producing the goods which create the highest net value per unit of work. Everything else, regardless of how much better you do it, should be done by others.
Assume your company makes a sophisticated high value product and you can sell as many as you can make. The product uses several cheap components, which by the way, you can make better and cheaper than anyone else. Ricardo says that given limited resources (your time, for instance) it is a mistake to manufacture any of the components; each unit of time spent making the cheaper components costs you money--opportunity cost. To make the greatest profit spend 100% of your time making the high-value product. Purchase (outsource, delegate)everything else.
Ricardo's law boils down to this: That which brings you the GREATEST RETURN, and only that, is your COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE. Do that and nothing else.
How to do more by doing less.
First, find out how you spend your time. Keep a list of all the separate things you do during the course of a day/week/month. You may think you know, but each time I ask executives to try this exercise, they are surprised by the outcome.
Note what you are doing every 15 minutes. Keep this record for at least two or three days; a week or two will reveal even more. (You must write this down. It won't work if you try to keep it in your head.)
What have you been doing? Have you been squandering your comparative advantage?
Is each action on your list HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE? Is each thing MAKING YOU MONEY or CHANGING THE WORLD?
No? That's no surprise. Most people spend at least some of their time doing low-contribution activities. For most people, even if they consider what are doing important, there are usually even more important things they should do instead.
Once you've understood how you really spend your time, you have three possible courses of action:
You can dump things--there are always things which are of such little value no one should be doing them. You can delegate important things to capable people in your organization or outsource them to firms which specialize in those things.
Lastly, YOU can do the things you are best at which make the largest difference.
Apply Ricardo's principle of comparative advantage. Figure out what specific actions contribute the most and do only those, offloading or dumping the rest. Do the same analysis for each department and each member of your company and create extraordinary results.
PAUL LEMBERG
To do more--to get more done and create more value--you have to do less.
If you'd like to download excerpts from Paul Lemberg's new book, Faster Than The Speed of Change, send an email to bookexrp@lemberg.com, or just click www.lemberg.com/buybook to order your printed copy.
To find out more about Paul's Growth Strategy and Executive Coaching Programs for fast-moving, entrepreneurial companies, contact him at 760-741-1747 or e-mail to paul@lemberg.com, or visit our website at www.lemberg.com.
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