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Last week, my workshop entitled "Get
Your Year in Gear" was a wonderful success thanks to eighteen forward thinking
individuals who wanted to get a jumpstart on next year's planning. They are heading
for a stellar year in 2005. One of the highlighted topics was the importance of
balancing work, rest and play. The balancing act between your weekly work
schedule and leisure time is almost as challenging as walking on a tight rope.
I suggest breaking your work week into focus days to
work in your business and buffer days to work on your business.
For many people, there is strong desire to skip preparation and just tackle everything
on the to "do list" at once. As an alternative
to this method, I told the following story at the workshop to create a model for
scheduling your time to be more productive in your workweek. This past summer, the City of Lockport started a major reconstruction project on Main Street where my office is located. The project called for
new lighting, additional traffic islands with green space, new pavement and attractive
new sidewalks. I watched the sidewalk construction crew
as I traveled to and from my office. Like many crews, I saw three workers hard
at work, two workers leaning on shovels and a supervisor who spent a good part
of the day on a cell phone. That picture is familiar to all of us. Old sidewalks were marked for demolition and ripped from their resting places in precision
attacks by a tracked excavator and tossed into a waiting ten- wheeler for
transport to the landfill. Physical labor at removing the sidewalks was
kept minimal while the machines did the work with little effort. Crews took their time spreading gravel,
leveling, and building forms for the concrete for the new sidewalks. They moved
forward with the task but had ample time to check the forms for elevation and
size, have coffee and conduct business on cell phones.
There was time to tell jokes and stories and retie slackened bootlaces. The workers' attitudes changed dramatically
on the days that the concrete trucks arrived early in the morning when it was
time to pour concrete. The whirr of the concrete mixer and the rattle of aggregate
were sounds that signaled the crew for a focus day. Pouring concrete meant no time for jokes,
coffee or a cell phone call from home. It's an all focused business day. There
was constant movement with shovels and floats, quick decisions and sweat on the
brow. All mental and physical energy is directed towards the job at hand. It's not time to call it a day until the last concrete
truck is long gone and the last finishing trowel is hosed clean. If you can set up three days of your workweeks
in 2005 so that you are "pouring concrete", you'll enjoy your best year ever. Plan, prepare and focus.
It's not a new formula but one that many resist trying.
Every day can't be a pouring concrete day, but if you
schedule three days a week to have your concrete pouring attitude in place, you
will become amazingly productive. Try it and let me know how it works for you.
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