Do You Need Glasses?

The word of the week is "myopic." There are a few different dictionary definitions for myopic. One definition is tied to ophthalmology: Pertaining to having myopia; or being nearsighted. The definition to focus on (pun intended) is that of "being unable or unwilling to act prudently; shortsighted."

When someone is caught up in what we call the "juggling elephants routine" it is very easy to be shortsighted (synonyms: short-term, short range, thoughtless and unthinking). The reason being is that you are so busy checking things off of your to do list and trying to get caught up that you don’t even think if the stuff that you are doing is the right stuff that you should be doing. This myopic routine is all about the here and now, being reactive, shooting from the hip and putting out fires. It is not about whether or not you are acting prudently and focusing on what matters most or what will bring the most desired outcome.

Is it time to get your vision corrected so that you can see into the distance and plan today’s tasks accordingly? If you are not being strategic about the things that you do you will be looking at achievements that are empty and that come at the expenses of things that are of greater value. Can you see?

Forcing Prioritization

A popular activity with youth and adult leadership programs over the years is to give each participant some amount of "money" and they are to "buy" the virtues or qualities they deem most important for themselves. Then the participants are asked to develop action plans on how they can emulate these virtues or qualities in their leadership roles-or develop them more thoroughly.

What if we took a twist on that activity and focused on priorities? Start by listing all your priorities for today. No ranking... just list them. You now have $100 to spend on accomplishing these priorities. Which ones would get the most "money?" Which ones would get the least?

Once you have this prioritized list in hand, think about your day. Are you setting up your schedule and activities to actually accomplish these most important priorities, or are you wasting much of your "money" (time and energy) on items you said weren't worth as much? The ROI (return on investment) for this activity might be huge.

Looking for Big Blocks of Time

One time management challenge is the search for a "big block of time" where we can focus on a large or complex task. For instance, I have a lot of trees in my yard and so I look for a big block of time in the Spring and/or Fall to prune all of our trees. The reality is that finding a big block of time is hard to do. As a result, the trees get taller and the pruning goes undone.

The same can be true for work projects. We want a big block of time to focus on and complete the XYZ project. Unfortunately, our day is full of tasks and other events and so finding a big block of time is difficult. And so, we put the project off thinking that maybe we will have time at the end of the week. As a result, the project goes undone until it is an emergency and we have to neglect a days worth of activities or work a marathon day-late into the evening.

Isn’t it easier to break up a task and/or project into smaller chunks over a period of time? Prune a tree a day. Work on a project for 30 minutes a day (schedule it on your calendar – "Work on XYZ Project, 3:30-4:00"). In most cases, finding a big block of time to get something done is hard to do. Try dividing it into parts and spreading it over a week, 2 weeks, a month, a year, etc.

What's the Wasted Material Around You?

While researching content for our next book, I came across this quote by Henry Ford:

Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage. The easiest of all wastes and the hardest to correct is the waste of time, because wasted time does not litter the floor like wasted material.

Wow! That's so true. Wasting time does not create (directly, anyway) something physical we can see and evaluate. Over a longer period of time we can probably "see" the impact in a cluttered desk, incomplete projects and maybe even a growing waistline. But in the moments immediately after we have wasted a few seconds or minutes there is no quick way to analyze it's result.

The quote has forced me to start building more mental pictures of the "wasted material" around me when I don't use my time effectively... and how it could have been used more wisely.

The Butterfly Effect

According to Wikipedia, the butterfly effect is "a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory."

The easier way to illustrate the theory is to read Ray Bradbury’s science fiction short story, A Sound of Thunder. To make a "short" of the "short story:" A group travels way back in time to go on safari for a T-Rex. The hunting guide warns the hunting party that they must stay on a path to avoid disrupting the environment and only kill animals which were going to naturally die at the same time. When they come across a T-Rex, one of the party gets scared and runs off. After the T-Rex is put down (it was going to die naturally anyway) the group returns to the future. When they arrive back in the future, they find differences from when they left. The language has changed, people and the buildings have changed and the outcome of an important election has been reversed. The hunting guide turns to the individual who ran off. He asks, "Did you leave the path?" Upon inspection of his boots, they find a dead butterfly, whose death apparently is the cause of the changes to the future.

Do we sometimes stray from "the path" or the plan that we have created for ourselves? What are the butterflies on our boots? What do we choose to do or what do we choose NOT to do that has an impact on our future?

We all can look back to pivotal moments in our lives where we have made choices, for good or bad, which have impacted our future. Fortunately, most of our choices don’t have catastrophic impacts like in the Sound of Thunder. But, we should determine to be aware of our choices and the outcomes/effects that are associated. Tying our performance with our purpose is an important strategy in helping us guide our future. Referring back to our purpose on a regular basis and making sure that our actions, decisions and behaviors are in line with what matters most to us will help us determine a successful outcome of our future-butterflies or no butterflies.