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Batting .500

May 5, 2013 By 2 Comments

 

I mentioned this blog post to a friend the other day and thought perhaps you’d like to read it, too. From November, 2010:

The other day I posted on Facebook:

Facebook snip 2

From the comments posted in response, to-do lists seem to be the bane of existence for quite a few of us. Don’t like ‘em, but can’t live this modern life without ‘em.

As I lay me down to sleep, though, I looked back on my troublesome to-do list and realized that of the six items on the list, I had completed three. Fifty percent. How did I feel about that? Was it “good enough”?

Well.

If I were a baseball player and hit the ball as well as I completed my to-do list, I’d be batting .500. I’d be in the Hall of Fame. With my own display case. Because even the all-time best hitters never crack .400.

Ty Cobb .366

Babe Ruth .342

Lou Gehrig .340

Albert Pujols .334

Stan “The Man” Musial .331

And, drum roll please, Michele Woodward – .500.

Not too shabby.

To tell the truth, I could even pump up my average a little bit. Because after I created my to-do list, I asked the four questions that have become my to-do list mantra:

  • Does this task have to be done at all?
  • Do I have to do it now?
  • What’s the impact if I do this later?
  • Am I really the best person to do this task?

By asking myself these questions, I immediately eliminated one item (didn’t really need to be done) and asked my so-much-taller-than-me 17 year old son to do one thing (replace the porch light bulbs – after assuring him it would certainly count as community service on his college application).

The stuff I didn’t get done? I’ll do it today. Because today is such a better time to get it done (see Questions Two and Three).

The challenge for some of us is that last question – Am I really the best person to do this task? I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel a little queasy answering “nope”. We’ve all got our pride, right? And although we discussed the importance of showing vulnerability last week, discussing vulnerability doesn’t magically make doing it all that easy.  However, when you look at your values – what’s really important to you – then sometimes asking someone else to take on a task becomes less of a big deal.

For instance, I have a real value around helping my kids become independent adults. Adults need to know how to change light bulbs, don’t they? Therefore, tasking my son with this to-do is really teaching him an important life skill! [Which I will remind him. Repeatedly.]

At work, too, when the issues are larger than light bulbs, these questions come into play.  Are you a true mentor? Then let the kid have a shot. Are you a real leader? Then you better share the load. Are you a top producer? Then quadruple your production by adding more hands to the job.

And if you are one of Those People who look at fifty percent completion as fifty percent failure, then let me remind you of this:

For every three times he was at bat, Babe Ruth got out twice. And under his picture in the Hall of Fame is the caption: Sultan of Swat.

So relax with your to-do list. Remember to ask yourself those four questions. Then, step inside the batter’s box, take a few swings to limber up, and keep your eye on the ball all the way to the plate. Trust me, you will swing and miss. There will be a foul tip or two. But, from time to time, you’ll connect and hit it out of the park.

Bang – you’re in The To-Do List Hall of Fame, baby.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , 2 Comments

I Kill Jobs

April 28, 2013 By 1 Comment

Logging truck

 

I bought a book the other day. Didn’t even leave my home – just pulled up a website, clicked one button and – whoosh! – the book was on my iPad. And on my iPhone. And on my Kindle. And on my desktop computer.

Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I can read that book any time, any where, on any device.

And in that fell swoop, I got exactly what I wanted and single-handedly killed a fair number of  jobs around the world.

See, if I had driven to the bookstore to buy the hard copy of the book, it would have taken:

  • the store clerk who helped me find the book
  • the cashier who rang up my book
  • the store manager who supervises those staff people
  • the cleaning crew who maintains the space
  • the landlord
  • the corporate people who decide which books to carry
  • the gas station attendant who sells me the gas it takes to drive to the store

It would have also taken:

  • the farmer that planted the trees
  • his farm worker
  • the lumbermen who harvest the trees
  • the driver who hauls the trees to the pulper
  • the pulper
  • the driver who drives the pulp to the paper mill
  • the guy at the paper plant
  • the binder
  • the driver who picks up the finished book
  • the warehouseman who stores and ships the book
  • the FedEx woman who delivers the book
  • the guy who puts the gas in her truck
  • the mechanic who maintains her truck

None of those people had a hand in my recent transaction. Multiply that by millions of e-books sold each year, and it’s no wonder that a lot of working people are suffering.

All because I chose the most efficient way to read what the writer wrote.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the feel of a bound book in my hands. I love turning pages. I also like people to have jobs. But, boy, do I love being able to buy an obscure, out-of-the-mainstream book with the click of a button.

And it’s this simple effect, amplified across a number of industries, that has changed the face of employment around the world.

We no longer need warehouses to store items that can be bought virtually. Bang – those jobs vanish.

We no longer need postal workers to deliver your movie in a red and white envelope, because you’re streaming at your convenience. Jobs gone.

No more factories churning out CDs in their infernal, unopenable, shrink-wrapped jewel box cases, because you listen to music on your phone, or via your computer speakers. Poof, buh-bye assembly line workers.

My friends, we are living through remarkable change. And we can lament and despair – gnash our teeth at the loss of the old ways – or we can hike up our britches and figure a way to get on board with the new. Just the way our great-grandparents did when running water came to their town. The way our grandparents did when every house was electrified. The way our parents did when air travel became commonplace.

Now is the time. If you are in an industry under threat from the new way of doing business, it may be time to reinvent – toward the efficiency and immediacy of the new economy. A great tool is the new book Reinventing You (Harvard Business Review Press) by my friend Dorie Clark. I interviewed her last week on the WiseWork radio show. It’s worth a listen.

It’s critical that you find the way – your way and maybe even a way for others – to thrive in a world where efficiency means that more gets done with less.

The world is wide open to you in a way it’s never been before, with so much possibility at your fingertips.

Now is the best possible time to reinvent.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Managing Change, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , , 1 Comment

I Blame The Protestant Work Ethic

March 10, 2013 By 2 Comments

Abandoned wooden house

 

I blame the Protestant Work Ethic.

You know, that idea that work is a weighty obligation, full of hardship. And the only success that matters is the kind that comes after a prolonged, protracted fight against the odds.

That’s the ethic which, over time, has created a generation of people who don’t know how to handle work that comes easier.

Now, I’m sure that when the first settlers broke ground in 1727 to farm the Shenandoah Valley it was very hard work. They had what we would consider rudimentary tools, unsophisticated knowledge and limited resources.

It was back-breaking work. Man, woman or child, sun up to sun down, there was always something to do.

And relief came not after the planting, nor after the harvest, but after a lifetime of self-reliant, hardscrabble toil.

It probably would have been astonishing to those early farmers to consider that the best place to plant first was the easiest field to clear. Isn’t it so much more efficient to plow a fertile meadow than a rocky plain?

But efficiency is not a part of the Protestant Work Ethic.

Sweat is.

Today, though, so few of us make our living with our muscles. Today, we live in a fast-paced world with lightning-fast resources at our fingertips. Twenty-five years ago, I would have written this piece after visiting the library or consulting newspaper archives. I would have used several different books to look up when the Shenandoah Valley was settled, and when Cyrus McCormick sold his first mechanical reaper (it was 1840, by the way). I would have looked at the encyclopedia to read up on the Protestant Work Ethic, and then would have moved on to the writing of Max Weber.

That could have taken the better part of several days.

And then, I’d have to put paper into the typewriter and bang out the piece.  I’d have used a lot of White-Out and pieces of paper due to my inevitable typing errors or new brainstorms.

There’s at least another day or two added to the process.

Then, I’d have to find a place to publish the piece – a newspaper or a magazine. And it’s very likely that no one would ever see it, because publishing wasn’t really open to people like me writing things like this.

Today, however, thanks to all the tools at my fingertips via new media, I am guaranteed to be published. And I can do the entire thing in a couple of hours. I’m talking about a couple of hours of focused work. A couple of hours of efficient production. A couple of hours of creation.

And thousands of people will read what I write.

Feels rather effortless, to tell you the truth. Much like a naturally arable field.

So, honestly, which do you value more? The five days or more it would have taken me in the past to compose and publish these 600 words, or the same effort compressed into an easy couple of hours?

Today, evidence of how much we’ve changed has never been so stark – you’ve got the old hard way, or you’ve got the new easy way.

You can stay connected to the idea your great-great-great grandparents had that everything that counts has to be a struggle, and takes lots of time, and that life inherently means hardship – and keep wondering why you feel so frustrated. Or, you can use modern approaches and technology to plow the most fertile field in the most efficient way possible, using every resource at your disposal. And your work will feel effortless.

Just change your mind on the idea of what work means. Simply shift your mindset. 

Ditch the outdated ethic, my friends, and choose what comes easy.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Managing Change, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , 2 Comments

Whelmed

December 2, 2007 By Leave a Comment


The other day a woman reported that she was feeling overwhelmed — she was trying to do so much that she felt she wasn’t doing anything well. Was multi-tasking the answer, she asked?

No, I answered, multi-tasking doesn’t really work. Try mono-tasking instead. Do one thing at a time. Do it thoroughly and do it well. Then move on to the next thing. Mono-tasking.

When you’re multi-tasking — trying to do two or three things simultaneously — you end up doing none of them well. Your stress level goes through the roof.

Face it, there’s just one you. You have the wondrous ability to give 100% of your attention to something. Multi-tasking asks you to divide your attention, and you end up with less than 100% on each task — and this is where errors occur… you end up spending more time fixing the resulting problems than you would if you gave the task all of your attention at the start.

Reading a memo while on a conference call when researching data and preparing a Power Point — you’re not truly engaged in any of these tasks and probably won’t have a great result. How much better to be truly present for the one minute it takes to read the memo, then participate fully in the conference call and make time later to do thorough, comprehensive research before you design the Power Point. That seems doable, manageable and calm, doesn’t it?

The opposite of overwhelmed, of course, is underwhelmed. Underwhelmed is what teachers generally feel about the work product of boys in their first year of high school. Wives are often underwhelmed by the anniversary gifts their husbands proffer — word to the wise: just because Hallmark says it’s the Paper Anniversary doesn’t mean paper towels are an appropriate gift. Hallmark is referring to the wrapping paper around the gift. Honey, every anniversary is the jewelry anniversary. That’s all you need to remember.

Underwhelm is often about our expectations of what others should be doing. And you know I have a deep dislike of the word ‘should’. In my life, I simply replace ‘should’ with ‘choose’ and feel so much happier. Rather than saying, “Charlie shouldn’t have shopped at 7-Eleven on Christmas Eve for my gift”, you can get to a level of acceptance when you realize Charlie chose to give you that box of frozen burritos — and you can ask him about that choice.

(By the way, Charlie, see above reference to The Jewelry Rule for Anniversaries. Same rule applies to Christmas. You’re welcome.)

Overwhelmed. Underwhelmed. It occurred to me this week that no one ever says, “I feel whelmed.” We’re always over or under.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to answer the question, “How you doing today?” with “I’m whelmed, thank you very much! And you?”

Whelmed — the point at which you are neither over nor under. You are not fruitlessly multi-tasking. You are balanced. You are paying appropriate attention and spending appropriate time on your tasks.

You are whelmed.

As the holidays approach with their attendant stressful opportunities for overwhelming tasks and underwhelming performance by others — reduce your stress by choosing to be whelmed. Whelmed one task at a time.

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