The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 65 Degrees
I used to have this temp job working for some folks in Tennessee who in the home satellite (TV, internet access, etc.) industry.
My job was to arrange trainings all over the country for the two trainers the company sent out. I’d have to choose the hotel for the event, book the travel, make sure the materials got shipped there in time and stuff like that.
Kind of a big responsibility for a temp worker, but whatever.
I remember a lot of busy days and a ton of details to keep track of. The to-do list was long.
And whatever I didn’t finish on one particular day was waiting there for me first thing the next morning.
This is not my idea of living. When you’re living a to-do list 24/7, I’m just not sure how much living is ever going on.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on a one way train to Simplificationville in my business and my life. It’s a beautiful town just west of Calm Springs and south of Chill Out Point. I started digging more into the 80/20 Rule and realized there’s a lot there I can apply right away.
I can actually get more done in about 25% of the time.
So I basically reorganized everything from the ground up. The goal is to work 2-3 hours per day and then actually live. Gasp! I realize this is heresy to many hard working entrepreneurs.
And this brings me to the point.
It seems like “hard work” can often be an excuse to avoid actual productivity. I’d even go so far as to call it an addiction. I know, I’m recovering!
When you have so much to do, how in the world are you supposed to get anything done? Work harder? Forever?
The only way I’ve discovered to shorten my todo list is to make sure that, over time, fewer and fewer things get on it.
You just say, NO.
Being busy might make you feel important, but I really don’t think that being busy IS important. In fact, it’s kind of a sad way to go through life.
You can make an argument that productive is important, but busy? Busy and productive are not related.
Make fewer commitments. More important commitments, but fewer ones. Do more thinking, less action.
If you chose busy, you can un-choose it just as easily. There are smarter ways to succeed.
In the issue of the Rainmaker Letter that just went in the mail, I go through how I basically 80/20’d my business. I even made a chart of revenue over the previous 12 months and then broke it down by product and service. It’s really amazing to see right there in front of you.
And then, I walked through the process of streamlining from about 19 products down to 4.
Did the 80/20 rule show up? Well if you want the answer, you have to subscribe. Tomorrow’s the last day you can get it before I move on to the next issue.