Earlier this week I ran a 168 hours session for a networking group that I belong to: Good Vibrations. I prepared far more material than I needed to for the two hour session – but isn’t that always the way when you do something for the first time? It was interesting delivering the material in a workshop style, with a group of people, rather than the 1-2-1 approach I have taken in the past.
It seemed to work, and the feedback was constructive and positive. So it looks like this might be something I could expand on in the future. I think I got the ‘scene setting’ stuff at the beginning right but felt the energy in the room dropping when I was going through the specifics of how I put the system into practice (or perhaps folks were starting to think about dinner?) So this is an area I need to work on in the future. Either to allow people an opportunity of developing their own techniques, or going more slowly / more simply with how I work.
Here are the slides I used on the evening – some will make more sense than others – few will understand the tennis slide!
Overall a useful experience but still a work in progress.
I’ve come to the conclusion that stress is the result of more ‘stuff’ in our lives than we have time to do that ‘stuff’. This can happen if we under estimate how long it will take to do something, or if an emergency comes along when our schedule is already pretty full.
We only have 168 hours a week to work with. I see people under stress who often have far more: 170, 175, 180 hours of stuff that they are trying to do within their 168 hours. What’s the result? Everything suffers and they feel stressed.
In order to manage this we need to understand who has the ability to use up our 168 hours.
Our boss, our staff, our friends, our partner etc.?
Who has the right to put stuff into our 168 hour slots?
At work, if (and I know for some, that this is a big ‘if’) we have our priorities and plans sorted we should be starting the week with a good idea of how our 35-40 hours (typical working hours) will be spent. We will have a schedule that has blocked out with the number of hours needed for email, projects, meetings, thinking & doing time etc.
So if your hours are already pretty full, and the boss comes along with an unscheduled extra 3 hours of work, what do you do? The initial reaction is often to feel put upon and the stress levels creep up. Suddenly there is more to do than time available to do it in. So, do you allow your boss to drop additional stuff into your schedule? Do you work late, get in early (or take it home) in order to catch-up? If you do, where has this time come from? It’s come from other time allocated for other things. So something else suffers.
An approach is to ask the boss “Is this additional 3 hours work, more important than other items that I have scheduled this week?” If so, what is the least important, so time can be taken from there. Easier said than done though, isn’t it? However, it’s so much easier to do if you have planned out your work hours and priorities. If you haven’t then you are asking for trouble (or stress).
The same approach applies to out of work hours – stress arises when there are more things to do than time to do it in. As always, I am not suggesting you pack your 168 hours as fully as possible. Otherwise there will be no space in your schedule for when those emergencies arise.
And they will arise.
Last weekend a friend of mine called in a panic as his boiler had broken and he had a busy weekend planned and couldn’t be at home for British Gas to undertake the repair. These things do happen – but as I had some flex time I could help out. Whereas he had nowhere to grab time from for British Gas from other areas of his packed weekend schedule. The result for him? A similar level of stress compared to when the boss comes up to your desk and dumps an additional 3 hours into your workload.
The outcome is to plan the 168 hours and build in a little flex time (For me, this is typically an hour for a work day or so a day and 3-5 hours at the weekend) – basically about 10 hours a week. Worst case I have this time available for ‘emergencies’ and if none arise, I can use the time any way I care to. I look on this as a ‘gift of time’ to do hobbies, relaxation, something spontaneous etc.
Is the above fool proof? No. But it certainly reduces the amount of stress in my life.
I came across this article and thought I would share it here. Sometimes we need to be reminded what is important in life…
A palliative nurse (Bronnie Ware) has recorded the top 5 regrets of the dying after years of helping patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives.
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”
For the last 168 Hours (or so) I have been on holiday in Cornwall. Whilst walking along the coastal path just south of St Ives, I started thinking about 168 hours and how / if it applies to what some may consider the “downtime” of being on holiday. For example, is your holiday a time to set aside the philosophy of Compass / Clock and just switch off for a while or do you get more out of a holiday if things are planned somewhat in advance? Is there (or should there be) any difference in the way we behave during holiday and non-holiday time?
So I thought about my behaviour prior to the holiday and thought about how much was planned in advance (Compass / Clock) vs. unplanned (Unstructured but open to Opportunities) and came to the conclusion that I had planned most of my holiday out subconsciously using the 168 philosophy. That’s not to say every hour was accounted for, scheduled for and planned for in detail. Some aspects of the holiday were planned in advance to take into account local activities that only occurred on certain days. But some aspects of the holiday were left open to be spontaneous: that is there were no specific activities planned other than to relax and have fun.
The idea of planned spontaneity appeals to me. It feels right not to have an effectiveness system like 168 hours that focuses on ensuring that productivity is the main driver. Planned spontaneity allows us the mental freedom to explore, to respond to opportunities and external events. And this is just as important in non-vacation time as well. There needs to be time in our weekly schedule, regardless of whether we are at work, home or on vacation, to have some planned spontaneity and creativity.
That’s my view anyway – what’s yours?
My boss (back in the days when I had a boss) used to say to me “A person going nowhere, usually gets there”. And now he’s been proved right – scientifically. My boss’ mantra was to encourage me to develop and work a plan. To have some kind of map of the territory. To use the compass, as it were…
In 2009 Jan Souman et al from the Max Planck Institute did some research to see what would happen if they left folks in the middle of an unknown area – with no landmarks and / or couldn’t see the sun – and asked them to walk in a straight line. Guess what happened? They walked around in circles! Or at the very best some wide arcs. Try as they might to walk in a straight line, to get out of either a forest or desert, the volunteers ended up where they started.
This is how important having a compass is to us. We do need to have an idea of where we are going, ideally with a map (plan) of the terrain and a compass. Without we literally do go “nowhere” and end up back at the beginning again and again.
How’s your plan coming along?
I’ve done a few 168hour sessions for friends and associates lately. Basically, it’s given me a chance to try out the material and to find the right approach to putting it all over. It’s confirmed in my mind the disconnect I often see between people’s daily schedule and their longer term plans. It’s almost as if we see our short term activities as being separate – and unconnected – from our longer term intentions. Steven Covey covered similar ground when he talked about the “urgent” vs. the “important” and that for many the urgent is often an excuse for why the important never happens.
Then a thought struck me. It’s like we have different concepts for “planning” based upon the time-scales involved. At one extreme we have “now”. Now is the only place where decisions (or indecision) is taken. At the other extreme we have out legacy – what we leave behind at the end of our lifetimes. Few people really understand (or accept) that the decisions we make in the “now” accumulate and create – over a lifetime – our legacy. In between the “now” and our “legacy” are a range of time management paradigms that are often treated separately, rather than as a continuum. The table below summarises some of these:
- Now -> Decisions
- Daily -> To Do List
- Weekly -> Scheduling
- Monthly -> Projects
- Quarterly -> Planning reviews
- Yearly -> Resolutions
- Decades -> Goals
- Generations -> Vision
- Lifetime -> Legacy
This feeling was confirmed at a recent seminar that I was at that focused on the integration of your personal goals with your financial goals (part led by my IFA, Andrew Stinchcomb). The seminar focused on seeing if the lifestyle we envisaged after we retired was consistent with our current financial activities. Clearly, there is no point having a vision of retiring on a certain income and having a specific lifestyle, without ensuring that there is a continuum back to the daily decisions you are making. Yet, most in the room had not worked back from their “legacy” to their daily “decisions”.
In between now and your legacy are the annual financial reviews, the projects to assess pensions, the scheduling of weekly expense etc. that lead to the daily shopping lists and informed decision making in the “now” regarding finances. If their is a disconnect between the “now” and the “legacy” then all of the future dreams are more aspirational than perspirational (that is, you have to work at it – not just imagine it)
The 168hours approach is only part of the solution – it needs to be seen in context – but I think it is a very important step in ensuring that we fill our week with actions and activities that, when summed over time, lead directly to our goals / vision and ultimately to our legacy…. that which we wish to leave behind.
(For great insight into the values based financial planning approach take a look at Andrew Stinchcomb’s site)
How do you work out what is important to you? How do you define your values, beliefs and possible goals?
As you can see this time around I want to focus on The Compass part of the 168 hours. Now, I am not a philosopher and most of what I am about to say I have “borrowed” from others. As I read a fair bit there are times when a particular approach or line of thinking resonates with me. At that point I cut-n-paste the idea into my personal tool-kit.
One of these is The Wheel of Life which I first came across when reading some texts on life-coaching. I actually attended a couple of courses on the topic as well and, aside from learning that I don’t want to be a life coach, I did get to appreciate The Wheel of Life…
The idea is a bit cheesy but when you are sometimes thinking “what’s the point of it all?” it can help to focus you and put some short term structure into place.
A circle is divided into 8 quadrants and from the centre to the outside a scale of zero to 10 is placed in each quadrant. The quadrants can characterised as follows:
- Personal Growth & Development
- Romance / Partner
- Family & Friends
- Health / Fitness
- Finances
- Career
- Physical Environment / Home
- Fun & Recreation
Now this is not the only way you can carve up your circle. You may think that Career is not as important to you as, say Community. Or you may think the Spirituality is more important than, say Money. If this is the case define the sections in the way you see fit – even add more sections if you need to. The only rule is that they must reflect the totality of your life. (Mindtools has an on-line Wheel of Life if you don’t have the artistic skills to draw and segment the circle. Also, the image used at the start of this blog comes from Startup Princess which has some additional information too. Oh, and click on the image above to get a larger version of it to print out. )
Now have a serious think about each section in turn and score yourself – honestly – between zero (it can’t get any worse) to 10 (it can’t get any better). Don’t do this quickly and really give some serious thought to how you feel about each aspect of your life. Then mark the numbers along the “spokes” and join up the dots. If you have a balanced life your wheel will have numbers that are similar – and joining the dots gives a reasonable resemblance to a wheel. Now, there may be one (or more) area(s) where you give yourself a low score. These are the areas you need to focus on in order to bring your life back into balance. It’s only when your Wheel of Life is reasonably round that you can get a smooth ride.
For those areas where the numbers are lower than you would like give some thought as to what you can do in order to improve things. It may not be possible to do too much – but the important thing is to focus on what you can do and be as creative as possible in how you think about this. The next step then is to look at your 168 hours chart and see how much time is available each week that you can allocate to each of the segments in your wheel. Clearly the segments with the lower numbers are likely to get more time given to them. Be careful not to take too much time away from areas that are doing well otherwise you will be “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. Go through each segment and allocate a number of hours to each of the headings and to the activities that you can do to improve them. Repeat this exercise at regular intervals, say every month or quarter, to check your progress.
This approach gives not only some focus to the areas of your life that need your attention (The Compass) but also ensures you put in time to improve those areas in your life (The Clock).
Overall, for me it’s less about finding “The Meaning of Life” but more about finding the “Meaning In Your Life”.
A book that has had a large impact on my life is Steven Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. It came out around the time I was setting up my first company (1990) and my mind was open to change and development. The text resonated with me and I emerged myself into the habits and philosophy. I am convinced that putting the principles of the book into building that company was a key factor in its success – in our first year of trading the turnover was close to a million pounds. Not bad for a start-up during a recession. Over the years, I have given copies of the book away to friends hoping that they would get as much out of the book as I did.
One of the seven habits is “Put First Things First” and it focuses on personal effectiveness. A key concept in the book is that being effective is not about cramming as much as you can into the 168 hours you have each week. Doing lots of “stuff” has no meaning – unless you know why you are doing “stuff ” and where you are going.
The compass is used as a symbol of “where are we going”. It covers the outcome of understanding our beliefs and values. Of knowing whats important and – as important – why things are important. The compass is our direction in life and points the way.
The clock is of course the symbol for time, the 168 hours in a week that we have to get where we are going. It reminds us that the clock is continually ticking and against our objectives, vision and destination.
Managing the balance between the compass and the clock is the key to personal effectiveness.
Time Management (how I hate that term) is meaningless without the compass. Without the compass there is no understanding of priorities. Of breaking down the urgent from the important. People who tend to think they are poor at Time Management tend not to have their own compass working very well. Or their compass (priorites) have been imposed or given to them by someone else.
Likewise the compass is meaningless without the clock. We may amble towards our vision. We may take a few detours. We may even get distracted along the way – unless we know how much time is needed to be allocated to the journey. People without a compass can be very good at getting stuff done. They can be very efficient. But without a compass you can never be effective.
So, there it is. A key part to personal effectivenss is understanding the balance between the compass and the clock. In future blogs I will go into this in more detail but thought a simple overview might be a good place to start.
I’d forgotten about this. In my other blog on sales effectiveness, I wrote a post back in November 2009 about the 168 hours idea. So, I thought it would make sense to reporduce it below. And before you ask, I did get permission from myself to do this after a bottle of malt whiskey changed hands…
I like to think that I am a fairly effective person. I run my own business – and do so on my own. This is by choice. I wanted to set-up a business where I didn’t need staff. I’ve done that before and much as I love working with and developing people, I’ve learned that I am much better at managing myself than I am at managing others. So, I outsource as much as I can: Book keeping, Accounts, a virtual PA for the phone etc. This leaves me free to focus on what I do best: which is to generate the income from my sales training and mentoring.
One thing that I often find I am helping my clients with is time management. An aspect of my training covers “What are you going to stop?” in order to find the time to put into practice some of the lessons covered when we work together. This question often gets the response “Oh, I will find the time because this is important”. However, unless we work at “What are you going to stop doing?” experience tells me that you will not find the time. Even if the client feels that it is important. All that does happen is that the stress levels increase.
You see we all have 168 hours a week to use (excluding leap years and when the clocks change) no more and no less. I like to think in terms of “weeks” as a unit of time effectiveness. I plan my week – and this leads simply to a daily plan. So, if I already have my 168 hours planned out (and that includes sleep, travel, R&R, family etc.) how much time is left for the other stuff? Well for me, typically, 32 – 38 hours a week.
So, when you are planning a new task, activity, initiative or area of focus. The first thing to ask yourself if “What am I going to stop doing in order to find the time to do this?” And if you can’t find anything to drop, don’t take on the new task. Otherwise you will find the time needed will be found by chipping away at other important items like sleep, family, hobbies etc. Which are all so very important.
How do you use your 168 hours at the moment? And is that the best use of your time?
The problem that I have with goal setting is that it implies you are not comfortable with where you are now. So, being goal fixated – and goal orientated – can lead to you being continually in a place where you are unhappy for most of the time. And that can create a mental state that is not personally effective.
Now, I am all for having an idea of where you want to go. But, being fixated on goals, milestones and deadlines can create the wrong attitude in your head. It can prevent you from enjoying and appreciating “now”. Of being in the moment and appreciating it for what it is. So there needs to be some balance here, surely?
It also can concentrate your focus so that it is too “internal” and whilst you are trying to sort yourself out the “external” world is changing and passing you by. As the world changes opportuities are created on a regular basis. Opportunities can easily be missed or overlooked if you are focused totally on your goals.
So, on balance I prefer not to be too goal orientated. Most of the exciting changes in my life have come about as a result of observing and then responding to opportuities; not by being goal focused.
So I am happy to avoid detailed goal setting in exchange for ensuring that my values and beliefs are in order and to use these to evaluate opportunites as they arise.
What say you?