Focus, it’s about one thing at a time

September 10, 2010

I’m a huge fan of bright shiny objects.  Bright shiny objects are anything that takes our attention away from the task at hand.   My problem is not finding enough things to do, my problem is focusing on the job at hand without getting sidetracked onto other projects where I try to multi-task.

In this area I don’t take my own advice very well.  I tell Clients on a regular basis that they need to limit what they work on and only concentrate on areas that can provide high returns for them.  And, when they are working on a particular area, close other windows on your computer and only concentrate on one task at a time.

This means no peaking at your in-box while in the middle of some work or looking up that favorite band with a new album while you’re in the middle of a phone call.  If we can manage to concentrate on the task at hand, we’re much more effective and efficient.  The amount of work that we get done goes up by a dramatic amount and we can schedule time for bright shiny objects.

For some, the idea of concentrating on one thing at a time feels punitive.  For others the reaction might be duh, what’s so earths shattering about that.  The point is that many entrepreneurs and private business owners often feel a time crunch for getting important projects done.  In fact, in many cases important never get started because owners spend so much time working on urgent activities in their business.

Tasks that aren’t reacting to a problem are the ones that we “should” spend a lot of time on.  We end up spending a great deal of time not on should, but on must or we’re in deep trouble.

I’m curious where you are on the spectrum and what your thoughts are.  The comments box is for starting conversations and for someone like me, that’s another wonderful opportunity to play with some new bright, shiny objects.

Josh Patrick

I’m asking Private Business Owners to take our survey.  Please click on this link for the survey.  We won’t be sharing your contact information with anyone else.  We also won’t contact you unless we have more questions.  We will share the results of our survey with you within two weeks of you filling it out.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Leave a Comment » | Time Management, Value Creation | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

Moving from success to significance……a question many of us should answer

September 3, 2010

I often hear “experts” talking about separating your business from your personal life.  In some respects this makes sense, especially after you leave your business, but in others it never seems to work.

Private business owners often feel guilty when they don’t separate the two.  The problem with this is many private business owners, myself included think about their business more than eight hours a day.  It’s not something we put to bed when we walk out the door of our business.

In our connected world it’s easier for us to carry our work home with us.  Between laptop computers and distributed storage for our files it’s incredibly easy to continue working at home after the regular work day or on the weekend.  More than once I’ve meant to spend fifteen minutes on something and emerge four hours later having moved from project to project.

When we sell our business or move on to another stage in our life it’s then we have to make sure we have something to fill our time.  The phone stops ringing, people stop asking us for our advice and we become a non-person in the industry that we left.  For many, again including myself this can be or is an issue as much for our ego and feeling of self-worth as it is for how we spend our time.

If we’re not ready for the “exile” that happens when we leave our business the adjustment can be very difficult.  The what’s next question is an important one that needs to be answered.  If not, before you leave your business, then shortly afterwords as you’re trying to figure out how to spend your time.  There really is only so much golf that can be played.

There’s an organization called Halfetime that can help with many who have had successful careers, sold their business and are trying to figure out what’s next.  They help successful people move from the financial success they may have had to significance for how you spend your time.  The move to the second half of your life is one if done properly can provide a great deal of satisfaction.  I encourage you to give them a look and let me know what you think.

Josh Patrick

I encourage all comments to my blog.  I’m always interested in what readers are thinking about the topics I write about.

2 Comments | Collaboration, Time Management, Uncategorized, Value Creation, Wealth Management | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

It’s really not all about the goal…..enjoy the view along the way

August 9, 2010

I’ve been thinking about the goal oriented society that we live in.  We set goals and then put milestones in place to measure our progress.  We make lists and then cross off the activities as we go through them.

I wonder how many times we stop to either look at the milestones or appreciate the activities that we’ve done to get to our goals.

For me, much of what makes chasing goals interesting is the road that we take to get to those goals.  In othewords, the trip is often way more interesting and much more valuable than the final destination.

The problem with the final destination is that once we get there, we’re rarely satisfied.  We then go running off after a different goal without appreciating the road that we’ve taken or are in the process of taking.  I’m reading an interesting book right now.  It’s called The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss.  He poses a question I thought was very thought provoking…..Would you rather have a million dollars or live the lifestyle of a millionaire?  The answer to that question can change how you look at life and appreciating different options you might want to take.

I’m thinking that the journey in many instances is not only more interesting than the goal, but more valuable as well.  There are lessons that we continually run by.  If instead, we stop and notice what we’re learning or what questions come our way during our made dash towards a particular goal we just might be happier and have a more fulfilling life.

Josh Patrick

1 Comment | For Business Owners, Time Management, Value Creation, Wealth Management | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

We really need to monitor how we spend our time

August 8, 2010

I’ve been on television news strike for the past couple of months.  I realized that talking heads were saying the same thing over and over.  And, the things they were talking about really wasn’t very important.

I haven’t stopped reading news, I just stopped getting information jammed into my head in a manner that doesn’t serve me well.

Making this change started a thought process where I’m now wondering what else I can cut out of my life that doesn’t serve me well.  Part of the answer seems to be activities where one becomes passive.  Much of this is centered around activities where the information goes one way.  An example of this is the television.  When we watch TV we take in information, but for the most part there is no interaction on our side.  In fact, most of what we get from TV is noise and distractions.  Especially if we happen to watch commercials.

The point of all of this is we let our lives fall into patterns that may not serve us well.  I’m thinking that it’s a good idea to take a periodic inventory of how we spend our day and whether those activities are things that bring us joy or make our life better.

We’re all pressed for time.  I think that much of the time we allow activities to creep in that we would rather not do.  And, if we would rather not do those activities, then it only makes sense for us to drop those particular activities.

I’m in this process of doing this analysis of my time right now.  It’ll be interesting what I find and if you also inventoried how you spend your time, I bet you would find some interesting information.

Josh Patrick

1 Comment | Time Management, Value Creation | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

It’s hard enough to attract a good Customer, why throw your old ones away?

July 1, 2010

Do what you say, answer your phone, respond to questions and put your Customers issues ahead of yours.  Seems pretty simple, but these days is becoming a rare commodity.

Not answering phones or dealing with issues that are challenging doesn’t make them go away.  Leaving other Stakeholders out of the loop and not having them know what your intentions are doesn’t serve you or them well.  Saying you’re going to do something and then not communicating about not being able to or wanting to do it makes you sit in a difficult situation.

It’s hard enough to get a good Customer today.  Why is it that many companies are bound and determined to get rid of the good Customers and focus on attracting new ones.  We all know that it’s easier and less expensive to keep a Customer than trying to attract a new one.  We need to pay attention and work very hard, especially in today’s environment.  Otherwise, we keep living the same song over and over again.

Josh Patrick

Leave a Comment » | Ethics, Time Management, Value Creation | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

Steroids are a terrible thing to put up with

June 29, 2010

I’m back on steroids again and am finding that along with this drug comes an awful lot of “extra” energy.  Unfortunately, the energy comes across to others as being pretty manic, or at least that’s what I’m told.

The other problem that I’ve been having is my blood sugar from the steroids is high enough where I have to think and take actions to treat myself like a diabetic.  This puts me back in part time cancer-world and part time real world where one can work.

The question that I believe needs to be answered is how does one balance time, energy and focus on work and at the same time get one’s health to take up less of my time.

I’ve become a huge fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done.  I find that when I use this system I’m able to look at what I’ve got going on in my life and make priorities for the amount of time I have available for different parts of my life, meaning work life, home life and health life.  Those three areas are part of the seven or eight contexts that I manage every day.  Along with the contexts are projects that fit within different contexts that I have.

Looking at projects from a point of view of energy and time allows me to focus on important things that are both urgent and not urgent.  When I stay in those two quadrants for most of the time, I find that whatever time I have is enough to provide the outcomes I think I need.

I’m hoping that my health issues start to recede again and I’ll be able to focus on life and the good things we can all have.

Josh Patrick

Leave a Comment » | Ethics, Time Management, Value Creation | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

More on mind maps and presenting complicaed processes

June 27, 2010

I’ve been thinking about the changes we’ve made in communicating with our Clients over the past couple of years.

My buddy Nate Sachs has reminded me that our Clients don’t like complexity and they don’t like activities that take a long time.  I’ve been coming to the same conclusion over the past year and have taken what I think are good steps to deal with both issues.

I believe that our Clients are interested in the following things:

  • Staying in control of their own situation and be the team leader.
  • Not have meetings that drag on forever.
  • Have a method of seeing our suggestions that show the connections.
  • Have us ask questions more than give answers, meaning work from their point of view not ours.
  • Be allowed to choose what they want to work on.

Our solution for communicating a complicated solution is to provide our Clients with a mind map that integrates all the activities they think are important.  As we go through the mind map, we ask them to choose which activities and strategies they have the interest and or time to work on.  These choices are things the Client has indicated they have an interest in doing through our interview process.  We keep the mind map as a strategic tool and over time we start to fill in the boxes at the Clients convenience.

This often means that we aren’t doing all the things we think the Client should do, but we are moving in a direction that supports what the Client wants done.  Using a mind mapping tool to present this information allows us to use one page.  We find the visual representation of the work we do not only simplifies the process in the Clients mind, but shows them all of the things that we are doing behind the scenes.

Our Clients often forget that there is work that must be done when they’re not around.  They can give us assignments and then if we’re good they can forget about it until we’ve kicked some tires and thought about possible solutions.  When we get together with our Clients we can use a mind map to easily allow our Clients to make choices that will make their life better.  And, after all isn’t that the point?

Josh Patrick

2 Comments | Collaboration, Compensation, Ethics, For Business Owners, Time Management, Value Creation, Wealth Management | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

Limited energy, think about using mind maps to help with manageing projects

June 23, 2010

Because of my medical issues that appeared last week I’m once again able to only work limited hours every day.  When I go on this limited schedule I find that I must focus on only the important things on my to do list and projects.  I’m finding that I have to post-pone or just not do activities that sounded good at the time.

I would like to have unlimited energy and be able to work a full day but pneumonia is one of those diseases that won’t allow me to do so.  Last time I tangled with this beast was over twenty years ago and it took months before I was fully able to resume all the things I was doing before I had it.  I’m hoping that this time will be different but I’m planning a reduced schedule.

A reduced schedule means that I can only give one or two people a day my full attention on either a phone conference or personal meeting.  The rest of the time I have to prepare so I don’t forget anything and or put together agendas for meetings and follow through after the meeting with turning my meeting notes into mind maps.

I find that if there are many moving parts to a meeting or a project it helps to use a mind map as a method of communicating the entire project to both myself and others who are working with me.

The Clients I’m working with just don’t like to read long reports.  I do find that when I turn lineal notes into a mind map the comprehension and enthusiasm about doing a full project is much larger.  I’m able to lay out all of the steps and then leave the ordering of those steps to the Clients or with other members of our team.  I find it a liberating experience to not have to roll the boulder up the hill by myself.  Using a mind map allows me to share that burden.

This entry was going to be about having limited energy and how I manage that.  Now, it’s morphed into a conversation about mind maps.  I guess I’ve done both……using mind maps helps me manage my energy and keep everyone on the same page with little effort.  Now that I’ve identified this it’s time to put my thoughts into actions, even with limited energy I should be able to do this.

Josh Patrick

1 Comment | Collaboration, For Business Advisors, For Business Owners, Time Management, Value Creation | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

Slowing down does actually allow higher levels of productivity

June 7, 2010

The past five or six months have been about getting back to work full time.  This means that focus on important, but not urgent things is more important than ever.  For me to be able to do this I need to make sure that I have few activities that ever rise to the level of urgent and important.

I find that when activities rise to urgent and important they take a tremendous amount of energy to get them back to just important.  In addition, I’ll often lose a day or two if I have to spend my time dealing with urgent and important activities.

In the past I was able to just bull through anything that came my way.  Today I’m only able to do that for a very few hours per day.  The rest of the day has to be at a leisurely pace or I’ll pay the price for the next several days.

This isn’t a complaint, it’s just the way it is right now.  Unfortunately for me, chemo toxicities still exist and they still will rear their ugly head when I’m not paying attention to how many things I can really get done during the day.

I’m finding that spending time on me every day is important not just for mental sanity but for productivity as well.  I still am having a hard time giving myself permission to close the door to my office and meditate for twenty or thirty minutes.  If I do this, I find that my energy level and ability to bull through activities comes back.  I also find my mental acuity will rise significantly when I take some time to meditate and allow everything to slow down.

Speed in getting activities done is not about how fast I can work, it’s about how efficiently I can move through tasks.  The sharper my mind, the faster I move.  I’m finding that when I take the half hour, the rest of the day goes much better.  Even though I put myself out of commission for thirty minutes, I find that my daily productivity is much higher.

I guess the point of this post is that by slowing down we can actually go faster and get better results.  Isn’t that what we all want in the first place?

Josh Patrick

Leave a Comment » | Time Management, Value Creation | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

A missed opportunity – thinking through the options

May 15, 2010

This week was a challenging weather week.  Chicago was having serious storms and as a result the entire airline system was backed up.

When I got to Chicago I found that my connecting flight was canceled and had to change to another location for my final destination.  As a result of the change my bag never found me and three days later it still hasn’t found me.

I’ve now logged four claims to find my bag and I still don’t know when or if it’s ever going to show up again.  When I called my airline this morning to follow up again, my call was routed to their Indian (the country) call center.  The person who was helping me needed his supervisor for help and I was told he would call me back in twenty minutes.

An hour later I was still waiting for the call.  When I called again I was told to hang up and he would call me back.  Finally ten minutes later the supervisor called me back.  He once again asked all of the same questions that the first person asked and had no answers for me.  Having the supervisor call back was a total waste of time.

I’m told the bag is in Saginaw, MI, but they’re not sure about that.  I now have another tracking number to find out if my bag will ever return to me.

The purpose of this post is not to whine about the sophomoric behavior of the airline, but to talk about how they lost six or seven opportunities to make me into a raving fan.  All airlines lose luggage and most of the time they do a pretty good job of matching you up with your bags.

This particular situation was caused by a change to another city for my final destination.  It would seem to me that under these circumstances the airline would move my case to a special unit that is used to working with these types of problems.  I would have a United States call center work on these issues and not the Indian call center.  The Indian call centers never work well when they are asked to think out of the box.  The US call centers are much better at solving Customers problems.

I fly a lot with this particular airline.  Instead of having a post from a raving fan, they have a post from someone who is seriously thinking about taking my business someplace else.  It will all depend on how this particular case is resolved.

The moral of the story is no business can afford to have their fans become their foes.  Are you listening United?

Josh Patrick

Leave a Comment » | For Business Owners, Time Management, Uncategorized, Value Creation | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by stage2

« Previous Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.