The Roses Won't Be There to Smell if You Don't Do the Weeding

Saul's mastered enjoying life and smelling the roses, but his job is in jeopardy because he doesn’t get enough done, and so is his marriage, for the same reason.

What can Saul do to improve his efficiency? Well here at EQ Central, we teach Emotional Intelligence, not just a list of to-dos, because in my experience, if you need a scheduling calendar, a scheduling calendar isn’t going to help. If you know what I mean.

What works is to grasp the concept and learn some new competencies.

THE CONCEPT: Stop enjoying yourself all the time. Not as a lifestyle, but when appropriate and necessary.
Think fast and efficient, end goal not process, and focus on mental and physical things, not emotions.
How does this work?

THE HAIR

Get a hairstyle you can wear wash 'n' dry. Okay, blow drying, but not the gel, the mousse, the hot iron, the straight iron, and the maintenance hair appointments.

EASY CONTAINERS

Get unzip coffee cans, flip-open shower gel, frozen meals, paper-wrapped foods, zippers and Velcro. Leave the top off the lotion tube. It won’t cake up or dry out. Toothpaste will. Save yourself time by screwing the lid ON the toothpaste.

DO NOT BUY:

· Child-proof things unless you have (grand)children
· Things that button up the back
· Shoes that buckle
· So few or so many of anything you complicate things (ties, earrings, coats).
· More than one set of keys, or pair of glasses.

You’ll hang on to one pair. If you buy 10, you’ll lose them all. Susan’s Law.

ELIMINATE DECISIONS

Fix your wardrobe so it will work with one pair of shoes and one set of earrings. Have the same thing for breakfast every day. Have a routine – email and inbox first thing, clean desk at end of day. Always.

PLAN YOUR DRIVING

Think ahead so you drive past the dry cleaners, then the post office, then the grocery, then the bakery, then the FedEx. Use MapQuest and print out a map for everywhere new you have to go. You may not consider it manly, but neither is it manly to be unemployed. Getting lost is very time-consuming.

STREAMLINE MAINTENANCE

Awaiting an important phone call last week, which of course came when I stepped into the shower, I was out and clean - including hair - in time to catch it on the 4th ring. Why are you spending 20 minutes in there? Same soap, same scrub, I just didn't enjoy it. P.S. Get a good shower mat. Then you can really go fast. Buy thick towels; it takes less time to dry yourself with a good towel.

SIMPLIFY SEARCHES

Get serious about this major time-waster. A place for everything and everything in its place. Hunting, you not only lose time, you lose focus and you lose energy because your worry and get mad. Get all the medicines in one place, all the laundry supplies together, ALWAYS put your keys on the kitchen counter.

STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR MISSION

A client told me the other day about being late again for an appointment. It was like a cartoon. He had his laptop, list, calendar and dry cleaning in his hands. As he headed through the garage he saw some oil on the floor that had been there for weeks. He felt it would be getting hot that day and he’d better clean it up. Doing that, he got oil on his pants. Heading back into the house, he knocked over the bag of dog food. Fast forward to where he’s late for the meeting AND has left his laptop on the washer.

Stop the madness! Why if the oil has been there a week does another day matter? What’s more important, a $5 bag of dog food and a bit of a mess, or getting to an appointment with your top client on time and not, mind you, sweaty and disoriented.

USE MONEY TO SAVE TIME. USE THE TIME TO MAKE MORE MONEY.

Have a runner in your office or pay a delivery service. You’re the kind that if you leave to “run this over to the bank,” won’t return for 5 hours because something caught your eye. Send your secretary. Her time is worth $10 an hour and yours $75, unless you get fired that is.

FOOD = NUTRIENTS

Practice considering food for what it was originally meant to be – nourishment. It doesn’t have to look pretty, it doesn’t have to be served beautifully, you’ll survive if occasionally it isn’t leisurely.

USE SPARE MOMENTS

Instead of smelling the roses in the garden of life, do the weeding. When you go to the car wash, you know you’ll have 30 minutes. Bring along the report you’re working on, make cold calls or do your nails.

CONTROL THE COMPUTER OR IT WILL CONTROL YOU

Checking emails and playing on the Internet are huge time wasters. Great fun, too, so use them for rewards. (Even prisoners get time off for good behavior.) Check your emails twice a day. Discipline yourself until you can go three days without checking out Retire to Paradise for Pennies, or the Power Tools R U sale.

FOREGO PUTTERING

Chances are you love puttering around the house and yard. Be willing to try something different. Hire a lawn and maid service, and use plumbers and electricians, that’s what they’re there for. Yes you CAN fix the plumbing leak (possibly, eventually), and yes you would enjoy it, but you know it will take you 16 hours and cost twice as much as paying a plumber.

MUST IT BE POWER POINT?

At work, take an honest look at what you’re putting time into. When in graduate school I temp-ed, and saw the inside of many offices. A law firm would no more use PowerPoint or graphics than have a stripper file a pleading, yet some businesses act like a memo without a moving part isn’t a memo at all.

One office I worked in had, and this is classic, a receptionist who had convinced them the job was too hard, when in fact she preferred talking to her boyfriend on the phone and doing her nails (and please don’t interrupt me), so they reorganized their systems and had everyone fill out a work order form for her, and give her a form for every phone call, and required her to fill out a to-do list twice a day. The phone of course was still not answered. Fire someone like that. Don’t rearrange your whole office to accommodate them.

MEETINGS AND SUCH

If everything has to be put in writing because someone missed a deadline once and now there’s paranoia running around, fix the paranoia, the cause, not the symptom.
If it can be accomplished ANY other way, don’t have a meeting.

IN CONCLUSION

Helping with this sort of thing is exactly what coaches do. Once you get the concept, you can learn to do things differently so you have a choice, and then you have a tool. The roses will always be there, if do the weeding. Try it. You might even like the feeling afterwards.