Today is the last Tuesday of 2011 and the next time we come together will be in 2012. I have this mental picture of driving down a road and coming to crossroads, 4-way stop signs and thinking that this is a good time to put our lives in neutral for just a minute and ask the question, “Do I go straight, keep going the way I’ve been going? Or do I make some adjustments, right or left turns? Am I where I ought to be?”
The late French President, François Mitterrand used to always say, “Give time for time.” Take the time to really see what you are doing with time. That’s a good thought for us on the last Tuesday of 2011. Have we been making the best use of our time in 2011 and is that the best way to move on into 2012?
Two questions surfaced and they could possibly be both sides of the same coin. But the first question is: Are we spending our time well? With the time that we have, are we doing what we need to do in that time? Pondering that question, I wondered how does our day shape up? Are we accomplishing what we need to do or are we letting productivity or productivities stand in the way of our own production?
I was reading an article by Tony Schwartz in Harvard Business Review entitled ‘How to Accomplish More by Doing Less’. Basically he gives a hypothetical situation where he says, “Let’s take the example of 2 people of equal skill who work in the same office. Both arrive at 9 am every day and leave at 7 pm. Let’s call the first person Bill. Bill works without stopping, juggling tasks at his desk and running between meetings all day long. He even eats lunch at his desk.” Does that sound familiar?
The other person Nick, by contrast, works intensely for approximately 90 minutes at a stretch, and then takes a 15 minute break before resuming work. At 12:15, he goes out for lunch for 45 minutes or even works out at a nearby gym. He works again and at 3 pm, he closes his eyes at his desk and takes a brief nap, maybe 15-20 minutes. Finally between 4:30 and 5, he takes a 15 minute walk outside.
Now Bill spends 10 hours on the job. He begins work at about 80% of his capacity, instinctively pacing himself, rather than pushing all out, because he knows he’s got a long day ahead. By 1 pm, Bill is feeling some fatigue. He’s dropped to 60% of his capacity and is losing steam. Between 4 and 7 pm, he’s averaging about 40% of his capacity.
I don’t need to tell you that this is called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Bill’s average over 10 hours is 60% of his capacity, which means he effectively delivers 6 hours of work.
Nick puts in the same 10 hours. He feels comfortable working at 90% of his capacity because he knows he’s going to have a break before too long. He slows a little as the day wears on, but around midday, when he stops for lunch or a workout, he’s still at 70%. He actually takes off 2 hours during his 10 hours at work, so he only puts in 8 hours. But during that time, he’s working at an average of 80% of his capacity, so he’s delivering just under 6½ hours of work – a half hour more than Bill.
Schwartz goes on to say, “It’s not just the number of hours we sit at a desk that determines the value we generate. It’s the energy we bring to the hours we work. Human beings are designed to pulse rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. That’s how we operate at our best. Maintaining a steady reservoir of energy – physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually – requires refueling it intermittently. Stress may not be the number one deterrent to productivity. Our real enemy is the absence of intermittent renewal.
That’s why I throw this out to you all on this call. As you look at your day, as you stay neutral on this Tuesday and look at the way in which you are spending your time, are you making the most of the hours? Do you take time to renew? Muscles will never get built as long as you have constant tension. They will get built when there is a time of relaxation. And you have those moments, those intermittent moments of renewal each day.
But the second question or the other side of the coin, I think, is the more important one. Are you utilizing your time in going in the right direction?
Peter Drucker says, “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” Are you using your time in the way that you ought to be using it?
One of the things I like to do is buying my own tickets. I feel I can get find a good buy and get good value for the money that I spend. I remember doing this one day and my son walked into my office, looked at what I was doing and said, “Is this what you really should be doing?” I looked at him and said, “I like doing it,” and he said, “Yeah, but do you really think that’s what you ought to be doing?” And out of his mouth came a great truth to me. I don’t do something because I do it well; I do something because that’s my purpose in life.
Sometimes we can get into a rut doing little things that we know we can do well but has nothing to do with our purpose in life.
I read an article by Clayton Christensen, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He says, “For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about, before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes Scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.”
“Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they’ll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at Harvard Business School.”
Wise words! I wonder whether these are pertinent thoughts for us as we look at the year 2012. How are we using our time – whether we have intermittent pauses for renewal? And then the more definitive question: does our time have purpose?
Harvey MacKay said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”
So the question that faces us on this last Tuesday of 2011 is ‘Are you using time well?’ so as you settle into neutral, take a few moments of this day and ask yourself this question, “Whether there is intermittent renewal in your life that increases productivity each day?” and then ask yourself, “Am I fulfilling my purpose in life or am I just doing something that I can do well but that somebody else can do? Am I fulfilling my purpose?
God Bless Us All.
The late French President, François Mitterrand used to always say, “Give time for time.” Take the time to really see what you are doing with time. That’s a good thought for us on the last Tuesday of 2011. Have we been making the best use of our time in 2011 and is that the best way to move on into 2012?
Two questions surfaced and they could possibly be both sides of the same coin. But the first question is: Are we spending our time well? With the time that we have, are we doing what we need to do in that time? Pondering that question, I wondered how does our day shape up? Are we accomplishing what we need to do or are we letting productivity or productivities stand in the way of our own production?
I was reading an article by Tony Schwartz in Harvard Business Review entitled ‘How to Accomplish More by Doing Less’. Basically he gives a hypothetical situation where he says, “Let’s take the example of 2 people of equal skill who work in the same office. Both arrive at 9 am every day and leave at 7 pm. Let’s call the first person Bill. Bill works without stopping, juggling tasks at his desk and running between meetings all day long. He even eats lunch at his desk.” Does that sound familiar?
The other person Nick, by contrast, works intensely for approximately 90 minutes at a stretch, and then takes a 15 minute break before resuming work. At 12:15, he goes out for lunch for 45 minutes or even works out at a nearby gym. He works again and at 3 pm, he closes his eyes at his desk and takes a brief nap, maybe 15-20 minutes. Finally between 4:30 and 5, he takes a 15 minute walk outside.
Now Bill spends 10 hours on the job. He begins work at about 80% of his capacity, instinctively pacing himself, rather than pushing all out, because he knows he’s got a long day ahead. By 1 pm, Bill is feeling some fatigue. He’s dropped to 60% of his capacity and is losing steam. Between 4 and 7 pm, he’s averaging about 40% of his capacity.
I don’t need to tell you that this is called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Bill’s average over 10 hours is 60% of his capacity, which means he effectively delivers 6 hours of work.
Nick puts in the same 10 hours. He feels comfortable working at 90% of his capacity because he knows he’s going to have a break before too long. He slows a little as the day wears on, but around midday, when he stops for lunch or a workout, he’s still at 70%. He actually takes off 2 hours during his 10 hours at work, so he only puts in 8 hours. But during that time, he’s working at an average of 80% of his capacity, so he’s delivering just under 6½ hours of work – a half hour more than Bill.
Schwartz goes on to say, “It’s not just the number of hours we sit at a desk that determines the value we generate. It’s the energy we bring to the hours we work. Human beings are designed to pulse rhythmically between spending and renewing energy. That’s how we operate at our best. Maintaining a steady reservoir of energy – physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually – requires refueling it intermittently. Stress may not be the number one deterrent to productivity. Our real enemy is the absence of intermittent renewal.
That’s why I throw this out to you all on this call. As you look at your day, as you stay neutral on this Tuesday and look at the way in which you are spending your time, are you making the most of the hours? Do you take time to renew? Muscles will never get built as long as you have constant tension. They will get built when there is a time of relaxation. And you have those moments, those intermittent moments of renewal each day.
But the second question or the other side of the coin, I think, is the more important one. Are you utilizing your time in going in the right direction?
Peter Drucker says, “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” Are you using your time in the way that you ought to be using it?
One of the things I like to do is buying my own tickets. I feel I can get find a good buy and get good value for the money that I spend. I remember doing this one day and my son walked into my office, looked at what I was doing and said, “Is this what you really should be doing?” I looked at him and said, “I like doing it,” and he said, “Yeah, but do you really think that’s what you ought to be doing?” And out of his mouth came a great truth to me. I don’t do something because I do it well; I do something because that’s my purpose in life.
Sometimes we can get into a rut doing little things that we know we can do well but has nothing to do with our purpose in life.
I read an article by Clayton Christensen, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He says, “For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about, before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes Scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.”
“Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they’ll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at Harvard Business School.”
Wise words! I wonder whether these are pertinent thoughts for us as we look at the year 2012. How are we using our time – whether we have intermittent pauses for renewal? And then the more definitive question: does our time have purpose?
Harvey MacKay said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”
So the question that faces us on this last Tuesday of 2011 is ‘Are you using time well?’ so as you settle into neutral, take a few moments of this day and ask yourself this question, “Whether there is intermittent renewal in your life that increases productivity each day?” and then ask yourself, “Am I fulfilling my purpose in life or am I just doing something that I can do well but that somebody else can do? Am I fulfilling my purpose?
God Bless Us All.
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