It’s Not Rocket Science
[by Judy Herrmann]
For decades, my Dad, a real live Rocket Scientist, has been telling me I’ll be more productive if I work fewer hours and solve problems faster if I take more breaks. But did I listen? Of course not! Until, that is, I heard it from someone else…
The “Entrepreneurial Time Management System” by Dan Sullivan turns my Dad’s approach to life and work into a simple and effective formula.
The concept is to divide your time into 3 types of days:
Free Days – 24 hour periods during which you don’t think about your business or do any business related stuff.
Focus Days – 24 hour periods during which you spend the majority of your time focused on productive activities for your business including planning, dreaming, thinking, strategizing and producing.
Buffer Days – 24 hour periods where you deal with all the petty details that have to get taken care of for you to be able to schedule your Focus Days and Free Days.
As much as I recognize the value intellectually, I’m still not capable of dedicating entire DAYS to anything (Sorry, Pops!). But I have started scheduling chunks of time along these lines. I try to make sure that each week I have a chunk where I don’t check email, am not available for calls and am doing some kind of growth activity – brainstorming, reading, researching, writing, thinking, forecasting, etc.
Obviously that chunk gets sandwiched between chunks of “buffer” time. As for Free Days…well, going 24 hours straight without thinking about my business? Um yeah, probably not in this lifetime but I am forcing myself to take some big chunks of time, mostly on weekends, where I disengage from everything related to work and try to be as loose and free and relaxed as I’m capable of being.
Ok, so at this rate, I may never conquer space but I am making a good dent on time. As much as I hate to admit Dad was right, even my limited adoption of the “do more with less” strategy is working.
2 Responses to 'It’s Not Rocket Science'
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Thanks for this! Maybe now I won’t feel as guilty for those “free” days.
I think this (critical) approach can be applied to days, or even hours within days.
Like you, Judy, I find it hard to take a whole day to do any ONE thing, but I try to take a daily walk without my cell phone, and when I’m writing for hours “non-stop” I try (even if I don’t succeed) to walk around the block every hour or two.
It’s hard to take breaks when I feel like I’m “on a role,” but like Dad suggested to you, taking a break is not being lazy, but a way for the brain/body to reenergize.