I have a friend, actually a few friends, who are ALWAYS late for things. So late you can set your watch by them. Meet you at 8.30pm? Aim to be there for 9. And you’ll still be there first. It got me thinking.
I was early for a client meeting this morning (which gave me time to draft this blog). On the way every single traffic light was on green, the M25 was clear, even in the roadworks, the sun was shining etc. etc. You know the type of day? Have them often? There are, of course, times when we’re late and everything seems to conspire against us – usually old people leaving the house at 9.30am. I call it shuffle hour and it just crosses over with the end of rush hour. Anyway, have you ever been in a rush and repeatedly dropped your car keys? Got in the car to realise you have forgotten something so you have to go back in the house? Twice. Switched the engine on and the petrol light comes on? We all have. Stressful and annoying, especially if it means you leave at the beginning of shuffle hour….
But today I was early. I was up early, left early, everything went well and I arrived early. No stress! The fact is a bit of forward planning not only makes us feel more prepared it is significantly less stressful and this makes us more likely to be in ‘flow’ when we get to where we need to be and, therefore, more likely to perform at our best. This is what I call being ahead of the curve. If you find yourself consistently being late and unprepared for things then you are behind the curve. I firmly believe that a bit of personal organisation makes us significantly more productive. At least I hope so as we’ve just pitched for a piece of work with a major potential client to run a series of workshops around personal effectiveness!
So what’s the secret? Well getting ahead of the curve can be really difficult to do, especially in organisations. One argument that many of you by now will be shouting at the screen is “that’s easy for you to say, consultancy boy, what with your working from home easy life..! What about the rest of us who are mega busy and in meetings all the time?”. Two things to say on that. Firstly, mega busy? Does everything that you do add value to your business and/or move you towards your key goals? Is your busy-ness just a load of random activity? Can you be clear on the outcomes you produce? What about your personal goals? How many of you wish you could give up the day-to-day corporate grind and do something you are passionate about?
Secondly, meetings. Again the same challenge. Does every meeting help you achieve your goals (work and personal) or are you just attending because it makes you feel a) important or b) busy? If you’re attending for either of these reasons then you are putting yourself behind the curve. We have several clients where the day consists entirely of meetings and I’m sure many of you have the same problem. I’ve seen some outrageous meetings in some of our clients, but our old friend the NHS is a fantastic example of how to waste time. Everyone arrives late, either because they were already in a meeting that started late and then overran, or they hadn’t been informed which room the meeting would be in, or they just assumed they knew which room it was in. No-one is clear on the purpose of the meeting, no-one has prepared or read the briefing information that was sent out in advance. There’s lots of innocuous pleasantries at the start of the meeting. Just as it is about to start someone’s mobile rings because they are double booked for another meeting and they are wondering where the person is. At this point other people leave to go and get a coffee or print out the stuff they now realise they should have brought with them. When the meeting finally starts no-one is really tuned in and by now they are realising they are going to be late for the next meeting. The outcome of the meeting? To have another meeting! Absolute true story.
So where to go from here? First you need to be focussed on your purpose and goals in life. Sounds a bit hippy, but I challenge you to take a few minutes and think it through. What does good look like for you in life/work? What are you trying to achieve? Where do you want to get to? Then evaluate everything you do against these goals. Is all your activity absolutely necessary or is it just noise?
Secondly, prioritise (strictly) the things that are urgent and important – work on the important/urgent stuff when it becomes critical, but make sure your day is focussed on that alone and don’t get dragged into the noise. If it is that critical then everything else can wait. Having done that aim to spend more and more of your time on the important/non-urgent stuff. This is where the value is and it will move you towards your goals. For those of you who manage others delegate more them – both tasks AND responsibility.
Thirdly, evaluate the meetings you go to. Are all of them absolutely necessary? If you call the meetings what is their purpose? Meetings should be to discuss ideas or make decisions only. I bet you spend a significant amount of time in meetings where people go round the table and ‘update’ each other on activity. This is activity about activity! And I bet you won’t be able to repeat a single piece of what someone else has updated you on within one hour of leaving the meeting! So, question every meeting you have and the need for meetings at all.
Fourthly, eliminate all the extraneous stuff that gets in the way of your performance and means you arrive at things feeling stressed and harrassed. Pack your stuff the night before, plan the journey the day before, have backup plans – what if the trains aren’t running properly?, Aim to catch the train before the one you need. Schedule travelling time between meetings – if it takes five minutes to walk from one end of the building to the other then you WILL be late if you schedule a meeting to start immediately after then end of another one. Plan your time to enable you to read essential material before each meeting.
If you do all that then you’ll have time to enjoy the blog!
Paul Everitt
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