09. Outrunning the Urgent – Part 3

Outrunning the Urgent – Part 3

In the previous lesson, we left you with a thought. That super-productive people manage to create more time tomorrow, by choosing how to spend their time today. We also mentioned there are five intelligent considerations that these outliers undertake to multiply time for themselves. Let uncover them now.
The Five Considerations
The five considerations are essentially five questions, namely:
1. Must this be done at all?
2. Must this be done manually?
3. Must this be done by me? Or, am I the best person to do this?
4. Must I do it now?
5. How do I protect/maximise time on what is my absolute priority?

…and they follow that exact sequence.

Let’s start with the first one.
1. Must this be done at all?
Instead of focusing on what we should add or start doing in our lives, what if we instead focused first on what could be taken away from what we’re doing now?
The very first practical step of becoming truly time managed, is asking yourself the question, “What are all of the things that I can just eliminate?”

Sometimes we take on tasks just to feel a sense of accomplishment, appease our guilt, or out of fear of what we might miss out on if we don’t do the task.
These self-impositions are the first sets of activities that we can get rid of.

In the first part of this lesson, Kaira took on Vishnu’s task without a second thought. What if Kaira had to bring the first reckoner into play here? Did Vishnu’s task need to be done at all?

If the answer to that was ‘Yes’, Kaira could move on to the second consideration. But if the answer to that was ‘No’, in that Kaira was only doing this task since she felt obligated to do it, (because it was for an important client, and who else would Vishnu go to?)

then it would make sense to excuse herself from the task and work on that critically important brand guideline document revision that absolutely had to get done in her day, wouldn’t it?

In effect, Kaira might just have said no to her critically important tasks by saying yes to Vishnu’s task.

Assuming Kaira’s answer to this first consideration is ‘Yes’ however, i.e. Vishnu’s task had to get done, let’s move on to the next consideration…

2. Must this be done manually?

Consider this case:

With most organisations, one common misconception with accounts receivable software is that it’s costly and will not realize returns on investment. But, most companies only focus on the direct costs of invoicing (printing, postage, etc.) and do not understand the true cost of preparing invoices and collecting outstanding receivables.

On average, according to a 2016 (American Productivity & Quality Center) report, the cost for a company to prepare an invoice manually can be as high as $11.50 or more per invoice.

With Accounts Receivable (AR) automation, a company can bring the cost closer to the best level (Top – $0.71 per invoice). That’s 17x less costly.

Clearly, in this case automating the AR process will significantly reduce costs, but the benefits don’t stop there – it makes it easier for customers to do business with the company.

This is sometimes overlooked in calculating costs but by making it easy for customers to view, dispute and pay invoices – byproducts of automation – they can pay up faster.

This example can be generalized to include almost any industry in a wide spectrum of scenarios where manual work is the norm, and the findings/benefits would be very similar. One thing that is always more expensive than a good system is not having a system at all. Each moment that you don’t do the things you ought to be doing, because you’re too busy doing what you ought to automate, is stealing from your own future well-being.

For instance, part of Kaira’s job requires her spend a lot of time proof-reading lengthy documents. Would it make sense for her to invest in writing enhancement software? Considering most of these have free versions available anyway, it would, wouldn’t it?

Another aspect to this consideration is custom work, i.e. creating something from scratch, which takes time and effort. Leveraged work on the other hand, is creating something once that can be used repeatedly. Whenever possible and prudent, eliminate the time you spend on creating custom work – things that you will never use again, like for instance – creating canned responses to generic emails, so that you aren’t required to script custom emails for each mail that arrives in your inbox.

If the answer to this second consideration, Must this be done manually? is ever ‘No’, it’s well worth the time, effort and if required, a business case for finances to invest in automation avenues.

In Kaira’s example, however, assuming that Vishnu’s task just had to get done, and that there was no way to automate Vishnu’s task, Kaira could move on to the next consideration. Must this be done by me? Or, am I the best person to do this?, which we’ll cover in the next lesson.

In Conclusion

There are five key considerations that enable super-productive people achieve all that they do, namely:
1. Must this be done at all?
2. Must this be done manually?
3. Must this be done by me? Or, am I the best person to do this?
4. Must I do it now?
5. How do I protect/maximise time on what is my absolute priority?

…and they follow that exact sequence.

The first consideration ‘Must This Be Done at All?’ involves asking yourself the question, “What are all of the things that I can just eliminate?”. These include self-imposed tasks that one undertakes to satisfy the need to feel accomplishment, appease guilt, or out of fear of what one might miss out on by declining the task. Get rid of them in favour of tasks that most definitely must get done.

The second consideration ‘Must This Be Done Manually?’ invites the thinker to consider the benefits of, and therefore investment into automation avenues, eschewing manual and custom work where it adds no value to anyone.

We move on the next lesson where we will deal with the last three considerations.