Most of us know when our computer is starting to run slow, to gag and to just not work as well as it used to that performing a simple hard disk defragmentation process is often all it takes for our computer to run better and for us to regain our sanity. Now I'm definitely not an IT pro, but I believe the process can take an hour or so and it basically finds all the free space that is in very small chunks and moves it all together in one big chunk. Once that happens, the system seems to have found some sort of freedom, and the computer works like it used to -- much faster and without any hiccups (you know, those things that always make one have to reboot all the time).
Isn't that how it is in our lives sometimes? Things will be going well and then all of a sudden we just don't seem to be getting things accomplished like we used to. A couple of months (or God forbid, years) go by and we look back and it seems like we've barely moved the needle from where we were before. As if we were in slow motion.
And our businesses can be the same way. We can take a quick walk through our offices and with careful observation we could probably find little pockets of "free space" everywhere. If we could just get all that wasted time together in one area, we could figure out how to accomplish the next goal, or get the Client or our Customers something they didn't expect, or spend some time planning for next year. We might be surprised that those pockets of free space could combine to equal a week's worth of time -- but we always say we're too busy for that off-site planning session which could improve team work and create ideas for implementation in the next quarter or next year. Or that we're too busy to take our family away for a short weekend for a little vision planning.
Most of us tend to regroup at the New Year. January 1st seems to be the time when everyone gets refocused on priorities and goals for the upcoming year. That's the time when we rejigger our lives or put everything we're doing through the defrag process. Cutting out the things that no longer serve us well, focusing on the things we want, reorganizing our "free space" to become more productive and to perform at a higher level, whether in business or in our own personal lives.
I encourage you to think of the upcoming Labor Day Holiday in a new light. To focus in on your work and life to make sure you're getting the most out of it. To be sure that what you're doing and how you're spending your time is running at optimum performance and is serving you well.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
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1 comment:
I like to think of this concept in terms of Pareto's Principle (i.e., the 80-20 Rule) - to maximize personal productivity, realize that 80% of one's time is spent on many trivial activities. Overcome by analyzing and identifying which activities produce the most value to your life/company and then shift your focus so that you concentrate on the critical few (20%). Delegate or discontinue the leftover (less critical) activities. Sometimes easier said than done! But so worth the exercise!
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