Sanders Says

Make Monday the no-break day

Monday is one of those days where you feel like you are fighting off a pack a bees.
You are snapped out of the bliss of your weekend and into the teeth of the real world and you don't know what to tackle first. Here's an idea: Devote Monday to handling things that would otherwise break if neglected.

I've been influenced for a long time by the quadrant work of Stephen Covey (First Things First) and I'm sure that many of you already appreciate the magic of his system. Knowing the difference between urgent/important and important/not urgent is a real time saver. In the last few years, I've started to use a pretty simple system of defining each action item as if it were made of one of three things: Glass, Metal and Rubber.

If I drop an action item made of glass, something gets broken. It has a guaranteed negative outcome not to do it.

If I drop and action item made of metal, nothing gets broken -- but there will be plenty of noise and maybe even a dent claimed.

If I drop an action item made of rubber, it will will probably bounce either back to the tasker or to the right person. This is probabaly an action item that is either silly or not my role.

Once you start to use this, you'll find that Monday is a day to deal with glass. Your goal is to have only a few things made of glass in your jugle loop at any given time. You want to be important to the business, essential, but you don't want to be like Lucille Ball in the famous candy/conveyor belt scene.

You'll also learn to appreciate the action items made of metal. You might want to think about who you do projects with. They intimidated you into agreeing to it, and they'll shout from the mountain tops if you don't deliver 100%. You don't want many of these either. But some are regular obligations you cannot get out of, so they are still noisey and necessary. They will get over your candor, so long as you are still on the team and not holding them in contempt.

Try this system out next Monday. Write down everything you think you "need to do" and write glass, metal or rubber next to each one. If you manage someone, have them do this as an exercise. Talk to your team about how they can support or "spot" each other when carrying an action item made of glass.

Tell someone you are fully committed

Before you week is over, tell someone you can't.

That's right, just say no.

Don't let people delegate to you when you are full of your own plans. Just think about this for a few minutes. Have you been enlisted to do things this week? I have. Drive this to that place, go to this thing, find out that, etc. Constantly, flooding in via all channels.

How often do we say no? Calf rope. All full?

Say it tomorrow and get your projects done. You don't have anymore bandwidth, you are fully committed.

Eventually, you'll train them to approach you with balance.

Work four hours a week

Yep, you heard me, work only four hours a week!

This is the message of wunderkind entrepreneur and author Timothy Ferriss. His new book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join The New Rich just came out today and it is burning up Amazon.

His concept is simple; go on a low information diet, outsource or delegate and live your dreams -- not your worklife. The book is stuffed with great tips on saving time, money and your mind. For example, he teaches the DEAL system: delegate, eliminate, automate and liberate. This approach applies to projects or even running a business.

If you are working too hard and have no time for yourself, this book is for you!

If you feel like a slave to the grind, buy this book and open your mind. You just might find some time for yourself in the end.

Take on twenty percent of your week on Monday

I've always noticed that Mondays are treated like mountains in our business life. They are tall, you can't go around them and they are always there to stand in your way on the way to next Friday.

We charge inand try to do 100% of our week's obligations on Monday. One person recently told me that he was going to "cut a swath through a big field at work on Monday" -- meaning that he would probably work 100 miles per hour from 8am to 6pm to try and get a huge headstart on this week. Ouch.

I've learned that if you try and split your week into five equal segements or workadays, you will produce higher quality work throughout the week. To overproduce Monday and chill-out on Friday is no prescription for mangaing your personal capacity.

For now, just scale Monday to be a single day. Just one day in your week, 20% of the pie. Accomplish modest, but not disproportionate results. You'll find that this plan will help you have more zip for the critical Thursday and Friday units of your business life.

This is especially true if you had a relaxing, fun weekend or just came back from a vacation. Just take it easy, it is only Monday.

Suggested: Take 10 minutes to look at this week's obligations and determine the LIMIT to what you'll try to do today.

TIVO the big game!

Today I could spend about seven to eight hours watching two can't miss playoff games. The sports media gang is smug in their belief that, unlike American Idol, they are TIVO-proof. You have to watch the games in real-time, right?

Yeah, if you are having a social event. But what if just YOU were watching the game? Do you really want to see the Dodge Ram commericals 28 times today??

Here's what you do; Set your TiVo or video recorder to record the game and put an extra hour on the end (adjust the recording seconds to record past the scheduled end of the program). This will protect you if the game goes into overtime.

Now go about your day; shower, go out to eat (where the game is NOT being televised), spend some time with your kids, play your guitar, work in the garden. NOTE: Don't surf the Net, you'll get score updates on any portal on the home page and it will spoil this for you.

You can come back to your TV in about one hour to ninety minutes and begin to watch the game in catch-up mode. If you TiVo through commercials, challenges and inuries -- you'll catch up the game somewhere in the fourth quarter. You'll still probably see the end of the game at the same time as the rest of your friends. You'll just be skipping all the filler, which you'll find is amost 40% of the total time!!!

I've recently resorted to this in watching football because of the new scam around the challenges of plays and the reviews (which are supposed to only take 2:00). If you'll notice, they immediately go to a commercial break when there is a review now. This is not only making the games longer, more importantly, it is creating new ad inventory that did not exist a few years ago! Who is the victim -- you.

So, TiVo the big game and take back a few hours of your life today. Or at least throw a party, so you can talk through and ignore all the useless commercial interruptions.