I was working with a client earlier today and started to say something regarding a task. I started to say, “I did not get a chance . . .” then corrected myself and said, “I did not take the time nor prioritize the task.” It can be hard to be honest with ourselves as to what we want to prioritize versus what we actually prioritize.
I had lots of plans to get a variety of things done on Saturday. Then a text came in from my son regarding a school assignment for my grandson and granddaughter regarding Veterans’ Day coming up. They needed a picture of great grandpa in uniform from WWII. I easily spent 4-6 hours combing through the house looking for a photo I was sure I had, somewhere. I looked at all 194,392 photos in Apple Photos that are not as well organized as I would like. I found everything they needed. Isn’t that what a parent or grandparent does? Drop EVERYTHING when a call goes out. FAMILY first.
That exercise reminded me of the story of boulders, rocks, pebbles, sand, and water. Maybe you’ve heard a version or two of this. Get the big, important things that are blocking you done first, then attack the next most important, and so on. I checked out some sources of this. A good one, in a video, is of Steven Covey working with a CEO trying to “pack it all in.”
If you are a solo entrepreneur, you might have to focus on just one thing for a month or more, like making calls to prospects. If you have a company with 50 people, you might have 5 people reporting to you and can get everyone behind 1-5 items for the company. At a big company with thousands of employees, you can get more done, with every employee rallying around 5-10 items and each person having specific tasks and goals. You might think that means you can get thousands of items completed. Yet, we all know that all those people still need a simple, short rallying cry that everyone buys into. No matter how many people you have in your company, no one can do it all.
That got me to thinking about the Eisenhower Matrix. The what? It’s one of the most common ways of prioritizing your work. My Saturday task jumped to the top left of the matrix. It was important to honor my father-on-law, help my grandchildren learn their family history, honor the veterans, take pride in their country, and know that Papa will help.
The concept is simple, consider what appears in each quadrant and take the necessary actions. One of my coaching colleagues caught himself personally addressing a government form and missing an in-person group training because he had not taken the time to determine how to delegate that task. He teaches leaders to not make every decision, yet he succumbed to the temptation of convincing himself he was that important. In the corporate world, I used to stress to my employees and sub-leaders that their ability to be promoted depended on them learning to delegate so that they could be replaced.
Don’t get trapped into being the center of everything or into believing you are the only one that can do it. Don’t become a boulder blocking growth and success of your company.
Do you know the joke, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help?” Well, I graduated from MIT and I implore you to figure out the Most Important Things to be working on.
