At this point I have surveyed thousands of folks asking them how much “high productivity” time they send during an average work day – high productivity being time when they are increasing the value of their businesses. The answers average about two and one-half hours, and this despite how much time they actually work. In other words, this same 150 minutes holds true for an seven-hour day or a twelve hour one.

I’ve thought about this a lot and come to believe the real issue is not “more time” because it doesn’t seem to matter how much time there is, but rather what you manage to do with it. Now, THIS IS NOT NEWS : EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS THIS.

And yet, so many of us seem powerless to change the result. But I’ve also come to view time in what for me is a new way. Time is not something to be saved, or somehow managed, but rather I’m seeing time as a measure of how much “me” there is available for things. I find this point of view somewhat freeing and it provides a new kind of focus, like a new clarity of intention. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s working for me.

Based on this thinking I included a ‘getting more stuff done with the time available” mini-program in my newest FormulaFIVE material; something I call Sustainable Performance Mastery. This is a fancy way of saying getting more of the right things done more of the time. So needless to say, I’ve been focusing my own energy and attention on just that – improved output, improved results, less actual time worked.

And you know what? It’s really working for me.

I’ve just released Sustainable Performance Mastery to the folks who are in the FormulaFIVE program. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

So this critical idea got everyone’s attention, and a bit later in the presentation another participant wanted to know something very important. “Since,” he said, “we’re all hard working and pretty lazy at the same time, what does it take to make this kind of change and to make it last?”

My answer is simple. You’ve got to have a big goals and an inspiring vision if you want any kind of meaningful change. Otherwise, why bother?

I have a lot of experience with this . My company, Axcelus, charges annual retainers from $36 ,000 to $120,000 to advise clients and insure action that rapidly grows revenues and profits. If reaching your business goals would give a 10x or 100x return on that kind of investment, well of course it makes sense.

But on the other hand, if your goals too small, if your vision is too mild, it may not make any sense at all.

In my book, Be Unreasonable (McGraw Hill, 2007), I tell my readers they must be uncomfortable if they’re going to get anywhere.

Why?

It works like this: That feeling of “uncomfort,” by definition, comes from doing things you have not done before. If you’ve done something before, especially if you’ve done it a lot, then whatever it is will feel comfortable. If it’s new and different, it won’t.

And your current level of results – revenues, profits, difference-making, whatever – are the outcome and sum total of all your current actions – that means the comfortable ones. If you keep doing those comfortable things, you will get the same results, no matter what.

If you want different results, greater results, rockin-the-house-down results, you’re going to have to make changes in how your company does things — often quite a bit – and that change is going to make you uncomfortable. QED.

So what?

Nobody in their right mind is going to make themselves uncomfortable without a good reason, and that reason is best provided by a powerful vision backed up by strong goals. Have something you’d be willing to walk over broken glass and hot coals to get there.

And you’ll do the things necessary.

Without that, odds are you won’t.

Yesterday I was speaking at one of our 37 Fatal Business Mistakes workshops.  I was talking about the kinds of changes a business owner needs to make if he or she wants to quickly speed up their business’ growth.   One of the most powerful recommendations I make is that you to figure out where you are continually spending your time, and lump those activities into things that make a big difference, and things that don’t.

If you shift your time and focus from one group to the other, the results will be huge.  For instance,  one CEO (we’ll call her Dana) told me that she spent about 8 hours a week out of 55 on accounting and payables issues.  Of course there is no excuse for this, but since recognition is the first step on the road to recovery,  knowing where the time goes can be very good thing.  I asked what she would do with the 8 hours if she freed herself from “payables.” 

She said, “Oh, that’s easy.  I’d close more sales, and there are plenty of deals to close.”  Wow, what a revelation.   So I asked one more thing: what would those sales be worth?  “Conservatively,  “$70,000 – $80,000, a month,”  she said without batting an eye.

Not bad, around $900,000 additional annual revenue for an no-cost behavioral change.  Who wouldn’t want to do that…

“In life, there is no such obligation to move. If you can’t find a useful plan, you can watch television, stick with business as usual, and believe that no news is good news. Human beings are brilliantly creative at finding ways to pass time in unconstructive ways. At these times, the true strategist shines by finding the means to make progress, to strengthen his position and prepare for the inevitable conflict. And conflict, we cannot forget, is inevitable.”

Think about these phases in your own business, where you are sitting around, waiting for something else to happen. Could they be used to strategic advantage?

In any case, I was reading Jerry West writing about… what else, blogs…

He referenced something that I feel should be pasted backwards on my forehead so that I can see it every time I look in a mirror. It’s an old Chinese proverb:

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is today.”

I’m now practicing what I call ‘unreasonable time management.” This means my goal is to only do things that matter, and which contribute, and not doing anything that doesn’t bring me closer, in a measurable way, to reaching my goals.  I’m dropping all obligations, all “shoulds,” and even all things that I promised to do, but simply do not make sense.  Each day I’m reviewing my time commitments and making new decisions. 

Also, I’m holding to the discipline of only doing those things which are on my calendar.  Which means that if I want to get something done, I have to schedule it.  What’s nice about this approach is that all things have to get scheduled, and as they get scheduled, nothing (or at least fewer and fewer things) are happening by either chance or inertia.   I’m not perfect at this, but I’m getting better.

They say that time is money.  I’m not sure I agree, but it does seem that they are freely exchangeable.  Right now I’m trading in both directions.  Sometimes it’s my time for money, other times, it’s my money for time.  Either direction involves a choice. 

Counting Time Is Not So Important As Making Time Count.

I had to re-read it a few times to be sure, but I find it profound. Perhaps not the first part, but Making Time Count. That’s my new time management mantra.  Make sure that the time I have available, whether it’s 4 hours a week or 60,  is well used and never squandered.

There are people who argue that “time is not money” but I actually think it is at the very least, freely exchangeable. Time can definitely be converted into money (if your marketing systems are any good) and money can – within limits – be converted into time.

Make it count.

I’m not guiltless – I find myself saying such things and try to stop myself in mid-sentence before the P-word gets out. I find that perfectionitis — as it’s called in the medical profession — is the number one impediment to my writing. I don’t mind speaking “imperfectly” but I struggle with publishing words that aren’t perf…. Argggghhhh, I can’t say it. P-P-P…

It doesn’t just slow writing, but marketing, product development, seminars, new ideas — it slows down everything.  Dedicated perfectionists would say that’s a good thing.  I say it slows down progress.

Perfection prevents progress.

How? The two number one skills (talk about being unreasonable) of an entrepreneur or leader of any kind are 1) coming up with great ideas, and 2) getting someone to carry them out.

And perfection delays execution. You wait and wait and wait and wait while first the idea, and then the execution, are perfected, and only finally do you bring your wares to market much later than otherwise.

There’s a reason why software has bugs when it first comes to market. It’s because it’s just too darn expensive to make it perfect and has much more value in the hands of users — even though it has problems. This is true of all sorts of other products and services as well. Even flawed, they are better in users and consumers hands, than if they were sitting back at the lab made perfect.

Progress comes from trial-and-error.

Get it out there in the world and see how well it works. Find the flaws and fix them in real time. That’s the unreasonable route to progress.

That’s unreasonable time management because there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of things you’re supposed to do each week; things other people think you should do. Maybe even things you read in a magazine, or in a blog somewhere.

But in the unreasonable world, there are no shoulds, no supposed-tos. There is nothing you have to do because it supports some else’s world-view. There are only the things you want to do and only the things that will make a difference. If something is not at least one, or better yet — both of these things — DON’T DO IT!

Take a look at your task list, and delete everything you either don’t want to do, or don’t think will make a difference in your current cause. Only do what’s left. Of course, this doesn’t insure you have enough time for all these things and you still have to choose among the remainders, but at least you’ve pared down the list.

You have two choices for the rest of those things: delegate them to someone else if they are important enough, and if not, just dump them. (Here’s another time management secret: if you dump things, and they end up being important, someone will remind you later.)