by dlavieri
like back in the day. “Golden Harvest” was a wildly popular
color for appliances and décor from the 60s into the 80s. But
there’s a reason people stopped using that shade and we’re all
still tired of it. If you’re frequently tempted to reminisce when
future thinking is what’s needed, let your closest colleague
know that it’s okay to sometimes whisper “Code Golden
Harvest.”
Be aware of your speech habits,
whatever your age
Older people aren’t the only ones in danger of undercutting their professional brands with annoying talk. Individuals of all ages may make themselves
unpopular by speaking way too much about topics not of interest to their
audience. And even individuals with interesting content can muddle their
messages with tedious or confusing speech patterns.
Recent college graduates can sometimes drive coworkers to distraction
with “up-talking.” You’re an up-talker if you tend to end your statements with upward inflections, making them sound like questions. It’s a babyish habit
that can change the meaning of a sentence and make you sound timid.
We must add to the list of poor communicators anyone who indulges in
too much profanity within a culture that values polite speech. And then there are the whiners—they’ll never make it into the inner circle of a team that values a positive attitude. Finally, if you, uh, break up your, ah, sentences with, y’know, too many little, um, tics, your points may not be heard.
We tend not to notice our own speech patterns and may not be aware
when they’re interfering with our ability to be clear or connect with others. If you have doubts about how your talking comes across, ask friends to listen to
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you carefully and report on what they hear. Or record your next speech. Find a way to explore questions like these:
→ Do I use the same words or phrases—like, “Awesome” or “Am I
right?”—over and over?
→ Is there anything about my tone that seems grating or difficult
to make out?
→ Do I take too long to make my point, sometimes arguing my
case even after I’ve won?
→ Do I speak so fast that some people may have trouble
understanding?
→ Do I weaken the impact of my points with tentative prelimi-
nary phrasing like, “I’m not sure, but I think that . . .”
→ Do I constantly say “I” no matter what topic is under
discussion?
If other people are bored, annoyed, or confused by the way you talk,
they may tune you out. Make an effort to be aware of your speech habits,
and be clear about the conversational style you’d like to have as part of your personal brand.
20
does Your
calendar support
Your success?
do you feel overwhelmed by having too much to do in too little time? If
you want to accomplish more without spending longer at your desk or
laptop, you may need a better way to manage your schedule. But it’s difficult to rethink how you keep your calendar if everything just feels like a blur.
To revise the way you manage your calendar, begin with an assessment of
exactly what you’re doing with all those hours at work. To get a more accurate look at how you’re employing your time, keep a detailed log for a week or two.
Throughout each day, record what you do and how many minutes you spend
on each activity. When you study your log, you may be surprised by how
much of each week is devoted to things that don’t really matter.
Once you have a better handle on where your time is going, you can make
adjustments to help you become more productive. Your calendar can become
a more powerful tool for keeping you focused on your highest priorities and
making good use of your energy, as well as your time.
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These strategies can help you rethink
your calendar
My client Gina* is a successful executive who earns more money, and makes
bigger decisions, than she ever dreamed possible. From “360 review” inter-
views with several of her colleagues and clients, I know that she is widely seen as energetic, compassionate, and very smart.
But Gina came to coaching because she felt like her work life was out of
control. She was spending long hours at the office, but she didn’t feel efficient and her backlog of work was growing. She often arrived late to meetings and
worried constantly about forgetting something important. And she was trou-
bled by a sense that she didn’t have time to focus on the big challenges she saw down the road for her team.
I asked Gina to take careful notes, for just two weeks, of how she actu-
ally employed her time in the office. As she reviewed her carefully kept log, she was startled by the true picture of her work patterns. She saw that she
spent way too much time on low-value e-mail, and she let herself be frequently hijacked from her planned activities. She’d long been proud of her open door
policy and reputation as a responsive colleague. But when she looked at how
frequently she was interrupted, she understood the high cost. Gina was devot-
ing relatively little attention to her most critical goals.
She decided that a key to becoming more efficient and less stressed would
be to change the way she approached her calendar. To begin, we talked about
how Gina’s work life is shaped by a complex pattern of commitments. As each
day goes along, she continues to make promises and enter into agreements.
On a typical day she might say “yes” to several meetings, swear to make prog-
ress on a major project, and agree to review multiple drafts from anxious colleagues. She’d put the meetings on her calendar and maybe even block out
time for her most pressing work. But then, all too often, her attention would be swept up by calls, visits from coworkers, and minor crises. She might go for hours without even glancing at her full calendar.
The log helped Gina see how frequently she missed deadlines because she
was ignoring her calendar. And she had an “Aha!” moment. She realized that
every time she was late or a no-show, another person might be inconvenienced
or disappointed. She said, “I finally understood that one reason I felt so anxious is that I was going through life letting people down.”
Gina decided to get serious about treating her calendar as a primary tool
for managing both her time and her commitments. During a period of several
does Your calendar support Your success?
97
months, she gradually rebuilt some work habits, learned new scheduling tech-
niques, and found ways to focus more attention on her highest priorities.
Once she rebuilt her relationship with her calendar, Gina felt more in control and much less stressed. These scheduling tips were helpful to Gina and they
may help you:
→ Take time to plan. Look at your calendar first thing every
morning and frequently throughout the day so that you can
envision what lies ahead, complete necessary preparation for
the next event, and spot any problems. Notice the gaps between
appointments and decide in advance how to use that available
time to accomplish your most pressing tasks.
→ Coordinate with your “to-do” list. As you look at
your task
list, batch similar kinds of action items, like phone calls or
brief e-mails. Then schedule blocks of time to work through
each batch. For example, if you have to make a lot of phone
calls, schedule one-hour blocks for quickly getting through
your call list.
→ Match your calendar to your body clock. Many people find
that they are more efficient at some times of the day than at
others. Gina knew that her mind is sharpest in the morning
and that she often feels too tired to think clearly by late after-
noon. But she saw from her log that she often spent her morn-
ing hours answering routine e-mail, visiting with colleagues,
and handling relatively simple administrative tasks. She’d put
off her most challenging and important work until the end
of the day, often staying late into the night when she was too
exhausted to think straight. So she reorganized her routine to
dedicate more of her high-quality morning hours to her top
projects. Several days a week she would close her door and
ignore e-mail for a couple of hours. She said the new practice
changed her life.
→ Push for shorter meetings. Would you have more time for
your top projects if you didn’t have to go to so many meetings?
Chances are that some of your regular meetings take longer
than they should. And if you’re frustrated by the wasted time,
other participants probably are as well. So even if you aren’t
chairperson, you may be able to convince your colleagues to
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experiment with quicker meetings. For example, if a meeting
normally takes an hour, propose restructuring so that it lasts
only 45 minutes.
→ Resist distraction. Once your plan for the day is in place, your
next big challenge may be to avoid being hijacked by phone
calls, e-mails, visitors, and your own compulsion to multitask.
To be more efficient, you may need to overcome old habits,
like checking e-mail every 10 minutes or answering the phone
every time it rings. Your log will help you notice where your
plans tend to go awry. Sometimes honoring your commitments
means learning how to fight off other requests and temptations.
→ Renegotiate your schedule as you go along. The demands
you face change constantly, and life does get in the way of
your carefully planned agenda. Your goal is not to be a slave
to your calendar, but rather to be impeccable in the way you
use it to manage your commitments. When you’re faced with
the unexpected, you can often renegotiate dates and deadlines.
Gina found life to be less stressful once she learned to anticipate
scheduling problems and work out alternative plans.
→ Align your time and priorities. Your well-kept calendar can
provide a clear picture of where your time goes. As you look at
it, regularly ask whether the distribution of your time is con-
sistent with your priorities. Is most of your time going to your
most important activities? Are you saying “yes” to requests
when your list of current objectives suggests that you should
decline? And are you building in time for things that really
matter to you personally, such as working out at the gym and
other ways to take care of yourself? As you schedule, remember
to honor not only the promises you make to other people, but
also the commitments you make to yourself.
→ Say “no.” A chunk of your day may be devoted to activities that
feel urgent but aren’t really very important. Maybe you agree to
attend meetings or undertake projects not because they mat-
ter to you, but because you want to be nice, because you like to
avoid conflict, or because “yes” is just your knee-jerk response.
If so, you should probably get better at saying “no.” And say-
ing “no” gets easier with practice as you find ways to tactfully
does Your calendar support Your success?
99
decline proposals and opportunities that aren’t consistent with
your priorities. One useful technique is to pause before you say
“yes,” in order to ask yourself what you’ll give up if you don’t
say “no.” For example, if a coworker invites you to a meeting
that sounds kind of interesting, hesitate before saying “okay,”
and think about what else you could do with that hour.
21
Prioritize Your
Priorities
In Chapter 20 we talked about how my client Gina developed better control
of her work life by rethinking the way she approached her calendar. When
Gina committed to more actively managing her schedule, one of her goals was
to devote more of her work time to her most important activities. But when I
asked Gina to name her highest priorities, she had a hard time deciding what
should go on that list.
It is tempting to just react to whatever seems most pressing as a day goes
along, and Gina often fell into that trap. She sometimes lost track of her more significant objectives because at any given moment they felt less urgent than other people’s demands for action or attention.
Realizing she didn’t have enough time or energy to go around, Gina
resolved to think more carefully about how to flag high-value work. She
decided that once a week she’d arrive early near her downtown office and
spend an hour or so at her favorite coffee shop, sorting out her immediate priorities as she reviewed her calendar and project list. Here is the seven-point
system that Gina uses stay in touch with her priorities, and a similar
approach might work for you:
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Prioritize Your Priorities
101
1) Remember the big picture. A good foundation for setting your
priorities is to draft a list or statement about what matters most.
Gina wrote a “career vision,” which was basically a list of her key
values and work-life goals. It included items like, “nurture my
team members,” “stay current in my field,” and “have time for a
rich social life.” Gina keeps a copy of her vision with her calendar
and looks at it during her weekly priority review session.
2) Prioritize work categories. Gina knew that the items on her
lengthy task list weren’t equally productive. But she tended to
vacillate in gauging their importance. Her particular problem
was that she was easily sidetracked by other people’s sense of
urgency. She decided to keep her assignments on a steady course
by sorting activities into these four categories:
Tier One: Important to her bosses, to their goals, and to
their success.
Tier Two: Important to the goals and the success of her
direct reports.
Tier Three: Related to her routine management responsi-
bilities, like human resource and budget matters.
Tier X: Stuff that could be done by other people.
3) Create a daily “List of 3.” A technique that made a big differ-
ence in Gina’s efficiency was her new practice of starting every
morning with a list of three tasks that must be done by day’s end.
These are t
he items that are so useful or important that their
completion may make the day a success, no matter what else
happens. She writes the list on an index card and posts it where
she’ll see it frequently.
4) Schedule time for high priorities. Gina makes standing
appointments with herself and blocks out time on her calendar
for both her List of 3 and tasks related to her Tier One projects.
Because she feels most productive in the morning, she often sets
aside and closely guards a block of time between 10 o’clock and
noon. On some days she’ll use this precious time block to con-
centrate on a single project, and on others she’ll spend the hours
moving quickly through a number of small steps for a variety of
important assignments.
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5) Schedule low value time for lower-value work. Administrative
and other routine tasks may be of lower priority than your major
projects, but they still have to be completed in a timely way.
Because Gina feels less efficient late in the day, she sets aside some
afternoon hours for handling this kind of work. She often makes
a game of it by seeing how fast she can speed through her list.
And she rewards herself, sometimes by leaving a little early, when
she completes certain tedious reports.
6) Find the biggest bang for your buck. Some things aren’t top
priority in the grand scheme of things, but they’re worth doing
immediately because of how much trouble they’ll save you in the
long run. For example, if you suspect that a quick explanatory
meeting would allow you to calm down a disgruntled colleague,
you might want to add it to your List of 3. If you wait, the prob-
lem may fester and ultimately the misunderstanding will require
much more of your energy to resolve.
7) Get rid of clutter. Some activities on your “to-do” list or cal-
endar just aren’t of high enough priority to be worth doing. Yet
they tend to linger on your list, sometimes distracting you or
making you feel guilty. It can feel liberating to get real about
your odds of finishing these low value action items. Gina now