Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the category “Time Management”

29 May 2008
1 Comment

Vision, Rainbows and Pots of Gold

I gave a presentation today at a MDHub250meeting in Brighton at the Metropole.

I was given the topic of Operations, and the audience was primarily owners and CEOs of companies less than three yrs old. I found it interesting that within about five minutes of planning my talk (my slot was about forty five minutes) I began to question whether the concept of ‘operations’ in business-terms still exists.

I found myself continually bouncing around two or three areas in my thinking:

  1. Mission, Vision and Strategy
  2. Time management and value-adding
  3. Communication and engagement

Obviously, just a fleeting look at this blog makes it no surprise that these areas came up. However, my role as CEO of Madgex means that the team of fantastic people who work for the company are continually ‘doing’ the operations of the company and I work with the rest of the senior management team to deliver improvements to those operations.

And yet, it’s the three areas above that we most discuss in our 121s or coaching sessions. These areas that (rightly) take up so much management time and focus.

Read more…

Posted in Communication, Time Management, Vision and Goal Setting and tagged , , ,
20 May 2008
3 Comments

Why is Time Management so hard?

This was the question that first made me want to start blogging. It felt like the unanswerable question. It felt like the question that lots of people would think they could answer, but none truly could.

It’s probably about a year since I was thinking those thoughts. I’ve done a lot of reading, given a lot of presentations, had a lot of conversations and done a lot of thinking since then.

A number of times I think I’ve got the answer. Someone has told me on paper why it is so hard. I love Mark Forster’s view in Do It Tomorrow:

‘Imagine the Reactive Brain as a lizard sitting on a rock in the sun. If it sees a threat, such as a predator, it scuttles under the rock and freezes. If it sees a juicy bug which has strayed to close, it will snap it up. It doesn’t have to think about it. It acts as a pre-programmed reaction. It really doesn’t care that much at all about the Rational Brain’s plans. The only thing it cares about is whether they constitute a threat or a nice juicy bug.’

I accept Brian Tracy’s admonishments in Eat That Frog

But I feel like I am possessed. Don’t get me wrong. I’m good. I’m efficient. I am incredibly mindful. But sometimes (a lot of the time) I (imagine) I feel like I have Tourette’s. I can’t help no focussing. I feel like there’re two little children inside of me goading each other on to be naughty and not focus on the Frog.

Posted in Mindfulness, Time Management and tagged ,

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