Episode #249 – Wish You Had More Time? Why Having Less is a Good Thing

Forget burning the midnight oil to catch up on "unfinished" research, case preps, and admin tasks—Parkinson's Law says your work expands to fill the time you give it. 

Hold on…

LET ME FINISH.

80% of your results come from 20% of your effort, and despite the popular opinion of many, it is OKAY to embrace B minus work (Yep, I said it and I’m not taking it back).

Because perfection is overrated and you are bending yourself backwards for it.

Love,

Sari

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“You knew you only had 40 hours. And by the way, you do have a side gig. It's called family, friends, taking care of yourself, resting. That's your side gig. But how would you spend those 40 hours? I think you would stop with all the bullshit and you'd get down to business. See, when we have all this space, we think that's a good thing and it's actually the opposite. It's not a good thing.”

sari de la motte

EPISODE #249 TRANSCRIPTION

Well, today we're talking about how you wish you had more time, but why having less time is actually a good thing. And I was going to title this podcast, Why Longer Isn't Better, but then I thought all your minds would go into the gutter. But I will say that really it has nothing to do with length. It's what you do with it. Okay? Enough of that. If you're not following me, good because my mind just went to the gutter.

But I'll tell you why I brought this up because... Well, not that. That whole idea of time and having less. I was working with a client on time blocking, which we're going to talk about today, and we wanted some time in their schedule because they do on average one depo a week. And I said, "Okay, well how much time do you want to put in your schedule to prep for a depo? I mean, how much time do you normally take?"

And they said, "Well, two days." And I said, "Two days, are you serious?" And they're like, "Well, yeah. I mean, I get distracted so I plan for the extra time." And that's when I said, "Well, that's why you're getting distracted. It's because you have the extra time."

Now, before I explain what I mean, think about those of you who work, which is pretty much all of you, evenings and weekends. You tend to say things like, "Well, I have so much work that I have to work evenings and weekends", and what I would tell you is "No, because you work evenings and weekends is why you have so much work."

Now, allow me to introduce you to the Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's Law says your work will expand to fill the time allotted. Meaning if you have two hours to do something, it will take you two hours to do it.

If you have two days to do something, it will take you two days to do it. Meaning you'll expand, even if you could get ready for a depo in four hours, if you have two days, you will take two days. The research says that we tend to think about how much time there is available, that we can allot for a task, versus how much time is actually needed to get the task done.

If you tell yourself you have two days to prep for a depo, it will take two days. And if you tell yourself that you have evenings and weekends, you will work evenings and weekends. I mean, just think through this, right?

So if you're sitting there and you're working on something and you're not really getting where you want to go, you go, "Well, I can work on it tonight or I can get it done on Sunday." There, right there, you've let your brain believe there's extra time, and so now I'm going to tootle around and do some bullshit work and go get some coffee and do the things I know that I could do this later. That's Parkinson's Law in motion.

I often use the example of what if you only had $40 a week for groceries? I know all of you have been in a position where that's true, in college or otherwise. You had to make a certain amount of money last the entire week. Now, when you only have $40 to spend on groceries or anything else, then you are going to get really choosy about what you're buying. You're not just going to go and get the Oreos and pick up a pack of beer. You're going to be like, "All right, I got to make this stretch. So I got to get really strategic about what it is that I'm going to buy at the grocery store."

What if you did the same with your time?

What if you said, "I'm only going to work 40 hours"? Wouldn't you also have the same thing happen? What if you said it is not an option to work in the evenings or on the weekends? What if you had a side gig and you had to show up at that side gig and so you literally didn't have the time to actually spend on extra work from your day job?

You knew you only had 40 hours, and by the way, you do have a side gig. It's called family, friends, taking care of yourself, resting. That's your side gig. But how would you spend those 40 hours? I think you would stop with all the bullshit and you'd get down to business. See, when we have all this space, we think that's a good thing and it's actually the opposite. It's not a good thing.

So Brooke Castillo, a life coach that makes like 40 bazillion dollars a year, talks about how she was talking with someone about this principle and the person said..

"Well, we just went down from five work days to four work days, but I'm afraid that by doing that, that they won't get all their work done. So we have to go back to five days a week." And she said, "No. If they don't get all their work done, go down to three", which is exactly what I'm talking about.

The more we containerize our time, the more precious it becomes and the more effort I spend in trying to make sure that I'm using it exactly how I want use it. I mean think about again when you didn't have a lot of money, how you were careful with every penny and then those of us now who've "made it", I see any stupid shit on Facebook and I'm buying it. I'm like, "Why am I buying this?" I don't think twice about it. I've got the money. I should think twice about it. There's better things I could be spending my money on. But notice the difference.

Scarcity is really helpful when it comes to prioritizing your tasks. Less is more. Less time you have, the more picky you need to be about what you choose to spend your time on. And that is what many of you do not understand.

We think that if we have more time, we'll get more done, but in reality we'll just have more to do. The more time you allow for work stuff, the more work that's going to fill that time. Are you following me? All right, so if you're with me, how do we do this? How do we do more with less time? I got seven things for you.

First one, use the Pareto principle to decide what you should be spending your time on.

I just got the opportunity to co-present with Malorie Peacock of Cowen Peacock Rodriguez firm. She's in the same firm with Michael Cowen and she's a fantastic speaker by the way. Just highly recommend her. If anybody wants somebody to be talking to an audience really about anything, although they specialize in trucking, she's fantastic. Don't hesitate to reach out to her. But she talked about in this presentation that we both did, the Pareto principle and the Pareto principle is, 80% of your results come from 20% of your effort.

So my question to you is, going back to our $40, where do you get the biggest bang for your buck? When you spend time on this "activity"? What's the one activity that if you spend time there, it produces just a shit ton of amazing results? Like for me, that's strategizing and envisioning for my work, my podcasting, creating content. Every time I put that stuff out in the world, I just get a shit ton back. That's your zone of genius. When we were speaking together, I was talking about how your zone of excellence, things you're really good at is the most dangerous zone. It's more dangerous than your zone of incompetence or competence even.

Why? Because it sucks us in. We keep doing things good at, but the things that we are a genius at, that's when magic happens.

So think to yourself, "What are the things that when I spend 80% of my time there, they produce, if I spend even a small amount of time there, they produce 80% of my results?" So spend more time there now because that is where you get the biggest bang for your buck.

Number two, use time blocking.

So what do I mean by that? So many of you will just schedule stuff wherever. I don't even get this. This doesn't even compute in my brain. Somebody calls and you'll take the call right then? Or somebody wants to meet with you and you'll just tell your secretary, put them wherever? Uh-uh.

This is what leads to distractions.

We know that multitasking can lead to a 40% decrease in productivity. So trying to do a bunch of things at once or being constantly pulled off tasks is going to reduce your productivity.

I was just recently diagnosed with ADHD. I couldn't believe it. I literally couldn't believe it. I graduated magna cum laude. I've always been a good student. I'm highly organized, and what I found is that women are just chronically underdiagnosed, especially "high functioning women". But I do know that a lot of the things really fit for me because I would consistently always wanted to be organized so that I didn't lose track of things. I was easily distracted. And just knowing this was just so important, and I know a lot of you have ADHD, and so when you are time blocking, what you do is you create a structured environment.

So, "Here's what I'm doing during this time." Not only that, you take bigger projects and you have them in smaller chunks, which we know the brain really loves and it forces you to prioritize. It forces you to prioritize.

So the other thing that time blocking does is that it works with your energy, at least it should, meaning you should be recognizing where are you most energized and what kinds of things energize you and when do you have low energy? And managing your calendar around that.

Many of you come in, you get all of your stupid shit done in the morning and then you can do all your creative time in the afternoon, but in the afternoon you could fall asleep and you never get to it because you're so damn tired. Switch that around.

Okay, so what is time blocking? It's deciding ahead of time when you'll do what. That's really it. So for me, I know that the first Monday of every month is for meetings. I do my big staff meeting, I set the vision for the month. I meet with my director of operations and we talk about any business stuff that we need. I meet with my accountant and we go over all the books and then I pay the bills and manage the bookkeeping as much as the part that I do. I just know that I do that every Monday. I don't have to wonder, or every first Monday, "Well, when should I meet with my staff? We really should meet with the staff." No, first Monday of every month, that's what I do. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are my time with clients. Wednesdays are H-to-H days. That's when I teach in the membership. Tuesdays and Thursdays for my other clients, my mastermind clients, my coaching clients, and to get stuff done.

Friday mornings I meet with some of my coaches and I take Friday afternoon off. Friday mornings when I'm not meeting with my coaches, that's when I schedule my doctor's appointments. I never have to wonder, "Well, I need to go see the dentist. When should I do that?" I know exactly when I should do that. So I called them. I say, "When's your first Friday morning open?" It's so simple and it's structured. We have a client, again, the one I was working with and we decided that they're going to have a staff meeting every Monday at lunch, and then they're going to have a morning and an afternoon for depo prep. I talked them out of two days. And then this time is for double prep and this time is for creative time, and just even creating that made the person relax because now everything has a container.

When you talk about home organization, the number one thing they'll tell you is the number one reason why people have messy homes is because places don't have containers. Not just actual containers, but just a place where they belong. If you don't know where something goes, then you're going to leave it wherever, but if everything has a home, then you don't have a messy house because we just need to put the thing back where its home is.

So time blocking is huge because what we do is we put our big rocks in first. Stephen Covey talks about an experiment where they had all these big rocks and then they had some sand and they had people come up and try to fit all of it into a container and nobody could get all of it to fit in the one container until one person figured out if you put the big rocks in first, then you pour the sand over the top and you kind of just shake it and everything. So the sand goes in the nooks and the crannies and you can absolutely fill it all in. It's when you try to put the little things in first and then try to fit in your big rocks that we have a problem.

So you put in the things you want to be doing first, your Pareto principle things first, and then whatever's left, you devote to the things that really you have to do them, but they're not your best use of your time. But in every life, a little stuff needs to fall that we don't love doing.

Number three, manage expectations.

So that means talking to your team, "Hey, every Monday morning, I'm not going to come until this time. Do not send me emails or texts. I'm out of commission." That means saying once people call the office that you handle that and book them during one of my two open times for phone calls, do not pass that through to my office. It means designing with clients ahead of time how you work. One of the things, two things that Malorie does that I just thought was just brilliant is one, she does not give her cell phone out to clients. For a variety of reasons, but she tells them why.

She says, "When you have my cell phone and you call me and I'm working on someone else's file, I have to stop working on their file to talk to you. Not to mention I don't have your file in front of me so I don't have all the pertinent information. Would you want me to take a phone call from someone else while I was working on your file?"

They get it immediately, which is also why she doesn't take unscheduled calls. I just got an email today from someone I thought was so interesting because at the end of this email it said this little post script, I won't say who this is from, but it has a little asterisks and it says, "Please note that our attorneys do not take unscheduled calls or unscheduled walk-ins. If you wish to speak us by phone or set a meeting, please text or email us and we'll be happy to set a time."

What a way to design ahead of time what you will and won't do. That's what we mean by managing expectations ahead of time so that you have your time and it is protected.

Number four, get comfortable with B minus work.

If you expect to do A+ on absolutely everything, you're going to have a very short career and burn out quick. You cannot do A+ work on everything. Could I take two days and create the most kick-ass training that ever kicked ass? I used to say yes. Actually, I actually said that right now. My answer's going to be no, because now I know that it doesn't have to take me that long and I'd probably fuck around and there'd be too much time and I wouldn't do it. Where I know that I can do a really good training in 90 minutes to three hours. It may not be the best training, although now I've trained myself, it probably is. Then maybe I've had tons and tons of time, but you got to get used to doing some B- work.

Not everything has to be perfect, and you're going to find when you only have 40 hours in a week that you got to get real good at doing some B- work.

Number five, realize that you cannot do it all, nor should you.

So many of you keep making yourself wrong, especially women, because you can't get it all done and so you think you're lazy or you're stupid or that everybody else has it figured out. The issue is there are 168 hours in a week and no matter how much you want to try to shove 400 hours of work into 168 hours, it ain't ever going to happen. It just doesn't happen.

Stop living in fantasy land and telling yourself it could be done if you were just more organized. It can't happen. You need to delete or delegate every damn thing you can, so that you are spending your time where you get the biggest bang for your buck.

Number six, commit.

Decide that your appointments with yourself are just as important, if not more important than the appointments you have with other people. Most of you would never blow off a client meeting or a meeting with a colleague or anything like that, but you blow off your appointments you make with yourself all the time. Don't do it. Commit that if you make an appointment and you write it on your calendar, you time block something that that is something you're going to commit to, just like if it was an appointment with somebody else, and also commit that you will not work evenings and weekends. Make that non-negotiable because that will create that scarcity which will actually focus you and you will get more done. I promise you.

I promise you, when you containerize your life, it immediately prioritizes things for you so that you get a lot more done because you don't have all the time in the world to futz around with it.

And number seven is experiment.

You may need less time, you may need more time. Maybe you put two afternoons a week for depo prep. Maybe you only need one afternoon. Maybe you decided on a two-hour staff meeting, but you only need a one hour or conversely, you need two hours. Experiment. Your first time map, which is what I call my time blocking, is not going to be your only time map, and you're going to have different time maps for different times of year, so maybe when the weeks that you're at a speaking engagement, you have a different time map. You don't try to shove it into your current time map because that's a completely different week. There's travel, there's all kinds of things. When you're in trial, time map goes out the window because that's trial. But if you need more time versus less, I just want you to ask, check in. "Am I trying to do A+ work or is it just good enough?"

Because lots of time you think you need more time when you actually don't. So less is more. You can do more with less time because it creates this scarcity which forces you to prioritize and not willy-nilly and put your work wherever, and that my friend is going to solve so many of your problems.

Check it out and report back. I'd love to hear how it's working for you. Talk next week.