Today’s Bad Advice: Schedule Fun (and everything else)

Fun things are fun, but sometimes they conflict with the things we have to do.  I say nay nay.  You deserve fun time just as much as the next guy.  But what do you do when you want some fune time and you have so much other stuff to do?  You schedule it, just like anything else you have to do.

If you are working through what you need to do, there should also be time for fun.  If you schedule it, you know when it’s coming, it’s like a reward for getting everything else you did first.

So schedule it, and then get out and have some fun

Today’s Bad Advice: there is no separation between work and life. It’s all “Life-Work”

I keep hearing people say ‘I dont have time for that” or “I get so busy with work I dont have time for myself” or something similar…but I think it’s bullshit.

There is no separation between work and life, and there shouldn’t be.  Your brain doesn’t know how to keep work things separate from personal things, to your brain they are all THINGS, all IMPORTANT and all need to be DONE.  So if your brain doesn’t make a distinction, then why should you?

Everything that you have to DO, want to DO, think about DOING, might DO someday / maybe…all of those things should be handled the same way: out of your head, into a system.  Every call, every errand, every email…doesn’t matter why you need to do…just put them all into your “trusted system” and knock them out when you are doing like minded things.

For example: today’s calls list for me looked something like this:

  • Call Client 1
  • Call Client 2
  • Call Book Keeper
  • Call friend about Lakers game
  • Call pharmacy to refill prescription
  • Call Mom to confirm flight times

I made all of my calls from the car between meetings and I got them all done.  Didn’t matter which were for work and which were personal, I got my “life-work” done in one fail swoop. 

Got 5 minutes? Don’t check your email!

When you have five minutes to spare, don’t waste it on processing emails. Save your emails to process in a batch all together and spend 5 minutes actually doing something. Email isn’t doing, it’s often a precursor to actually doing. Instead spend the time doing and not just processing your email.

I look for calls I need to make, documents I need to review, web pages I was supposed to check out…anything on my “to-do” list(s) that I can actually get done and knock that out.

You’ll be surprised how many things you actually get done while waiting around for other things that other people are getting done.

Today’s Bad Advice: your system for organization is only as good as your trust and faith in the system

You can have the best system in the world, but if you don’t rely on it and use it faithfully it all still just bounces around in your head and keeps you from being productive.