Joelle K. Jay

best practices

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Why We Need To Talk Work/Life Balance

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Recently when I was giving a keynote talk to a Silicon Valley tech company, I asked the question, “How many of you want a better work/life balance?” Every hand in the room shot up.

I then asked, “How many of you believe you have work/life balance?” Every hand in the room dropped down.

Test it. What if I ask you?

Do you want better work/life balance?

Do you believe you have it?

If you are one of the lucky ones who are living their lives with a sense of serenity and ease, be sure to pass on your secrets! And if you’re not, know that you can get there. Either way, often the first step on the path to achieving that elusive work/life balance is to talk about it.

Talk to Your Friends and Co-Workers

            When I encourage you to pass on your work/life balance secrets, I actually do mean it – and if you’re seeking those secrets, ask around for ideas.

It may sound too simple, but I can tell you from experience that it works. The breakthroughs you so desperately want may be only a conversation away. All you have to do is take the initiative.

In that Silicon Valley room, seeing how the participants felt about work/life balance, I gave them some time to talk about it. In small groups they simply shared their best ideas – the ways they, individually, had saved themselves time and found better balance. In the span of just a few minutes, ideas were shared, collected, and adapted around the room. You could practically see the light bulbs going off as participants racked up ideas to save themselves hours and hours of time.

One participant learned how to better set expectations. Her co-worker at the table told her how she starts every meeting by telling everyone exactly how much time she had, and she sticks to it – saving herself at least an hour of meeting overflow time per day in the process. What would you do with an extra hour a day? Could setting expectations in some area of your life help you, too?

Another participant discovered she could save two hours a day by shifting her work hours to avoid traffic. Bay Area commutes are notoriously long, and for a driver whose commute could last 90 minutes each way, a simple change in those work hours could save her, her company and her family (day care!) time and money. Would your company prefer to have you wasting time in traffic, or contributing meaningfully to work on a slightly different schedule? Would your family be happier to have you home more? Would you? If your company is open to flexible work hours, this is something worth bringing up to management.

Perhaps neither of these suggestions fit for you. If you’ve read this far and aren’t getting any new ideas about setting expectations or shifting your work hours, you’ve proven my point: you need to get out there and find your own new ideas. Find the ideas that do help you break through. Want work/life balance? Talk about it. Ask for ideas. Go get your light bulb moment.

Talk to your Partner

Maybe what you need at this stage isn’t to get more ideas, or maybe you already have ideas but just need to put them to work.

One of the key people to involve in this discussion is your partner – your significant other or even your business partner. These are people whose lives are intimately entwined with your own. Are there agreements you need to make? Changes? Requests? Many people go through their days stressed and strapped for time, assuming there’s no way to change the situation, but it could be that if you have the courage to talk to your partner, the two of you can come up with new solutions.

Talk to Your Boss

Just as we make assumptions about what is or isn’t possible with our partners, we can also make assumptions about what is and isn’t possible at work.

Again, when I think about all the leaders I have coached to save them time and help them balance their lives for a more fulfilling and impactful approach, the ideas start rolling.

There was Tom, who brought his baby to work at times when his wife was traveling.

There was Renee, who cut back on travel by mastering the virtual meeting.

There was Kurt, who gave up endless hours of stress, worry and busyness by focusing his role and reconfiguring his team.

As another reminder, the point isn’t that these strategies are the ones that would work for you – although they might – but that all of these strategies came out of new agreements these leaders developed with their boss.

Having a discussion around what you want your job and home life combination to look like is a great step in the right direction. In doing this, you will be able to design the best strategy for your time and find the balance you never thought possible.

Let’s Start Talking!

If you’re ready to create a better balance, try these 7 shortcuts for maximizing your time. You’ll be amazed at what’s possible when you do.

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Balance Isn’t a Myth: 3 Ways for Women Leaders to Get Their Work-Life Balance Back in Check

When it comes to succeeding at work and home, many women feel they must work twice as hard – because often they do. However, sustaining a healthy and happy way of life, while not losing your sanity, is possible. You don’t have to pull back on your professional goals or pare back on your personal ambitions. You can align your home life and your work life in a more effective way. You can make everything fit.

Balance means prioritizing the various elements of your life, with a sense of peace and confidence that you’re making the right decisions for yourself, your career, and the people who matter most in your life.

The problem for busy leaders is there’s simply too much to do. The pattern is familiar to most working adults in this fast-paced modern world: Put in a jam-packed day at work and race off to a chock-full evening with the family, friends, fitness, church, charities, personal goals, grown and learning, and hobbies. You can’t get everything done–but you can’t not get everything done, either. It is exhausting.

For the many women that wrestle with these dynamics, they often turn to two options: Scaling back responsibilities at work to support their lives at home, risking letting go of professional goals, or drive twice as hard to make it all happen, and, in the process, drive themselves into the ground. In which of these situations is the woman, or her friends and family affected by the decision, really winning?

Resolving this dilemma requires three important things: A belief it can be done, a fresh perspective, and a few good, practical ideas for how to get better balance in your life.

First, believe it can be done. The same characteristics that make you an exceptional leader can be an advantage in balancing your life. That might include the following: aligning your personal and professional vision, being decisive about your priorities, taking action planning seriously to create efficiencies, getting clear about your strengths and values, learning ever-better systems and building a personal support team around you, and committing to seeing new possibilities available to you when you keep an open mind.

Find a new perspective. Many of our clients who lead extremely busy lives have been able to settle into a more present and peaceful mindset by applying the skills and strategies that work so well in business to their personal life. You already contain these characteristics and view them as your strengths – simply redirect and apply these assets to reach other facets of your life.

Get practical to get better balance. Planning and prioritizing your time is another way to gain control and balance in your life. Think consciously about how to spend your time, decide which tasks matter most to you and your organization, and then drop or outsource the rest. By doing this, you can reduce your involvement in low-value tasks. You can actually cut your desk work by an average of six hours a week, shave meeting time by an average of two hours a week, and free up nearly a fifth of your time (an average of one full day a week). By doing this, you make more time for what matters in your life. Imagine you had one full day a week to fill as you seem fit, giving time and energy for all parts of your life so nothing is left behind. Perhaps balance does stand a chance, after all.

With the right mindset, the right strategy, and the right information, you can enjoy your personal life and pursue your professional dreams.

 

The previous article appeared on Inc.com as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

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7 Foolproof Practices For Maximizing Your Time

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

We need to think differently about time. It’s not as if we haven’t been trying. Time-management courses have been around for decades, and work/life balance has become a clich. Some question whether work/life balance is even possible.

Others argue we shouldn’t be talking about balance at all, but time or life choices. Many people feel they don’t even have a choice about their time in a fast-paced, high-pressure world, which makes the whole about which vocabulary to use entirely moot.

The fact is, you will never have control of your time unless you take control of your time. That means stopping long enough to get a handle on what’s happening, reflecting on whether it’s working, and learning new ways to maximize the time you’ve got.

 

Here are a few shortcut strategies for maximizing your time that I teach my executives and entrepreneurs–they’re simple and you can do them in your head or on a piece of paper:

Modeling. Modeling your time means figuring out what the ideal schedule would look like. You sit down with a pencil and a sheet of paper and sketch the way you’d like the next stretch of time to look. In just a few minutes you can design your ideal week, or even day, month or year. It will take time to turn the model into reality, but now you know what’s possible.

Define your time. This means figuring out what “types” of days you need, just as you have different kinds of clothing (professional acquaintances, neighbors, college buddies), you can also have different kinds of days.

For example, types of days can be: meeting days (when you are available to meet with others), work days (you keep to yourself to do your own work), flex days (a flexible day to provide a cushion for spillover activities), admin days (catching up on paperwork), or days off (for rest and renewal). You can also go by half days or even two-hour blocks if a full day is too long.

Defining your time allows you to get into one mind-set for a particular type of activity and stay there, so you can find your rhythm.

 

Make appointments with yourself. It’s a strategy so simple I’m always amazed more people don’t use it more often–set a meeting with a specific purpose and be there to get the job done. Some tasks might include: e-mail catch up, coaching appointment, read up on industry news, review financials, or strategic planning. For example, you might set aside the first Monday of every month to review financials.

Breaking time rules. You can escape the rules of time, like that you must work 8-10 hours per day or that you must be available by phone and e-mail at all times. You might start defining the length of your workday by the result you achieve instead of the hours you’ve worked. Time rules don’t necessarily mean working less, but they do mean working with more freedom and choice.

Making time rules. For efficiency and quality of life, you can apply your own rules to how you’ll use your time. Here are a few examples from other leaders and entrepreneurs I have worked with:

  • Never open e-mail before planning the day.
  • Never schedule a meeting before 9 or after 4.
  • Turn off my computer after 7pm.
  • Spend no more than one evening away from home per week for a work event.

Time rules, even small ones, have the advantage of being concrete and explicit, making it easier to hold yourself accountable.

 

Replace multitasking with “unitasking.” Mutlitasking is a fact of life in a high-speed world, but many studies have shown that it actually cuts productivity. The strategy behind “unitasking” is to do one thing at a time, even for a short time. This will improve concentration, calm you down, and allow you to get more done in less time.

Considering that on average only about three minutes out of every hour are used with maximum focus, you can improve your rate of concentration with just five minutes at a time. Then fifteen. Then twenty. You don’t have to unitask all the time, just when it counts.

 

Power down. This means turning off technology. Free yourself the excess–just because you can take your laptop with you in the car and perch it on the passenger seat doesn’t mean you should. Not only does misuse of technology undermine the quality of your work, it also can strip away your gains. So just take the occasional step to power down when you can, turn off the technology, and do what will bring you progress and fulfillment.

 

The goal here isn’t to stock you up on more complicated notions of how to manage time. Instead, these strategies are meant to take what you already know about time and twist it–just a little bit–so you see powerful new possibilities. These shortcuts for maximizing your time are your exit off the fast track. You can do things much more quickly, easily, and enjoyably than the rest of the world by taking a different route–one of your own design!

 

Related: 5 Quick Steps You Can Take To Find Your Focus

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Best of the Blog: July Edition

It’s always funny how fast the summer months fly by. Between work travel and family vacation it’s easy to blink and find yourself surrounded by fall! In the spirit of the first practice I outline in The Inner Edge, it’s important to get clarity before we transition into something new – in this case, August. By taking a look back at some of the lessons we’ve already learned we can fully process them and take them forward with us.

In the book I also note that in order to get clarity we first must explore the answers. Following that sentiment, let’s explore some of the answers we’ve discussed on this blog over the last month:

 

How to find what kind of gift you want to be. In “Leading on the Edge: A Quick ‘How To’” I offer a definition of what personal leadership is, and give a few quick tips on how to lead in a way that uses your own unique strengths, or “gifts.” Essentially, as a leader you have many gifts to offer. The real gift you have to give is yourself. What kind of a gift do you want to be?

 

Spreading your enthusiasm to your team. You’ve begun to tackle personal leadership, and you’re feeling more motivated than ever. So how do you spread that motivation to your team of employees? In “3 Ways to Extend Your Inspiration to the Rest of Your Team and Employees” I offer three unique ways to get the initiative going. The first method I mention is perfect for summer as we tackle summer reading lists: start a book club. If you’re reading a leadership book that’s inspiring you, why not invite your team to read a chapter with you each week? You can meet to discuss important takeaways and brainstorm on ways to apply what you’re reading. In The Inner Edge there are specific exercises included with each chapter – why not invite everyone to participate?

 

Learn from a leader, ways to be more engaged in your work. I shared an interview I conducted with the wonderful Stephen M.R. Covey, who says that there are direct economic rewards that go along with functioning in a “high trust environment.” Learn more about what he means, and how you can cultivate that kind of environment in the workplace, from Why Leaders are Losing the Love and How to Get it Back: An Interview with Stephen M.R. Covey.

 

 

I hope this exploration of June gives you the clarity you need to take on August! Check back weekly for more leadership practices, tips, and more.

 

You can connect with Joelle on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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Go to the Calendar

Having trouble getting everything done? Come along with me on a trip. We’re going to the calendar.

“Going to the calendar” is a strategy I often recommend for leaders who want to make changes but aren’t quite sure they’ll be able to stick to them. Going to the calendar means literally

  • opening up your calendar,
  • turning on the PDA,
  • getting out your schedule,

or in any other way physically putting in front of you the written, concrete system you use to organize your life. Then you write down the commitments you’ve made, transferring them from your head to the page where they become real.

For example, Gloria wanted to set up what she called “Customer Contact” hours five hours a week, during which the only thing she would do would be to circulate among the customers in the winery she ran to discover what their experience was like. After three weeks of “flaking out,” as she put it, I made her go to the calendar and schedule those five hours a week. She wrote “Customer Contact” between four and five o’clock each day for the rest of the year. From them on, customer contact wasn’t just a good idea, it was an appointment she was scheduled to do. Her calendar never let her forget.

This strategy is most helpful if you use a calendar system that matches your strengths. Most calendars are arranged into tidy hour-sized boxes into which you’re supposed to compartmentalize your life. When you go to the calendar, give yourself permission to break out of the boxes. Just as you can control your time, you can also control your calendar. Don’t let it control you. Some examples:

Ann:    Every year I get a fresh paper calendar. I claim the days I want for myself and block them out with an opaque permanent marker. Then I use those “blackout dates” however I choose.

Nico:   Once I took a whole month of pages out right out my calendar. I had been wanting to take a vacation, but somehow it always got bumped. When the pages weren’t there, the time stayed free and for once I actually took that vacation.

Rick:    I gave a list of times to my assistant that I wanted to keep free for working on projects. Now my assistant turns down all requests for my time that interfere with those parameters.

Mitch:  My PDA locked me into a very linear way of thinking. Now I do all of my planning on a white board where I can scribble and draw and make diagrams; later I pin the ideas down into the system.

Peter:   I don’t like calendars at all. I think in terms of projects. I started a project wall where I can pin up all my action plans instead.  If you want to maximize your time, you do need to keep track of it by going to the calendar. You decide what that calendar should be.

Exercise

Think of something you’ve been wanting to do to achieve your vision. Go to the calendar now and figure out how you can make it happen. Be sure to put it in writing.

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview and to Order.

 

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The Dream Team

Many leaders have heard of a Mastermind or a Personal Support Team. Another beneficial team I recommend for leaders who want to excel is one I fondly call The Dream Team.

A dream team is a loose collection of advisors who help you get where you want to be as a leader. You turn to them because you know that on your path to success, they are further along than you. These might include people like

• leaders you admire
• leaders who have the positions you want to hold
• leaders who have the skills you want to have
• leaders who have achieved what you want to achieve.

You meet with them one by one to ask them questions, seek their guidance, and learn from their experience.

Think of your dream team like Fantasy Football team. You never actually assemble these people; in this respect they aren’t a functioning “team.” However, like a real dream team, every member of this group has been hand-selected because together, they represent the best of everything you need to be the leader you aspire to be.

To set up a dream team, you brainstorm all of the people who you think would be good members of a team whose sole purpose is to help you win at the “game” of achieving your vision. You take some time to analyze the different ways they might be able to help, make a plan for eliciting their support, and start meeting with them one by one to see what you can learn.

To create your Dream Team, use these six steps.

1. Choose the “game.”
“Choose the game” means get clear on specifically why you want a dream team. What do you want to learn from meeting with your dream team members? As always, the answer should be tied to your vision. The focus of the game is learning. On your dream team you’re the rookie, if only in this one area of your life.

2. Pick the “players.”
“Pick the players” means being thoughtful and strategic about who gets on the team. This is not the time to hang out with good buddies and old friends; it’s a time to branch out and build new relationships with people from whom you can truly learn. Among the group, it is helpful to have:

Advocates. Advocates champion you, encourage you, and contribute directly to your success, perhaps by introducing you to influential people or making you a part of their team.

Experts. Experts have information and knowledge you need to be successful. Instead of learning it all the hard way, experts help you jump to new levels of awareness by sharing their experience.

Inspirations. Inspirations are people whose accomplishments make you want to be better yourself. As you watch a person who inspires you – whether that person is your most courageous colleague, a person who has risen to the top of her field, or just someone whose approach to life you admire – you are moved to a higher level of contribution and achievement.

These roles will often cross. In fact, people who can play more than one role on your team are often your strongest supporters.

3. Set the “rules.”
The “rules” of your dream team game are how you want to play. If you don’t set up the process in a way you’ll enjoy it, you’ll be less likely to see it through. Do you want your team members to meet with you for informal conversation? Or would you prefer a formal introduction with a letter and a follow-up phone call? Are you looking for a five minute meeting in person, a fifteen-minute phone call with another, a meeting over lunch? It’s a good idea to decide how you want the process to play out so you put your best foot forward and feel comfortable along the way.

4. Define a “win.”
What is the best case scenario for this dream team?
• Are you hoping to develop long term relationships?
• Do you just want a lot of information fast?
• Do you want complex information and are willing to talk to as many people as it takes to get there?
This step is important, because it respects the time of the leaders whose advice you’re seeking while also meeting the goals that matter most to you. If what you want is concrete advice on how to set up a sole proprietorship, you can get it in a series of short, one-shot interviews. On the other hand, if you want to become steeped in the culture of high-quality leadership, you’ll want to develop deeper, more substantial relationships with the people whose work you admire.

5. Get in the game!
“Getting in the game” means approaching the people you admire to be on your team – asking them to meet with you, talking to them, and applying what you learn as you work toward your vision. If a meeting with one of your dream team members turns out to be beneficial, great. Ask them if they would mind meeting again. If not, fine. You’ve made a good connection. Some of these conversations will turn out to be a waste of time. Others will turn into the kinds of mentorships that last a lifetime.

Remember, the work you do with your dream team is not pandering or political maneuvering. There should be nothing in this process that smacks of manipulation. These are genuine, respectful conversations with people you admire to request the support you would be willing to give someone who asked it of you.

You’ll eventually find you can achieve more, and faster, when you are supported by a strong and experienced team.

For guidance on creating your Dream Team, use the free Dream Team Planning Guide. (Click here or go to www.TheInnerEdge.com, click on Worksheets & Audios, and scroll down to the 7th Practice for more free guides.)

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be creating our unique Dream Teams to advance our visions with the support of those we see as our inspiration. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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10 Techniques to Make More Time

One universal barrier to living and leading well is time. Being your best takes time – time to think, time to plan, time to align to your most important priorities. Here are Ten Time-Saving Techniques to get you that time.

1. Start with what you want to do, not what you have to do.

With all of the different systems out there for helping people organize their time, I have found the most effective tool to be a blank piece of paper. Every day, get out one small blank sheet. A 4×6 note card works great.

1. On the top half, write in the appointments you have today.

2. In the spaces between the appointments, schedule uninterrupted time to work on your most important priority.

3. On the bottom half, write no more than three to five actions you must accomplish – or want to accomplish – before the day is done.

You will start every day focused and end it having moved on your goals.

2. Open and close up shop.

The beginning and end of the day are the most critical for saving time, because you use them to get your thoughts organized. Reserve the first and last hour of the day for yourself.

At the beginning of the day: Take the time to consult your action plan, assess your schedule, and plan your day.

At the end of the day: Tie up any loose ends, put away projects with a note about what to do next, revisit your action plans, schedule time in your calendar for important tasks, and ready your desk for when you return.

3. Set the boundaries.
To get extra hours for yourself, try these suggestions:

• Refuse to schedule meetings when you need time for yourself. Don’t make excuses. Your time alone is just as important as your time with others. You will be more available and present for them when you return.

• Extend your day. If your meetings usually start at eight, your hour for yourself starts at seven. If your day usually lasts until five, the “last hour” you reserve goes from five to six.

• Shrink your day. If adding two high-quality hours to your day is impossible, try cutting the time you make available to others. If you need to start your day at eight and end at five, then you’re available for appointments from nine to four.

• Sweeten the deal. Make your time for yourself nurturing. Treat yourself to a good cup of coffee and some music, or some other special indulgences, routines, and niceties to remind you that the time you save is special time for you.

• Get out of there. It’s easier to resist temptation if temptation can’t find you. Try taking your hours to yourself into private, either by closing your door or by getting away from the office.

Are there barriers that sometimes make it difficult to do this? Of course. But if you can discipline yourself to make it happen, you will learn that these hours do more to help you stay on top of your work and enjoy your life more than any other hours in the day. With just a little time to get focused, you will feel complete, clear, rested and renewed.

4. “Go to the library.”
When you look back on the times you’ve had to study – really study, for something important like your hardest exams – where did you go? For many of us, it was the library. You can recreate the space and silence of the library in your everyday life.

• Turn off the phone.
• Leave your PDA, Internet connection, pager and so on behind.
• Turn off your email.
• Escape to a quiet place, alone – a conference room, an empty office, a café, your kitchen table.
• Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just slip away.

It is so hard to concentrate in our beeping, buzzing, urgent, ever-available world. But you will accomplish exponentially more if you can escape even for an hour at a time to a place where you can think and get things done.

5. Give yourself permission.
The most common words I hear when I help leaders look for time is, “I can’t.”

• “I can’t turn off my cell phone.”
• “I can’t schedule time for myself during the day.”
• “I can’t get out of work any earlier.”

Ask yourself: Whose permission do you need to do any of these things? Chances are the one who is holding you back is you.

6. Get permission.
If there really is someone who keeps you from getting the time you need to work on your inner as well as your outer edge, ask them for time.

• Ask your boss: “I need to find at least an hour a day of uninterrupted time to concentrate on important behind-the-scenes work and stay aligned to our/my priorities. When would be the most convenient time for me to do that?”

• Ask your employees: “We could all use time to get our work done. What time of the day or week would it be possible for us to agree not to schedule meetings?”

• Ask your family: “I need some time for myself to work on some of my personal priorities so that I can be my best here at home and also at work. Let’s make a plan for when I can have that time.”

As a mother of small children, I can tell you even toddlers understand that grown-ups need some time alone. Surely reasonable people around you (who also need time for themselves) can respect your needs to get time to yourself. Give them credit. Ask for their help.

7. Lop something off.
One reason it’s hard to get big chunks of good quality time is that we’re nibbling around the edges. An hour here, fifteen minutes there, squeezed between a hasty lunch and the nagging To Dos.

Think bigger. If your time for yourself is important, what is it more important than? Look in your life for a whole area that you can eliminate, saving you several hours in one fell swoop.

The trick is to find those activities that are less important than you really thought. You can do this both in your personal life and at work.

• Gina figured out most of her clients came from referrals. She lopped off networking events and saved several hours a month.
• Mahendra chose the most valuable of her social groups (five college friends) and lopped off book club, her parenting group, and the gourmet group and saved at least two hours a week.
• Tony realized he spent hours on yard work every weekend, and he didn’t even enjoy it. He hired the neighbor kid to mow and weed, lopping off a time-consuming chore and buying him half a day every week.
• Mik recognized how tense and grumpy all his meetings were making him. He made a list of the meetings he had to attend. They tallied up to over forty hours a week. He lopped off half of them by getting off two committees and finding more efficient ways to communicate. Then the meetings only tallied up to twenty hours.
• Brian counted up to three hours a day in traffic. He lopped off drive time by shifting his schedule for a less conventional commute, saving him over two hours a day.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we’re the ones who fill up our time. Lop off a hunk of the time you spend on lesser-value activities and you’ll suddenly have all the time you need.

8. Bring it in.
Many of us drive all over town out to do our errands. We drive out of our way to get to our favorite gym, then swing back across town to hit our preferred supermarket, then head all the way out the other way to meet friends for dinner. This unconscious habit eats up your time, adds to your stress and hurts the environment. To eliminate the waste, think about the places you go and experiment with ways to bring them in closer – closer to each other, closer to home, or closer to your route to and from work.

A client of mine who was a master at this technique changed her entire community from all over the city into a two-mile radius. She pulled her dry cleaners, gas station, bank, drug store, doctors, mechanic and gym all closer to home. You can do the same by filling in this sentence as many times as you can: “My is too far away. How can I bring it in?” Quality services are everywhere. Give up the need to travel for miles to get them.

9. Farm it out.
Just as effective as bringing your community in closer is the strategy of farming things out. In your personal life, have you ever considered farming out:
• your cleaning?
• your laundry?
• your errands?
• your personal accounting?
• your plant care?
• your cooking?
In your professional life, have you ever considered farming out:
• your filing?
• your phone calls?
• your meetings?
• your writing?
• your sales?
• your marketing?
• your travel?
If you have ever delegated any of these items, you know it’s possible to let others do some of the work so you can get more time to yourself. Challenge yourself. What else can you farm out? Put the word out. See who’s out there to help. Save yourself time.

10. Do the hardest thing first.
It’s stressful not to get to the things that matter to us, and it exacerbates the feeling that we never have enough time. Turn that situation around by doing the thing it’s hardest for you first. Whether it’s exercising in the morning, or working on your most challenging account first thing in the day, or making the difficult decisions before doing anything else, you will feel like you’ve saved time because the pressure is off. You will actually have saved time because you won’t waste it worrying and procrastinating.

What are your best techniques for saving time? Send them to us at www.theinneredge.com. Look for updated postings on the website to help you get the time you need for the practices of personal leadership that help you live and lead well.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be “making more time” as we apply techniques that will reduce your stress and leave you feeling peaceful and able to achieve everything that’s important to your life. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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Opening Pandora’s Box

I had an interesting conversation with David Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of Global Human Resources at Marriott International, recently. He made me think.

All the time I spend executive coaching, what I’m really doing is helping people think. I am asking them provocative questions. Expanding their thinking. Challenging them. It’s also my role to support them when the thinking is hard, sometimes push them off the cliff of their limitations and then cushion their fall. The result is growth, and the result of growth is peak performance and an improved bottom line.

I thought that was a good thing.

But David showed me another perspective. He reminded me how hard it is to reflect. How unready sometimes leaders are to learn. He said,

Most people I find shy away from being introspective. Even if they have the capability they shy away from actually practicing introspection.

Knowing David to be a brilliant leader in the arena of leadership development, I was a little surprised. I thought leaders loved this stuff! Here’s what he said:

The times we’re living in today are tough. Everyone is under a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of uncertainty. A lot of emotional energy is devoted to coping with things outside our control. We can’t control the economy. We feel like victims. Everyone is trying desperately to stay calm and focused in the face of external pressures. This is supposition, but I think the average person does not look to add to the pressures they face. While introspection is great as a catalyst for growth and fundamental to growth, in essence what it really is is going to a zone of discomfort. It’s finding out things about yourself that may not make you feel in the moment good and in control. Especially in these times when people have such pressures, [reflection] could be a Pandora’s box.

And I suppose he’s right. When you open the lid to your potential, who knows what demons lurk inside, just waiting to jump out and grab you? Do you really have the energy to rally now, of all times, to fight the status quo? Can’t you just suffer through the challenges in peace?

Of course you can. Many do. I’ll admit that since David and I talked, I have met a few people who seem truly bedraggled by the impact of a negative economy. It would be cruel to unleash on them Pandora’s box.

Or would it? What I want you to remember it that practicing personal leadership is not just about facing your fears. It’s about finding your strength.

In Pandora’s box you may find old habits, destructive patterns, or hidden fears.

But you will also find a clear, inspiring vision of who you want to be.

You’ll find new focus on what you want to achieve.

You’ll find new strategies and tools for progress.

You’ll find fulfillment.

New ways of spending your time.

A stronger, smarter, more motivating team.

A whole new universe of learning and possibility.

You’re going to find yourself.

The Fifth Practice of Personal Leadership is Feel Fulfillment. I’ll admit that perhaps the process of getting there may present challenging questions, but those questions are the doorway to a satisfying life.

When you sit on the lid of Pandora’s box, you lock your real self inside. Go ahead. Open up.

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