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The Seven Essential Strategies
The single most important characteristic of good managers is that they protect their employeesâprotect their time, protect their dignity, protect their career potential.
âRobert Townsend, Former Director
of American Express and Author of Up the Organization
The Seven Essential Strategies
I know youâre busy, so let me start by giving away the essential secrets for performing optimally at work. Here are seven basic principles for working efficiently while minimizing distracting and destructive habits. While many of these concepts have been around for several millennia, not many know how to access and apply them to work and career situations. With some practice, youâll be able to make these strategies work for you within a few weeks. Start today; challenge your old beliefs, habits, and defaults; and begin to replace them with what has proven to work for peak performers in every field of endeavor.
Principle One
Shift from your current habit to corrective action. The fastest way to change is to link your current behavior to corrective action. In many cases, this can mean doing the opposite of what youâre doing now.
Avoid wasting time criticizing what youâve done wrong. This only adds emotional trauma to an already confused mental and physical state. Instead, point yourself toward the correct behavior. To be an effective manager of yourself and others replace âWhy did you spill the milk?â with âHow do we clean it up?â
Youâre probably a more effective manager than the coach who gave me my first sailing lesson. While our small boat was heeling over and taking on water, he chose that moment to ask, âWhy are you doing that?â I thought that was a really dumb question to ask during an emergency. I realized that if I took the time to do the psychoanalysis necessary to answer that question, we might all drown.
With my mind racing, I decided to take corrective action: I pushed the rudder in the opposite direction and released the main sheet. This immediately righted the boat and taught me that analyzing why Iâm doing something wrong or criticizing myself during an emergency is not as effective as doing the opposite of whatâs not working. Given the ineffectiveness of my sailing coach, I had to become an effective self-manager and instruct my brain to shift to corrective action rather than the distracting and confusing questions âWhy are you doing that?â and âWhatâs wrong with you?â
Give yourself corrective actions directing your attention to what you can do now. Youâll be problem-solving and feeling effective within 5 seconds. Now thatâs effective time management!
Principle Two
Shift from struggle to ease: the law of reverse effort. Like many wise principles, this one seems like a no-brainer. But when we think weâre fighting to just survive, we tend to repeat what weâve done in the past. Think of me, holding onto that rudder for dear life, even while our boat was taking on water.
Struggling is a sign that youâre going in the wrong direction. During a seminar at a bank, I made the mistake of handing out finger puzzlesâa braided straw tube about five inches long and about an inch in diameterâto everyone, including the bankâs president. I instructed my audience to put one finger from each hand into either end of the tube and see what happens when they try to pull their fingers apart. They quickly discovered that the more they struggled to remove their fingers, the more the tube tightens its grip.
I then said, âIf youâre struggling in life, youâre going in the wrong direction. To free yourself, you have to go in the opposite directionâdo what is counterintuitive, like facing down the ski slope to gain control over your skis. Stop struggling, push your fingers into the tube, it will loosen, and youâll be free. This is the law of reverse effort.â
Following my instructions, everyone got free except the president. He was still struggling harder and harder, causing the tube to tighten its grip. He must have been trained, or brain-washed, to believe: âIf youâre not succeeding, try harder and put in more time.â My heretical advice is âIf youâre pushing on a door and it doesnât open easily, itâs probably a pull-door. Stop pushing and struggling and it will pull open easily. Life has hinged the doorsâand most seeming problemsâso that they open easily.â
In what ways do you struggle unnecessarily and find that you are repeatedly frustrated? Yet you continue to struggle and stay stuck. How will you let go of your struggle, change direction, and free yourself?
Principle Three
Shift from ego-focus to task-focus. One of the fastest ways to increase productivity is to shift in one breath, like a karate shout, to a task-oriented focus.
Categorize your thoughts as belonging in one of two boxes: Box #1 is for thoughts about the past, the future, and whatâs wrong with you. Box #2 is for thoughts about working on the task.
Students trained to shift rapidly from ego-oriented thoughts, Box #1, to âWhat do I know now about this question?â âBox #2âsignificantly improved their scores on SAT, LSAT, and GRE exams. Take any part of ego-oriented thoughtsâself-criticism, psychoanalysis, or thoughts about what you shouldâve done in the past or what may happen in the futureâand link it to what you can do and what you do know now.
Youâll discover that you significantly increase your productivity. As a side benefit, youâll also lessen feelings of depression and anxiety because youâre releasing pent-up energies and worries into effective action, giving your brain its own natural serotonin, that feel-good hormone in antidepressants.
Identify your favorite or default Box #1, ego-oriented thought. Practice shifting to Box #2 to focus on the task.
Principle Four
Shift from âI have to finishâ to âI choose to start.â
Ineffective managers tell their workers that they have to do something they donât want to do, thereby evoking resistance and rebellion. âYou have toâ means âyou donât want to, but Iâm forcing you to do it anywayâ and âif you donât do it, something awful and painful will happen.â
It doesnât take a genius to see that âyou have toâ is counterproductive and self-sabotaging. It communicates that the workersâin this case, your mind and bodyâshould resist and rebel against something they donât want to do. Yet we continue to speak to ourselves, our children, and our employees in this absurd, self-sabotaging language.
If you repeat, âI have to finish all this stuffâ to yourself a dozen times an hour, youâll hypnotize yourself into fatigue, distractions, depression, and procrastination as ways of passively resisting a victim role. For every child saying, âBut I donât want to,â thereâs a parent, teacher, or boss saying, âYou have to.â
You donât have to want to do something thatâs difficult and challenging and could lead to criticism from your boss or clients. But you can choose to start for 15 minutes to see what comes to you. Even a simple âI am getting a root canal, doing my income tax, taking the state bar exam for the sixth timeâ is more effective and less ambivalent and depressing than âI have toâ do all these difficult and painful things that I donât want to do. You might argue that there are things in life that you have to do that you donât want to, such as surgery and paying income tax. But if youâre going to do it, you will find the task much easier when you communicate that you are choosing the difficult or frightening task rather than the consequences of not doing it.
The point is, telling yourself âyou have toâ will provoke and inner conflict that divide your energies, blocks motivation, and will make this task more difficult and unpleasant.
Catch yourself saying, âI have to,â and notice the resistance and distractions that arise. Notice the thoughts that accompany feelings of ambivalence, inner conflict, and avoidance, and see if they include the counterproductive âyou have toâ message. Then choose to start the task or choose the consequences of not doing it and notice how your energies are free to move forward.
Principle Five
Shift from âfinish an overwhelming 1,500-hour projectâ to âstart for 15 minutes.â As an effective self-manager of your body and mind, you never tell the workers to finish a task that takes more than a few hours to complete. Your workers must know when, where, and on what to start and when they will be paid and rewarded.
Note that you donât have to keep reminding yourself: âYou have to finish.â The last time you start is when youâll finish. You donât want to confuse yourself or anyone else by telling them they have to jump into the imaginary future to get to a future deadline. Youâll only create anxietyâenergy that is stuck trying to solve a problem in the imaginary past or future that doesnât exist except in the virtual reality your mind creates.
Focus your workers on a near deadline of 15 to 30 uninterrupted minutes that is enough to break through inertia and give you a procrastination inoculation shot. Short time frames compete better with all the distractions in your life and allow you to use breaks as rewards to stretch, clear out some papers, or check e-mail and phone messages.
Notice how your brain becomes used to concentrating without interruption for 15 quality minutes and learns to rapidly bring you creative solutions. Notice how focusing on starting in the present moment releases the stuck energy of anxiety and transforms it into excitement and productivity.
Principle Six
Shift from the arrogant, lonely struggle of your separated conscious mind to connect with your larger brain and subconscious genius. One of the most effective ways of doubling your productivity while reducing stress is to access your subconscious genius or night shift mind.
Common expressions such as âI canât remember her name, but itâll come to me,â âLet me sleep on it,â and âItâll be interesting to see how I solve this problemâ indicate that you are relaxing the struggle of your conscious mind and its consciously controlled striated muscles. Youâre allowing another part of youâyour subconscious right brain, autonomic nervous system, and smooth musclesâto do the heavy lifting and bring you a creative solution. In business, we all know of those folks who have brilliant hunches and intuition. They tend to daydream while taking a shower, working out at the gym, or having lunch and come up with inventions, innovative solutions, and creative, out-of-the-box concepts. Like many fictional detectives, they donât struggle like bloodhounds or Scotland Yard to chase after small clues. Instead they typicallyâlike Agatha Christieâs Hercule Poirotââlet the little gray cells do the work.â
Writers, inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs have learned to put their struggling conscious minds to sleep so their subconscious night shift can do a little daydreaming and night dreaming to make major breakthroughs and discoveries.
One of my coaching clients took my suggestion to give her chemistry projects to Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, who could continue to work in a room at the back of her brain while she slept. I knew this might work because I completed my doctoral dissertation in one year by delegating to my dreaming, subconscious mind any problems or blocks that arose. Each morning, I awoke with a solution and was eager to start working for 15 to 30 minutes before breakfast to seed my mind with ideas that would germinate while I was at work. I completed my dissertation in 15 hours a week for one year while working a 40-hour-a-week job. And I have completed six books in 15 to 20 hours a week within 18 months, each while working a full-time job. I never told my conscious, ego mind, âYou have to finish writing a book.â I simply said, âIâm choosing to start at 8 AM for 15 minutes to see what will come to me and to make it easier to start again at 12 noon or at 6 PM.â
An Exercise
Part 1
Grasp a bottle, a cup, or a book, and hold it out at shoulder height. Let your extended hand represent a part of your brain separated from the rest. Imagine that this is the way you work all week long: struggling with just your conscious mind, separate from the rest of your brain and body, to deal with your projects. From this position, your separated conscious mind is easily overwhelmed, stressed, and vulnerable to addictions in order to experience some temporary relief from its lonely struggle. Soon youâll be thinking of a thousand-calorie treat because youâve suffered and you are convinced that, as the commercial says, âYou deserve a break today.â
Part 2
Bring your elbow to your side, close to what martial artists call the hara, or the place just below the navel where chi flows. Now your project and arm are supported by the rest of your body, the chair, and the earth. Notice how much easier it is to work when you are connected to your larger brain and body and the support of chair, the building, and the earth.
Principle Seven
Shift from your default or favorite reaction to choosing to act in a way that is congruent with your higher values and current goals. Your enlightened, human brain is the only brain on the planet that can choose how to act rather than simply react. Think about it: You can choose to get a root canal, pay your income tax, and tackle a new, challenging project. You are more than your âhave toâ versus âdonât want toâ voices that keep you stuck in ambivalence and inner conflict. As a human, you have a third option, choice.
To be efficient, your brain performs like a computer to give you your favorites and defaults, but you can choose to override them to fit your current skills, knowledge, challenges, and opportunities. You are not stuck with what first occurs to you out of habit or efficiency.
Remarkably, you can start to break a habit or addictio...