Free to Focus

by Michael Hyatt

  Consider email. Collectively, we send over two hundred million emails every minute.3 Professionals start the day hundreds deep with hundreds more on the way.4 But don’t stop there. Toss in the data feeds, phone calls, texts, drop-in visits, instant messages, nonstop meetings, and surprise problems that flood our phones, computers, tablets, and workplaces. Research shows we get interrupted or distracted every three minutes on average.5 “Even though digital technology has led to significant productivity increases,” says Rachel Emma Silverman of the Wall Street Journal, “the modern workday seems custom-built to destroy individual focus.”6

  We’ve all experienced it. Our devices, apps, and tools make us think we’re saving time, being hyperproductive. In reality most of us just jam our day with the buzz and grind of low-value activity. We don’t invest our time in big and important projects. Instead, we’re tyrannized by tiny tasks. One pair of workplace consultants found “about half the work that people do fails to advance [their] organizations’ strategies.” In other words, half the effort and hours invested produce no positive results for the business. They call it “fake work.”7 We’re doing more and gaining less, which leaves us with a huge gap between what we want to achieve and what we actually accomplish.

  What It Costs Us

  The cost of all this misspent time and talent is staggering. Depending on the studies you consult, the total time lost per day for office workers is three hours or more—as many as six.8 Let’s say you work 250 days a year (365 days, less weekends and two weeks of vacation). That’s between 750 and 1,500 hours of lost time every year. The annual hit to the US economy rises as high as $1 trillion.9 But that’s too abstract.

  Think instead about the stalled initiatives, postponed projects, and unrealized potential—specifically, your stalled initiatives, postponed projects, and unrealized potential. I’ve consulted with thousands of busy leaders and entrepreneurs over the years, and that’s what I hear most from my clients. The dollar value on lost productivity does matter, but it’s not what really hurts. It’s all the dreams left unexplored, the talents left untried, the goals left unpursued.

  Between the projects we want to accomplish and the deluge of other activity—some which is legitimately important and some which only masquerades as such—we’re left feeling drained, disoriented, and overwhelmed. About half of us say we don’t have enough time to do what we want to do, according to Gallup. For those between the ages of 35 and 54 or people with kids younger than 18, the figure is higher—more like 60 percent.10 Similarly, six in ten surveyed by the American Psychological Association in 2017 said they’re stressed at work, and almost four in ten say it’s not the result of one-off projects; it’s constant.11 There are upsides to stress, but not when we can’t accomplish what matters most and the strain feels unrelenting.

  It seems like the only way to absorb these costs is to let work push back our nights and invade our weekends. A study by the Center for Creative Leadership, for instance, found that professionals with smartphones—and that’s pretty much all of us now—engage with their work more than seventy hours a week.12 According to a study commissioned by the software company Adobe, US workers spend more than six hours every day checking email. To preserve time for the rest of the day’s work, 80 percent check their email before going in to the office, and 30 percent do it before they even get out of bed in the morning.13 According to another study, this one by GFI Software, almost 40 percent of us check email after 11:00 at night, and three quarters of us do it on the weekends.14 Anecdotally, this seems just as bad, possibly worse, with team chat apps like Slack.

  It’s like we’re working on the wrong side of the Looking Glass. “Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place,” the Red Queen tells Alice. “If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”15 To manage the pace, some people resort to amphetamines and psychedelics to give them an edge.16 Even if we grant the supposed benefits of cognitive-enhancing drugs and downplay health and social concerns, what kind of world are we creating where we have to tweak our neurochemistry to stay competitive?

  This kind of running carries costs of its own. Not only does it directly contribute to the feeling of unrelenting stress, but long work hours deprive our health, relationships, and personal pursuits of the kind of time they deserve. Hustle into the evening, and your sleep suffers. Leave early for the office, and you skip your morning run. Check email at your kids’ soccer game, and you miss the game-winning play. Catch up on a presentation, and you must reschedule that date with your spouse . . . again.

  The costs come down to trade-offs. Every day we’re constantly making value judgments, deciding what’s truly worth our focus. Early in my career, I’m afraid to say, I chose busyness far too often. Now I know these trade-offs make it impossible to give my high-value tasks, health, relationships, and personal pursuits the time and attention—the focus—they deserve. And, as Oliver Burkeman asks, “What will your life have been, in the end, but the sum total of everything you spent it focusing on?”17

  The pace of work in the Distraction Economy can be relentless. How often do you feel like Alice, running as fast as you can just to stay in place—and twice as fast as that to get ahead?

  Counterproductive Productivity

  To offset these costs, many of us turn to productivity systems. If we’re falling behind like Alice, we figure, maybe we can run faster! So we Google tips and hacks. We troll Amazon and the App Store for ideas and tools to manage our time and boost our efficiency.

  That’s what I did. After my heart scare, I knew my pace wasn’t sustainable. There had to be a better way. I studied every productivity system I could. I tried, tinkered, and tweaked all of them. Little by little it made a difference, and I began sharing my discoveries and applications. That’s why I launched my blog fifteen years ago. It was a productivity laboratory for me and my readers. Even though I was then CEO of a major publishing company, I was getting recognized as a productivity expert. Later I founded a leadership development company and now coach hundreds of clients and teach thousands more about productivity every year.

  In those early days, I was looking for a way to do more—or at least the same amount a little faster—without killing myself. But I quickly found that keeping pace with the Red Queen wasn’t the answer. The breakthrough came when I realized most productivity “solutions” actually make things worse. When I begin working with entrepreneurs, executives, and other leaders, they usually tell me productivity is about doing more and doing it faster. That’s because our instincts about productivity come from the age of manufacturing when people performed a defined set of repeatable tasks and could improve the bottom line with marginal gains in execution. But that’s not my job. It’s not the job of the people I coach. And I bet it’s not yours either. Today we have amazing variety in our tasks and we contribute to the bottom line with new and significant projects, not small improvements on existing processes.

  And that’s the root of the problem. By approaching productivity with the old mindset, we invite the burnout we’re trying to avoid and fail to reach our true potential. No one can keep up with the Red Queen. And running faster doesn’t help if you’re pointed in the wrong direction. It’s time to rethink the whole model.

  A New Approach

  The most productive business leaders I coach recognize productivity is not about getting more things done; it’s about getting the right things done. It’s about starting each day with clarity and ending with a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment, and energy to spare. It’s about achieving more by doing less, and this book shows you how.

  Free to Focus is a total productivity system that follows three simple steps, composed of three actions each. I’ve arranged the steps to help you gain momentum as you go, so resist the temptation to jump ahead.

  Step 1: Stop. I know what you’re thinking: “Stop? That can’t be the right word. Shouldn’t the first step in a productivity system be Go?” No. In fa
ct, that’s where most productivity systems get it wrong. They jump right to showing you how to work better or faster, but they never stop to ask, Why? What’s the purpose of productivity? There’s a lot at stake with the answer. Unless you first know why you’re working, you can’t properly evaluate how you’re working. That’s why Free to Focus suggests to truly start you must stop.

  For the first action, you’ll Formulate. This will help you clarify what you want out of productivity. We’ll reframe productivity so it works in the real world, instead of the wrong side of the Looking Glass. Second, you’ll Evaluate, identifying and filtering your high-leverage activity from low-leverage busy work. You’ll also discover a tool that, if used correctly, will completely revolutionize how, when, and where you spend most of your energy. Finally, you’ll Rejuvenate by discovering how to leverage rest to boost your results.

  Step 2: Cut. Once you have a clear view of where you are and what you want, it’s time to move to Step 2: Cut. Here you’ll discover that what you don’t do is just as important to your productivity as what you do. Michelangelo didn’t create David by adding marble. Ready to break out your chisel?

  First, you’ll Eliminate. You’ll discover the two most powerful words in productivity and how to use them to banish the time bandits stealing your hours. Second, you’ll Automate, gaining back time and attention by accomplishing low-leverage tasks in the background without much effort. Finally, you’ll Delegate. It’s a terrifying word for many, but don’t worry. I’ll reveal an effective method for getting work off your plate and ensuring it gets done to your standards.

  Step 3: Act. Having cut out all the nonessentials, it’s time for execution. In this section you’ll learn how to accomplish your high-leverage tasks in less time and, more importantly, with less stress.

  Your first action here is Consolidate, which will help you leverage three distinct categories of activity and maximize your focus. Next, you’ll Designate. By that I mean you’ll learn to stage tasks so they fit your schedule and hold back the tyranny of the urgent. Last, you’ll Activate by eliminating interruptions and distractions and making maximal use of your unique skills and abilities.

  Along the way you’ll meet some of the clients I’ve coached who have put these lessons to work in their lives. I’ll show you how to do the same thing. Each of the nine actions ends with exercises to help you put these steps into practice right away. Don’t skip these activities. They’re custom-built to ensure your success. Your days of getting derailed by nonstop interruptions and an out-of-control to-do list are over. Your nights of lying in bed exhausted from a busy day but unsure of what you actually accomplished are done.

  It’s time to hit the reset button on your life and finally put a system in place that ensures the time and energy to accomplish your most important goals, both in and out of the office.

  Can you imagine it? Can you picture when you feel fully in control of where your time is going, when you get to decide how to spend your precious energy, and when you hit the pillow at night still energized from a productive, satisfying day? I hope you can, because that time is coming. You really can accomplish more by doing less. Take the first step and discover how.

  ASSESS YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

  Before we get started, I recommend you stop and complete the Free to Focus Productivity Assessment if you haven’t already done so. Go to FreeToFocus.com/assessment. It’s quick, easy, and essential to get a baseline of your current productivity. Don’t beat yourself up if your score is low. That’s why you bought this book, right? You’re already aware of some problems, so there’s no point trying to hide them now. And, if you score high, don’t think you’re ready to set this book aside just yet. No matter how well you’re doing now, there is always another level of success for those dedicated to pursuing it. Get your personal productivity score at FreeToFocus.com/assessment.

  1

  Formulate

  Decide What You Want

  “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

  “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

  ALICE AND THE CHESHIRE CAT

  Remember the scene from I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel get hired at a chocolate factory? Their job is to wrap truffles as they come down a conveyor belt. Their manager threatens to fire them if a single chocolate slips by unwrapped. The pair start out okay, but within seconds the sweets are racing by. Lucy and Ethel start shoving them in their mouths and filling their hats with the overflow. When the onslaught finally stops, their manager comes to inspect their work. She can’t see that Lucy and Ethel are hiding all the unwrapped candy, so it appears as if they’ve kept up and done a good job. Their reward? “Speed it up!” the manager shouts to the person driving the conveyor belt.

  Where do we stuff all the extra to-dos, queries, and assignments we encounter on the job? Like Lucy and Ethel, when we successfully manage the overwhelm, our reward is often more work! [CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images]

  Almost everyone I know has felt like Lucy and Ethel at times, including me. Some of us feel like that most of the time. For us, it’s not chocolates racing toward us. It’s emails, texts, phone calls, reports, presentations, meetings, deadlines—an endless conveyor belt full of new things to do, fix, or think about. We’re being as productive as we possibly can, but we can only handle so much.

  So we shove the extra tasks into our nights and fill our weekends with projects we can’t finish during the workweek. It all piles up on the assembly line in our minds, claiming our mental, emotional, and physical energy. That’s what drives us to explore productivity tips and hacks—to find ways to shave a few minutes off each of the million tasks demanding our attention. If we could wrap each chocolate just a split-second faster, maybe, just maybe, we’d be able to keep up. Some of us can make that approach work for us. But it’s the wrong approach because it doesn’t get at the underlying problem. Either we’re too successful in coping with the relentless pace or we’re buried by it. Either way, we never stop to ask why we’re subjecting ourselves to it in the first place.

  So, let’s finally stop and ask. What do we want from our productivity? What’s the purpose? What are the objectives? True productivity starts with being clear on what we truly want. In this chapter, I’m going to help you formulate your own vision for productivity, one that works for you instead of the manager shouting, “Faster!” This is important, because if we’re honest, sometimes that manager is us. On the wrong side of the Looking Glass, sometimes we’re not Alice; we’re the Red Queen.

  To get at the heart of the problem, we’ll explore three common productivity objectives. Spoiler alert: The first two are all too common but generally ineffective. The third, however, will be a game changer for you.

  Objective 1: Efficiency

  Ask a random stranger about the purpose of productivity and there’s a good chance you’ll hear something about efficiency. This is usually based on the assumption that working faster is inherently better. This easily gets us into trouble, though, because I think people try to work faster just so they can cram even more things into their already-packed day.

  Productivity as a concept emerged from the work of efficiency experts such as Frederick Winslow Taylor in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Applying an engineering background to factory workers, Taylor identified ways to boost efficiency—normally by reducing, even eliminating, workers’ autonomy. “The system must come first,” he said, and it would have to be “enforced” by management.1 Taylor instructed managers to dictate workers’ methods and routines down to the tiniest details, eliminating any waste or drag. Taylorism, as his approach was known, did produce results. Factories experienced increased efficiency with workers getting more done in less time, but it came at a cost. By limiting employee discretion and freedom, Taylor effectively turned them into manufacturing robots.

  Taylor died more than a hundred years ago, but we’re still trying to follow the same basic efficiency model: workin
g a lot of hours and doing as many tasks as possible as quickly as we can. The problem is most of us aren’t factory workers; we’re knowledge workers. We’re hired more for our mental output than our physical labor. As such, we often have tremendous discretion over our time and a great deal of autonomy as we go about our daily tasks. While twentieth-century factory workers did the same set of tasks all day every day throughout the week, we are constantly surprised by new challenges, opportunities, and problems. All these things require a tremendous amount of mental energy not only to figure out solutions but sometimes just to keep up.

  Taylor’s goal was to find ways to work faster. When you apply that to the knowledge economy, however, the work never seems to end. There’s always a new idea to consider or problem to solve, and when we do a good job and complete our work, we’re rewarded with—you guessed it—more work. We’re stuck in the proverbial hamster’s wheel, running as hard and fast as we can but never making any real progress on our ever-growing list of projects and tasks. We’re too afraid that if we slow down, we’ll fall hopelessly behind. If we try to get off the wheel, we may never get back on, so we just keep running. Why do you think most people check their work email on their cell phones all day, all night, and all weekend—even on vacation? It’s because they’re terrified to let it pile up for a few hours, a day, or—heaven forbid—an entire week.

  “Productivity to me looked like just getting more done,” one of my coaching clients, Matt, told me. As the founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar heating and plumbing business, he said he was always concerned with how he could get more accomplished. “The more you get done, then the more time you have to do something else—and just always jumping on whatever comes up. So if I had more margin I could get more done, which would produce more income and more projects. It’s always about more.”