Juliet's School of Possibilities
Page 7
She finally made her way back, her mind settling down to earth as the sun tilted behind the trees, heralding the arrival of late afternoon. Riley’s colleagues gathered for one more round of fizzy drinks. They toasted their newfound domestic prowess before they summoned their car services to go home, or in some cases, to Newark airport for Sunday-night flights to Europe. Those 9 a.m. meetings in London, Paris, and Frankfurt beckoned. Such was the MB pace. You learned not to leave home without your passport.
Riley, likewise, had her passport in her bag, but her colleagues’ departures found her still standing on the porch, looking out at the ocean. She was not quite ready to leave this place. She was still standing there when her phone buzzed. Should she ignore it? Then she looked at the name.
Elsa.
Quite odd—most likely a mistaken dial from someone who’d expressed doubts about ever speaking to her again. But she picked it up nonetheless.
“Elsa, this is Riley Jenkins. Did you mean to call me?”
“Oh yes, sorry to disturb your Sunday . . .” Riley let that thought go unanswered. Elsa knew full well that when you hired MB, weekends were fair game. “Anyway, I wanted to talk with you because, well, it seems we know someone in common. Skip.”
“Oh—you know Skip?”
“You can’t talk about your clients without their permission. She can’t talk about potential funders who ask to be anonymous in the exploration process but I can be a loudmouth and talk to you both. Anyway, PCS was looking to invest in a few philanthropic ventures and I’d happened to meet her at a party a few months ago . . .”
“So you were . . .” That party?
“Today she showed me the proposal for the Brooklyn Home Companion. I thought she was brilliant.” Riley took in a deep breath. She started to answer, but Elsa kept going. “Let me just tell you, I never see such business-minded proposals from the nonprofit people I meet with. Even those with professional grant writers. They’ll save the world, but they don’t think about how sustainable their ventures might be if they can’t keep fundraising . . . Anyway, she freely confessed that her friend Riley Jenkins, management consultant extraordinaire, was the brains behind the operation.”
Riley blushed. She walked to the other end of the porch and leaned on the railing as she watched a small crew launch a boat from the dock. “Oh, you know, I just helped her sharpen the idea.”
“No, she said it was your idea. And she said that you were the one who convinced Juliet to come on board as an adviser. I don’t think I have to tell you how excited I would be to be associated with her on something like this.”
Riley pulled herself together. Focus on the desired outcome. “Well, if you’ve outed yourself, I hope you don’t mind me lobbying you to consider funding the proposal. Skip is amazing, and her girls really deserve to be given more opportunities and . . .”
“You can stop, Riley. I already told her she’s good. Heck, if it’s good enough, we might distribute it in our shops. I mean, we’ve needed something since our own in-house publication didn’t pan out.”
“Well . . . well . . . that’s wonderful. I’m thrilled. Thank you. I think you’ll be proud of what they do.”
“I also want to apologize. I recall that yesterday—was that yesterday?—I may have complained about your lack of interesting ideas.” Riley sat on one of the rocking chairs. Yes, that had only been yesterday. “I don’t know what happened with that proposal you all sent me Friday, but maybe we can chat again. Maybe we just weren’t hearing each other. I’m sure if you and I chat a bit more we can come up with some good stuff that you and MB could do for PCS. Right?”
“Of course,” Riley said. “Of course.”
Chapter 13
When Juliet came out on the porch a few minutes later, Riley was still sitting on the rocking chair. She was staring at her phone, but looked up as a truck rumbled down the street. She saw Juliet watching her. “Are you still cleaning out your inbox?” Juliet shook her head and adjusted the leaf wreath on the door.
“Oh no, just some logistics.” Riley stood up and put her phone in her pocket. “I was heading out to my car in a minute. But guess what. I heard from the client who dumped me.”
“Yes?”
“Turns out—she said I could tell you this—that she was the funder meeting with my friend. They agreed to fund the Brooklyn Home Companion, and she was so excited about it—and about your being an adviser for it—that she wanted me to come meet with her and talk about other ideas I might have. So . . . thank you. For saving my career.”
“Oh, Riley. I only say yes to what I really want to do. Can you believe I might be as excited as you are about this project?” Juliet retrieved a few stray cushions and straightened the seashells displayed on a table. “And as for other possibilities, I suspect that you and MB might find ways—might keep finding ways—to stay happy with each other.”
“Yes. I told my client I’d come see her for a good long discussion on Tuesday.”
Juliet paused, conch shell in hand. “Tuesday? In my mind, Riley Jenkins is more of a show-up-on-Monday-morning sort of person.”
“Yes, but expectations are infinite. Time is finite,” Riley said. “I just made myself a hotel reservation for tonight at a place a mile from here. My client wants good ideas, and it seems I get good ideas while biking, so . . .” Her eyes twinkled. “I want to go on a really, really long bike ride first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Oh!” Juliet laughed and put the shell back on the table. “Imagine that! A bike ride? Just for ideas? Or perhaps with . . . company?”
“Perhaps,” Riley said with a smile. “But that is my top priority for the day. Here’s hoping I’m choosing well.”
The Power of Priorities
A GUIDE TO SPENDING MORE TIME ON WHAT MATTERS, AND LESS ON WHAT DOESN’T
by
Laura Vanderkam
For years, I’ve been studying people’s schedules and helping them figure out how to make time for their priorities. I wrote Juliet’s School of Possibilities because I know that sometimes stories make concepts more memorable than straightforward instructions.
Thank you for making the time to read this parable. I know that expectations are infinite, and time is finite. I know you are busy. I appreciate your choosing to make reading this story a priority in your life.
I hope Riley Jenkins’s transformation inspires you to think about your own future, and how you can make choices with your time to turn that vision into reality. The exercises in this guide will help you think about how you spend your time, and how you’d like to spend your time.
First, let’s look forward.
In her weekend at Juliet’s School of Possibilities, Riley Jenkins envisions a future where she is both professionally and personally fulfilled. She is having a positive impact on the broader world.
Carve out some quiet time and picture yourself a few years in the future. Because Riley is so young, her vision took her a few decades into the future; those of us who are older don’t need to go nearly so far. But create a picture of yourself at this future time. You feel happy and relaxed. You are spending your time in purposeful ways. Make this picture as vivid as possible. Where are you? Who is with you? How do you spend your weekdays? Your weekends?
Now think about these people who are with you. Picture them celebrating you for the impact you’ve had on them and the world. Think about a toast, or a speech they might give. What would they say? As you think about this celebratory speech, list the major examples of professional and personal impact here:
Now we can move toward the more immediate future.
On the professional front, picture yourself at the end of the next calendar year. You are giving yourself a professional performance review. It is a great review, because it has been a great year. You have made major advances toward the future goals you listed earlier. What three things did you do during the year that made
it so amazing?
1.
2.
3.
You can do this for your personal life too. Picture yourself at the end of the next calendar year. You are a guest at a holiday party. You are happily recounting your previous year for friends and family. The reason for such happiness? It has been an amazing year for you and the people you care about. You have made steady progress toward the vision of your future you created earlier. What three things did you do during the year that made it so amazing?
1.
2.
3.
Over the next few months, these six year-end goals should inform your scheduling choices. Think about the next week. What steps could you take toward each of these goals?
Where could you put these steps in your schedule?
How will you hold yourself accountable for achieving them?
As you ponder your priorities, I think it’s helpful to figure out where the time really goes now. Having a clear sense of your schedule will help you make smart choices.
The best way to figure out where the time goes is to track your time for a week. Here is a picture of a time log breaking the 168-hour week into half-hour blocks. To track your time on such a log, you would write down what you’re doing, checking in three to four times per day to fill in what you’ve done since the last check-in. Broad categories are OK—work, sleep, drive, make dinner, play with kids—because consistency is more important than documenting every single minute.
If you would like a larger Excel or PDF version of this log, please visit my website, LauraVanderkam.com, and fill out the subscription form so I can email you one.
After you have tracked your time, ask yourself a few questions about your schedule:
1. What do I like most about my time?
2. What do I want to spend more time doing?
3. What would I like to spend less time doing?
4. What steps can I take to make those changes?
I would love to hear what you discover! You can email me at laura@lauravanderkam.com.
Group Discussion Questions
How we choose to spend time affects everyone around us. If you’ve read Juliet’s School of Possibilities with your team or with other members of a professional or social organization, you can gather in small groups (ideally four to eight people) to discuss these questions.
On the way to her retreat, Riley realizes she has disappointed the people who are closest to her, personally and professionally. Have you (or anyone in the group) ever dropped the ball when you felt overwhelmed? As you look back on this experience, what circumstances led to this situation of feeling overwhelmed? What did you decide to do differently as a result?
Riley’s particular weakness was trying to respond to all emails instantly, but many activities can consume more time than people like. As you think about how you and your team spend your time, what activities take more hours and energy than you think they’re worth? Why do you think they consume so much time?
If you could spend an additional hour on one professional activity per week, what would it be?
If you could spend an additional hour on one personal activity per week, what would it be?
Where do you think you might make time in your schedule for these activities? When are other people in the discussion group making time for these activities?
Juliet reminds Riley that she is always choosing how to spend her time, and so she should choose well. Think back to a time when you had to make a tough choice, or your team had to make a tough choice, about how to spend time. What did you decide to do? What were the ramifications?
Have you ever needed to disappoint someone’s immediate expectation in order to meet a larger one? How did you handle the situation? What was the outcome?
Riley dreams up her career-saving idea while she’s biking along the boardwalk. Where and when do you get your best ideas? Think back to a recent mental breakthrough. How did that idea come to you? What were the circumstances, and how could they be replicated?
Have you ever had an opportunity come to you when you changed how you spent your time?
Looking forward to next week, what one change would you like to make in your schedule to make more time for your priorities?
Who in the group can hold you accountable for this change?
Check back one week later. Did you make the change to your schedule? If so, what made that change possible? If you didn’t make the change to your schedule, why not? How could you address these challenges?
About the Author
Laura Vanderkam is the bestselling author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast and Off The Clock, among others. Her 2016 TED talk, "How to Gain Control of Your Free Time," has been viewed more than 5 million times. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and other publications. She lives with her husband and their four children outside Philadelphia.
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