A crucial part of focusing on the vital 20% of what you do is to get rid of some of the 80% of activities that don’t pay off very well. In this chapter you’ll find out how to do that. There is also another obstacle, this one hidden, to doing the most useful things. Learning how to overcome it may be the single most important benefit you’ll gain from reading this book. First, let’s deal with the more obvious obstacle.

Getting rid of some of the less useful 80%

It sounds simple: stop doing the things that don’t give you the greatest value so you can focus time and attention on the ones that do. But when you look more closely it becomes clear that many of the tasks in the 80% category support, and are necessary for, your high-value tasks.

Let’s take a simple work-related example: filing. It’s boring, tedious and doesn’t, in itself, bring any value to what you do. However, if you ignore it long enough, eventually your inability to find important documents will negatively affect some of the top-value things you do.

Another example: semi-social phone calls. Such calls may seem like a waste of time, yet they allow you to maintain contact with people whose cooperation may be vital to some of your top-value activities.

It’s also easy to get caught up in doing research. Especially now that we have the internet, looking up a simple fact can easily lead to jumping to related interesting sites and suddenly an hour has gone. Obviously, the answer is not to skip doing the research, but rather to be aware of the potential distractions.

A final example: when writing, it’s tempting to obsess about getting the perfect opening, writing and rewriting the first paragraph or the first page instead of getting on with the work and going back later to improve it. Here, too, the problem isn’t that you’re doing the wrong thing, but that you’re doing the right thing in a way that is too time-consuming.

Each of these problems has a solution. Let’s see what your options are.

Option 1: eliminate or reduce

Usually, there are some activities that can be eliminated totally or on which we could spend less time. For most people this represents at least 10% to 15% of how they’re spending their time. That may not sound like much, but in an average workday this represents a gain of 45 minutes to an hour that can now be expended on high-value tasks. Consider for a moment how much you could achieve if you spent an extra hour a day on your number-one goal.

Here are a few of the things, discussed in greater detail later, that most people could easily cut back on in their work:

• taking in irrelevant information (see Chapter 10)
• dealing inefficiently with paperwork (see Chapter 11)
• spending too much time on email (see Chapter 12)
• unproductive or unnecessary meetings (see Chapter 13).

Option 2: delegate

The second step is to look at the remaining tasks and find which ones can be delegated to someone else. Remember, your goal is to spend the maximum amount of time on the things that bring you the most value. If you’re doing your own filing, photocopying, errands, routine phone calls, etc., most likely you’re wasting a lot of your time. Your options for delegating include:

• Hiring someone part time. Depending on the nature of the tasks, this could be a school student or a college student, or a semi-retired person.
• Using virtual assistants. For many tasks your assistant doesn’t need to be in your area – in fact, they may even be halfway around the world. Virtual assistants can handle secretarial, office, book-keeping and computing services for you. To find these services just type “virtual assistant” into your search engine. When you find someone who performs to your satisfaction, you can hire them on an ongoing basis.
• Using online freelancers. With services like elance.com you can specify a one-off project that you need, for instance the design of a brochure. Freelancers from around the world will bid on it. You can see samples of their work first and read testimonials from others who have used them. You choose the person who you think will do the best job for the best price.

If you gain one hour a day from tasks you’ve eliminated and another hour a day by delegating, that’s one full week per month you can now focus on your highest-value activities.

The secret of actually doing what you know you should

This brings us to the hidden obstacle that often stops people from applying what they know. Have you ever read a personal development book, thoughtfully underlined the important bits, and set out to implement its techniques and strategies . . . and found yourself a few weeks later back to doing things your old way? If so, then you’ve encountered this problem. You won’t find this covered in most time management books because they are written by people who think in linear ways and can’t quite accept that logic seldom wins the day. They’re not in tune with people who are right-brain, creative and chaotic. Therefore, they also ignore what is the hidden obstacle to ever implementing their advice:

Making a phone call to try to sell someone a product or a new project isn’t nearly as appealing as having a quick look at that book that might just have a chapter relevant to your business, or checking your email and the latest news.

If you look at the tasks related to your top-value activities, I bet you’ll find that many of them are difficult, in some way unpleasant, or have a risk of rejection associated with them.

If you look at your low-value activities, I bet you’ll find they tend to be routine, unthreatening and maybe even enjoyable.

Now we’ve reached the real heart of the problem, the real reason why most people keep their 80/20 balance just the way it is, even if they know better. Why do I call this a “secret” obstacle? Because so few people will admit to it!

Ask any of your friends or colleagues whether they have achieved their full potential. I doubt that many will say yes. Next ask them why this is. Some will blame outside forces: they didn’t get the right education, they didn’t meet the right people, the economic conditions weren’t right, they received poor advice. Some will take responsibility and say they made errors of judgement or they got into the wrong line of business.

Only one in a thousand, if that, will say, “You know, it was because when I had to choose between doing the easy things and the difficult things, I generally took the easy path”.

Many books and courses deliver pep talks to motivate you to do the difficult tasks. They get you revved up and tell you that you have to start taking risks. Some use the power of the crowd to notch up your energy. Some workshops have you break a board, or walk across hot coals, or climb up a big pole. These can be great energy boosters, but when you get back to the normal world the next morning, it all fades, and as much as you’d like to use your board-breaking skills in dealing with that difficult boss, it really isn’t advisable.

What you need is a practical set of tools and techniques for making the difficult things easier and more enjoyable. It’s human nature: when the formerly difficult tasks, the top-value tasks, start being as easy and enjoyable to accomplish as the low-value ones, you’ll do more of them. When you do more of them, you create more value and get compensated for it.

Now you have the missing piece of the puzzle for the 80/20 rule: dumping unnecessary tasks, handing on the ones that can be delegated, and working more efficiently on the ones you do is only half the battle. The other half is making the top-value activities more enjoyable and easier to accomplish. Before we get into how you can do that, take a moment to go back to the list of your work activities you made in Chapter 1. By each item on your list, jot down a number from 1 to 10, with 1 signifying an activity that you hate to do and 10 signifying one you really enjoy doing. (Go on, do it now, I’ll wait. . .)

Did the activities you spend most time on, but that don’t produce the most value, get higher scores than the three most valuable ones? If so, then applying the techniques in the rest of this chapter is likely to produce a real breakthrough in your productivity.

If not, then your challenge may not be that you don’t enjoy the top three, but that you have let the demands of other people or “urgent but not important” tasks dominate your time. In that case, still read the rest of this chapter but you may find that your bigger breakthrough comes via the strategies covered later in the book.

Chunking down to get started

One thing that can make a task seem daunting and unpleasant is its sheer size. In that case, the secret is to break it down into easy-to-do small chunks. Keep making the chunks smaller and smaller until the task is so easy to achieve that you have no problem facing it. For example, let’s say you have to make a phone call firing your current website developer. You know it’s going to be unpleasant, so you don’t do it. But you can’t get on to hiring a new person until the old one is gone, so this is delaying the revamping of your website. In turn, that’s limiting the amount of revenue the site is generating. This “for the want of a nail, a kingdom was lost” phenomenon is very common. First, check whether this task can be eliminated – no. Second, can it be delegated? Possibly, but, if not, then you can chunk the phone call down into these steps:

• Find and write down the person’s phone number.
• Jot down what you want to say and how you want to say it.
• Prepare for the worst eventuality. In this case, that might be a very emotional or hostile reaction, and you could be prepared to say something like, “I’m sorry that this is upsetting you so much, and I will send you a written statement to confirm that our arrangement will not be continuing”. If it sounds like it may turn into a legal problem, tell the other person that the rest of the matter will be handled by your lawyer. In most cases, the worst will not happen.
• Now think about the outcome, not the task. How relieved will you feel once you’ve finished this call? How good will it be not to be dreading it anymore? Use this positive anticipation to propel you to doing the task.

Some people feel a bit silly about breaking a task down into micro-tasks, but it’s a great way to prime the pump. For instance, if you have resolved to go to the gym three times a week and find yourself resisting it, commit to just stepping outside your front door with your gym bag in hand. Tell yourself that if you want to turn back once you’ve done that, you can. In fact, once you find yourself outside with the bag in hand it’s highly likely that you’ll carry on.

Similarly, if you need to write a report, commit only to writing the first sentence. Most likely you’ll keep going.

Try it now. Choose one task that relates to one of your goals and that you have been avoiding. Break it down into three or more chunks:

How do you feel about doing only Chunk 1 today? If it’s practical, you could do it right now and get the feeling of satisfaction of knowing you’ve started. If you feel like going on, do so; otherwise, put Chunk 2 on your “to-do” list for tomorrow and keep going, day by day, until you’ve achieved it.

Who says you have to start at the beginning?

In many cases you don’t need to start at the beginning. When I coach people who have writer’s block, for instance, I advise them to get a pack of index cards and throughout the day jot down any ideas that pop into their minds. This can just as easily apply to writing a business plan, developing an invention, or any other big goal. Keep all the cards and review them once a week or so and see both how they fit together and what additional ideas they prompt. Then decide on one piece of the greater work that you can do now. If you’re writing a novel, you might have in mind the big showdown scene that will occur somewhere towards the end. There’s no reason why you can’t write that scene first and then work your way towards it. If you are coming up with a new product and you have an idea for the packaging, go ahead and work on that even before you’ve finished the product itself. If you start with the bits that excite you the most right now, you create momentum for the rest.

Take a minute to think about one of your goals. What parts of it are the most appealing, whether or not they relate to the logical beginning? What parts excite you enough to get started on today or tomorrow?

Create a flow

You may be familiar with the concept of “flow” as written about extensively by Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “chick-sent-me-high”). It’s that state in which you are so involved with whatever you are doing that you lose all track of time. Often it’s an exhilarating experience in which it seems like you are just a medium for whatever you are doing – a state of intense yet effortless focus. The question is, how can you induce such a state rather than waiting and hoping for it to occur spontaneously? Here are three keys:

1. Pick a task that is at or just above your level of ability. If it’s too hard or too easy, you won’t enter flow. So if you want to write something, break it down into chunks you can handle. One might be writing a rough outline. Another might be jotting down key points in a list or making a mind map. Write down one task like this that relates to one of your goals:
   
   
   
   
2. Make sure that the task includes immediate feedback, so that you know as you go along whether or not you are doing well. For instance, you can start by setting yourself a goal of writing a certain number of words, or getting a specific needed piece of information during your first one-hour work session. Generally, you need to feel positive at the early stages, and eventually the task may so absorb you that you stop thinking about how you’re doing it, or how well. Write down what measure will give you this feedback for the task you jotted down above:
   
   
   
   
3. Create an atmosphere in which you have as few distractions as possible. Again, later in the process you may be so involved that you don’t even notice things like a phone ringing, but it helps if you can start off in an environment that makes it easy to concentrate. This also includes setting aside a period of time when you won’t feel you really should be doing something else. Write down when and where you will work without distraction on the task you chose above:
   
   
   
   

Schedule some time during which you want to tackle a task that supports your highest-value goal and create all the conditions described above. Go into the process with the idea that if flow occurs, that will be great, and if it doesn’t, you’ll still get a lot done (that mentality makes it less likely that you’ll distract yourself by asking “Am I in flow yet?”).

Using odd chunks of time

The strategy of chunking applies to time as well. It’s possible to carve out some odd periods of time in which we can get a lot done, but it requires some new strategies. Here are three suggestions:

• Into your TV guide put a sticky note that reads, “7.30–8.30pm The Goal Hour, starring myself”. Then replace an hour, or half-hour, of TV watching with a working session. A year from now, what would you regret more: not having seen a season of The X Factor, or not having made progress towards your most cherished goal?
• On your shopping list, add “20 Minutes of Goal Work”. When you go out to shop, take 20 minutes beforehand or afterwards to go to a nearby coffee shop and work on your project.
• The next time your children or partner want you to go to a film that you’re not really keen to see, go to the cinema with them, let them go in, and go to a nearby coffee shop and work on your goal until it’s time for them to come out, then take them for an ice-cream and let them tell you all about the film.

Invent your own strategies for overcoming the obstacle

All the strategies in this chapter are about making it easier and more enjoyable to do the tasks that you might otherwise avoid. There are many others, including:

• do them while listening to music you enjoy
• do them together with someone you like
• reward yourself with some kind of treat whenever you finish a task
• bet someone else that you can do the tasks, and make sure that losing the bet would hurt.

You probably have a good idea of what motivates you the most. Some people respond better to rewards (getting a promotion), some to punishment (the threat of losing a job). What works best for you? Jot down three techniques or strategies that you will use to make it easier to achieve tasks you might otherwise avoid – these can be ones from this chapter, or ones you make up yourself:

What’s next

Now when you move towards your goals, you know the secret: that you have to make space to focus on the most important 20%, and you have to make difficult tasks as enjoyable as the easy ones. In the next chapter you’ll find out how to use another key strategy: focusing on what already works.

Website chapter bonus

At www.focusquick.com you’ll find a video interview with actor, improviser and creativity coach Roddy Maude-Roxby on transforming tedious tasks into enjoyable ones.