Life with margins.
For many, the crammed lifestyle pushes to the very edge of every page, and there is no room to breathe.
The slightest shift can tip the cart over the edge.
We need margin. Look for the whitespace and be careful not to fill it.
A moment in your day does not immediately demand that it be filled with phone. You know what I mean.
It’s in the spaces that we find new things. It’s through the cracks that fresh insights can leak in.
I have three key filters I like to apply, and each one can be enjoyed across the board of your happy existence.
Look at these like a sieve, a filter, that allows only the essentials to reach your desktop.
They are:
Eliminate. Automate. Delegate.
At the bottom of the distillation is that big word: DO.
Eliminate
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Automate
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Delegate
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DO
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Eliminate
It is always better to eliminate rather than carry a task to the next step.
Aggressively evaluate the necessity of each and every step, and critically detail each part of your business process.
If it doesn’t produce, prune it!
Remove whatever is unnecessary.
Anything that passes beyond Elimination is then passes to the next step in the productivity gauntlet.
Examples:
Personal: I eliminated the time not takes to choose what to wear each day and cleared my closet. I then purchased 4 pairs of jeans, ten identical t-shirts, ten pairs of socks and ten pairs of undies. I have one jacket/jumper I wear.
Professional: For a long time in my business I was administrating several newsletters, one for each of my pen names. I eliminated this by choosing to correspond as the publisher and simply connect with readers through one channel for all my pen names.
I am not suggesting either of these are either relevant or appropriate for you. I’m just sharing how this was applied in my own life in a couple of concrete ways.
Book Recommendation: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo and Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists
Automate
This is the next best thing to eliminating.
Ask yourself, is there any way to AUTOMATE this task or process so it becomes completely hands-off, or at least partly taken care of by technology?
This especially is the place where leveraged technology is key.
Is there a software that will take care of the task at hand, instead of your hand having to do it manually each and every time.
If like me you are in online business this might include an autoresponder for newsletter automations, a scheduler for social media, plugins on your website that perform certain tasks on your behalf.
Take time to list out tasks your find yourself undertaking on a regular basis and look for ways to leverage products and services that do the heavy listing.
Often the automation process is front loaded. By that I mean that it takes time to set things up and put things in place to write yourself out of the picture, but the payoff is huge.
Examples:
Personal: I subscribe to a service called HelloFresh who deliver a box full of ready-to-cook meals each week. The box contains fresh proportionate ingredients for three or four meals along with step-by-newbie-step instructions. A massive time-saver that eliminates the need for me to think about what to eat for several days a week, and automates my food shopping.
Professional: The list of tasks I now automate is long, and several examples are listed above. It is always worth looking carefully at any process and considering ways in which it can be automated in whole or in part
Book recommendation: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber
Delegate
The last of our big three is DELEGATE.
What cannot be eliminated or automated is a candidate for delegation.
I was a total sucker for doing it all myself. In my business everything from writing to editing to proofing to cover-creation to promotion – you name it, my name sat alongside the task on the very long To-Do list.
Don’t fall into this trap if you plan to free yourself from feeling overwhelmed.
Make the decision today to begin the bold process of delegation.
Today, many parts of my business take care of themselves, or more accurately, someone else takes care of them on my behalf.
I have found that taking the step to hire someone else (which is really an investment in yourself, and valuing your time in a real and tangible way) is initially a difficult set to take. The grip of self-sufficiency is tight and rarely wants to loosen. It is also true that in the short term it is often easier to just “do it yourself” rather than pour effort in to training someone else to do it the way you expect and require.
Much like the front loaded automation equation, this investment of time to train others to take on your tasks is a life-changer.
Personal: A very simple example is the cleaner we employ to come and spend two hours each week cleaning our house. We tidy and clean in-between but we know each week there will be a good general clean through even if we are otherwise occupied.
Professional: The majority of regular practical tasks in many areas of my business are now delegated to others. I have people writing, editing, and assisting me in most areas of my process. This leaves only the things that I alone can do on my plate, and I’m fully convinced that are some that remain that just need some ingenuity to move off that plate. The filtering process is an ongoing one.
Book Recommendation: Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Virtual Freedomby Chris C. Ducker
Do
By now you should have just a few grains on your plate. These tasks are ones that you are fitted for. They are the ones you perform at the highest level, and ones that provide the highest value to others.
Productivity is not about doing more, it is really about doing less. Less of the unnecessary things so what remains can be undertaken with all of the strength and passion you carry in your heart.
Colossians 3:23 encourages us:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord…”
Following this sieving system means that the task you pour your energies into tend to be the ones that bring the greatest value to the table, and are the ones that are most personally satisfying to you.
Remember this, you have the authority and mandate to design your life. You are not confined to continue in a default position where decisions are imposed upon you. You can choose.
It may take time, and courage, to shift things in the direction you want to go, but you can do it. Others have, so can you.
I believe that the conception of a new future is often right there at the top of the funnel: elimination.
Removing what is no longer serving you will free up space for God to move in and open new opportunities.
