On Time Leadership

I love epiphanies, and I had a big one a few weeks ago.
I was watching some very insightful videos on time management by Paul Lemberg, one of the most highly-regarded business coaches in the world. Lemberg has worked with hundreds of companies, ranging from solo ventures to Fortune 500 corporations. Along the way, he’s learned a lot about how people can be more productive, and he shares some of his favorite tips in these free videos on his blog (which I highly recommend).
Whereas many business coaches provide their clients with a seemingly infinite stream of tactics to apply, Lemberg’s approach to business growth is about strategy. It’s about making the few changes that will have the highest value. So not surprisingly, his presentation on time management cuts to the chase and focuses on just the highest value strategies, the ones that will have the most effect if you implement them.
If you’ve ever read a book about personal productivity or time management, or have ever taken a course on the subject, you probably walked away with a complete “system” that promised to revolutionize your life. If you never made good on that promise (or never sustained it), it’s not your fault: many of the time management gurus actually do us a great disservice by including far too many tactics in their systems. It’s interesting intellectual entertainment, to be sure, but real life is messy. Real life needs a strategy (and a simple one at that).
Back to my epiphany. In the fourth part of Lemberg’s presentation, he talks about the idea of actually scheduling your creative time for yourself, on your calendar. Hardly a revolutionary idea, but what he said next struck me like a bolt of lightning: “I treat it just like any other appointment. I don’t stick stuff in the middle of it, as I wouldn’t stick stuff in the middle if I did a consultation with you. ‘Oh, I gotta go for fifteen minutes while I call my mom …’ I wouldn’t do that.”
Now the consequences of making a quick call, checking email, or surfing the web “just for a minute” when you’re in the middle of writing a proposal by yourself may seem less severe than doing so in a meeting with someone else. But I’d argue that the consequences are even greater when you’re being rude to yourself. Especially if you rationalize your way out of it. How can you expect to succeed in business and in life if you don’t give yourself at least as much respect as you give other people? You can’t.
So I started thinking about this idea of respecting yourself, about respecting your time, and about respecting your most valuable commodity: your attention. I started thinking about the fact that thinking this way seems to imply two different parts of yourself: the part that’s respected, and the part that’s doing the respecting. (For a similar metaphor, see my last post about becoming the Managing Editor of your creative process.)
Here’s where my epiphany grew to its crescendo. In his presentation, Lemberg refers to leadership as “the art of getting things done through the medium of other people.” If so, I realized, then self-leadership is “the art of getting things done through the medium of you.”
That sounds weird, I know, but stick with me. Think of the best leaders you know. Think about the qualities they have, about how effectively and efficiently they motivate other people to transform a goal into reality. Now think about yourself. Are you a good leader … of yourself?
If not, why not? If you’re going to put your limited time, energy, and attention into something, don’t you think you deserve to be led by someone who knows what he or she is doing? By someone who can actually motivate you to get the job done and reach the goal? By someone who respects you?
Most time management systems are, by definition, about self-management. But what if we instead talked about self-leadership, about “time leadership?” What would your life, and your business (if you have one) look like if you learned to become the leader of your own time and focus?
If you ponder this for a bit until you “get it,” it may just be one of the biggest paradigm shifts you’ll ever make (since it will let you more effectively act on all the other ones).
Admittedly, I’m not the first to think of this “self-leadership” concept. If you’re interested in exploring the idea further, there’s a great list of self-leadership resources on work911.com.
I suggest you start though by watching Lemberg’s videos, and by exploring the other resources on his site. You won’t walk away with a complete time management system that promises to do everything, but you will learn a few simple ideas that can help you become a better self-leader. You’ll learn how to focus on the few things that will have the greatest effect. Ultimately, that’s what matters most.
 
Mike Singer is the Publisher of No Map. No Guide. No Limits.