Planiranje vremena

Key Insight

Planiranje vremena

● “Failing to plan is planning to fail” - an old Serbian proverb...

● For a start the simplest concept but also the most important: we should have one crucial thing for that day! That crucial thing is ideally solved in the morning, with a fresh mind, with coffee, above all. As the day goes on our energy declines and that task becomes tougher. If I have 10 crucial things that day the probability I’ll finish none is high, but if I work on one crucial thing a day I will finish about 20 crucial things per month. Finishing 20 crucial things per month is far better than finishing 2000 nonessential ones, and most things are nonessential and can be delegated or done in fast thinking at lower energy.

● Grouping activities/batching - calls, emails, messages, meetings and similar activities are ideal to group. We want to have a period in the day with many interruptions and a period with 0. This requires good planning in advance and pedantic calendar use, but a very simple way to achieve this is to block a few hours in the calendar (ideally early morning) when we will work without interruption.

● Overplanning can also be a problem, and there is one rule: if it lasts less than 2 minutes do it right away. It is simply cheaper than writing down, memorizing, checking, scheduling etc. (Important detail here is that it lasts less than two minutes and absolutely no one else can do it for you. If someone can, delegate that task once and every next time should not come to you).

● “I want to have more freedom,” is often heard as an argument against planning, but in fact that argument goes in favor of good planning, because good planning actually gives us more efficiency, and thus more free time. Good planning guarantees that we will complete the required work in the most efficient way and thus gain more freedom. We only have 24 hours in a day, and it’s crucial to have awareness of how we spend them (similar to financial budgets).

● The illusion of a private and business life - in modern times it’s very hard to separate these two. Sometimes in work time we will do private things, and sometimes in private time we will do business things. It’s simply easier not to think about it this way; both compete for the same resource, and are often intertwined. A better separation is slow thinking and fast thinking (often we need slow thinking to solve private problems).

● You won’t get rich by spending time to save money. You’ll get rich by spending money to save time. Time is the most valuable thing you have. If you can exchange money for time, always do it. It may be harder at the start of your career with low income, but once you shift a few thousand euros you can delegate the biggest time-drivers (the whole chapter on that a bit later).

● “Slow down to see” - We cannot influence how many things we can do in a day (we have 6-12 effective hours max), but we can influence what we do. Investment in planning and thinking pays off. “I spent 2 hours thinking and planning, and I did nothing”? Not really; thinking and planning will lead to much better use of time and better decisions, which in turn lead to better outcomes. We did not sit in a chair to produce 10 hours of work; we sat to produce a positive outcome. It’s very easy to fall into a vicious circle where we work a lot and are tired but accomplish nothing meaningful, and even easier to get used to this and make it the norm (the core premise of the book Essentialism). Planning and thinking can be brought to zero, and then we overindulge and cannot finish anything, and what we do may not have been necessary. In planning we need to make a conscious trade-off - we must say no to some things!

● Waiting. Never, never, never. Not for anything, not for anyone, especially not in line. If you’ve come to a position where you are waiting for something it means you didn’t plan well enough. Waiting is usually an excuse, used because we are lazy to work. If there are things you cannot delegate, and you truly must wait (doctor, cargo driving, airport etc) plan productive waiting: emails, books, calls...

● Context switching - The most underrated killer of productivity. There are certain functions in companies that must be constantly linked (secretaries, salespeople..) but most do not. An entrepreneur's job is proper decision-making. Every message, no matter how small, causes a context switch, and every context switch is 1-10 minutes of lost time. We can easily reach a situation where absolutely nothing useful is done during the day if we are constantly connected (and if we are tired and feel like we’ve done a lot).

● Sunk cost fallacy - we’ve already invested some time in something, so we want to keep investing so that the previous investment doesn’t go to waste, but both old and new investments can fail. The brain uses heuristics (learned estimates) to assess how valuable something is, and in one heuristic there is a rule: if I’ve invested a lot of effort in this, then it’s valuable, but this often isn’t the case. Sit and think: can this investment really yield big returns (monetary or time - the same thing)?

○ Example - complaints, grievances etc... Since we’ve bought a product or service, we feel we should justify that investment (and pursue justice) and if the product or service is bad, we go from one repair service to another for months, ending up with a toaster that’s worth 50 euros after spending 4 hours, 50 context switches, and extra 30 euros in gas and parking, and we add another worry to the mind as if it wasn’t enough. The toaster ends up in the trash, we order another online in 20 seconds and done.

○ On the other hand, sunk cost fallacy can work to our advantage: we can create sunk costs for good things such as gym equipment, trainer and Zoom membership, supplements, etc., trips and vacations or seminars/networking events, and even if we don’t attend the gym we will still be motivated by the sunk costs.

● Emotional planning - emotions are a very nice thing, but not in business and not in effectiveness. Emotions turn off rational parts of the brain, which is something we don’t want. Do we want to do a 'favor' for someone or allocate too much time to family and friends or partner (with whom we text all the time)? Decide rationally in advance how much time you want to spend on such things, put it in the calendar, and stick to it. In earlier career stages effectiveness is most important, there will be plenty of time for family and friends, but first the business must be on its feet! Help yourself to help others.

● Physical movement of location (driving) - Driving and changing location should be avoided at all costs, but if we must, drive when there is no traffic (between 10 and 14 and after 19 in Belgrade). Walking is a much better alternative, and if possible we should choose locations within a walkable distance. Very often I go to lunch with friends nearby and arrive sweaty because I ran to the restaurant, which is a better option than running.

● Generosity with time - Parkinson’s law says: the task grows to the time allotted for it. So the same for the time you give to people will always be spent, but the question is will it be effective? If you gave someone 30 minutes, try 15. You’ll probably achieve the same goal.

● Conflicting, arduous, toxic, difficult people - This seems obvious, but ask yourself how much time you’ve spent on such people in the last year? Is it really zero? No matter the economic value of interactions with such people, in the long run it isn’t worth it. Clients, investors, partners, whoever it is, end the relationship and look for another. Conflicted situations, insults, etc., anywhere where no significant material damage or physical injury occurred: ignore. In conflict situations always drop the ball, disconnect, walk away. Turn around and go. End of story. You don’t have time for that, and it can get really complicated (younger generations have a nicer phrase for this: I don’t see haters).

● Actions, points, cards, loyalty programs, referrals... These are absolutely the opposite of what you want. Those systems are designed to rob you of time and create sunk costs. You exchange a lot of your time for very little (often 0) material rewards. Stay away from them.

● Courier jobs - Not done yet? In practice we avoid these as they waste time; if something is urgent use proper services; do not waste time on minor courier tasks.

● Excuses for No - Honestly I don’t recall where I heard this, but it completely changed my way of thinking. When you say no you are not obliged to give an explanation for why, and even if you do you create the impression that you are 'justifying' and you lessen the strength of the spoken no. I used to always say no with some reason/excuse. Now I don’t. Just say no. I can’t, I’m not available. End. No need to explain. It’s your 100% right.

● Unused Sunday - for me Sunday is by far the most productive day. Why? I have almost no interruptions and almost all day in flow. I often take Wednesday, Thursday or Friday off, but Sunday I almost always work. There is a quiet tempo that Sunday provides and we should leverage it as much as possible.