You’re On The Clock | No BS Management Advice

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Do you really know what you do each day? If you’re like most people, you’re busy with nonsense. Here’s what to do.

The Exit Package

I used to work in an office where people used to talk about being “crazy busy.”

“Oh, we’re crazy busy.”

Every once in a while, I would ask, “with what?”

“Oh, we gotta lot to do! Lot to do all! All sorts of stuff! We gotta do it!

I said, “Have you ever considered just taking notes down about how you spend your time? It doesn’t have to be a big deal, just something that you can read and maybe just jot down some quick things. If you’re really feeling inspired, take note of how long is spent doing it,

“Okay, we’ll do that.”

Suddenly, they notice that we’re crazy busy with garbage, nothing that really helped them make money, nothing that really helped generate business. There was, of course, the office chatter and suddenly they discovered that they were spending two hours a day on office chatter. There were things like a scheduling appointments where people were going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and that became frustrating.  They started to look at ways that they could streamline that.

I’m wondering how much of that is true for you, too.  Consider that you’re on the clock, but it’s the clock of your life, not the clock of the business. If you do the same thing, like . . .  I’ll give you a simple example. You’re making phone calls. How many calls a day do you do?

“Oh, handling a lot of calls.”

Okay. How many calls a day are you doing? Are you recording the calls? Are you recording what you’re talking about? I’m not talking about the calls to your wife, husband or partner. Certainly, in terms of personal life, but put it on the list. Just take note of the fact that you’re speaking with them two three times a day.

You’re commuting. How long is your commute? Is that the way you want to live your life? Is that the way . . . I’ll give you example. There was a time I was working when  we were living in northeastern Pennsylvania. It took me two hours each way to commute to work. I did that as a choice. I was perfectly aware that when we bought that house it was going to take me to two hours plus a walk from the bus depot to our office, two and a half hours. You start looking at that five days a week, I had a part time job commuting. 

Again, I made a choice. I was very conscious of it and I worked on the bus. I had Wi Fi set up so I could do that. But, when push comes to shove, you have to start recording things that are making you crazy busy, crazy busy so that have a sense of how you’re spending your time of work, how you’re spending your time, you know, why is this the way you want to do most families are completely unaware in your life. The fact that,  at the end of the day, they’re sitting around watching TV for two, three hours. And what could you do differently that would actually make you happy other than sitting there like a numb robot, staring at the screen.

You’re on the clock. You’re on the clock with your life and you only have a certain amount of time that you’re going to be able to live. And, you know, as I’ve said many many times, a lifetime is not a long time and if you’re in a job that you start to notice you’re not doing things that are really interesting to you and you’re spending a lot of time, change it. Go someplace else.

if you have a ridiculous commute like I did, change it. Do something else. Get something closer to home. We ended up moving to North Carolina. I work from home. it’s a breeze. No commuting, right? I’ve gotten all that time back to make my choices with. I like it. It feels good. What can you do to change things?