patrick salyer

time management - a simple philosophy

Back in high school I developed a philosophy about how I spent my time, and I actually still find it relevant today.  This became a super important topic for me, because I was involved in a number of activities, each trying to pull me in one direction or another.  Of course, academics placed a huge demand on my time.  This could have easily taken all of my time then.  Then, there were sports.  Not just one sports, but 2.  Plus, basketball didn’t just include my high school coach, but my club coach.  And each coach wanted you to spend a certain amount of time training, etc.  Also, there was the extracurriculars like academic decathlon.  There was the volunteer work.  There was also church.  And, you can’t forget your friends that want and expect you to be hanging out all the time.  

Each one of these activities - academics, sports, volunteer, extra-curriculars, church, friends, etc - were requesting and demanding an increased amount of time.  This was difficult for me as I didn’t want to disappoint any individual and I wanted to excel at everything.  In short, I really wanted the ability to do it all.  Thinking back, I actually became frustrated with the leaders of some of these activities for asking so much of my time.

In time, I began putting it all into perspective.  I began realizing that it was the job of the people that ran these various activities to demand as much as possible out of me.  In fact, I should likely be thanking them for demanding so much, as this instilled a pursuit of excellence.  I suddenly realized it was my job to set out with a worldview, an ultimate set of goals, that would guide how I would spend my time. These goals would help me make the decisions on how I spent my time each day. As long as I was making decisions consciously, with those goals in mind, than I shouldn’t be overly concerned with not meeting the expectations of the various projects that I’m involved with.

Since High School, I still find that general concept to ring true.  As I moved into college, and now working life, I find the demands as great as ever, and the need to put those demands into a perspective of what I’m trying to accomplish.

Passion for the job

A friend has recently been considering switching jobs.  Something that is weighing into the decision is a concern that the potential opportunity, while better from a day to day lifestyle, may not be the ideal job he is passionate about.

It’s got me thinking quite a bit.  In general, I think today we all have a luxury (it’s a good thing) to worry about finding work you are passionate about and work that would be considered prestigious and successful.  This is a new thing.  Back for my grandparents and previous generations, work meant feeding their family.  Work decisions really weren’t decisions at all.  I would venture to guess that work, in most cases, was as simple as figuring out whatever you could get paid for.  Since education wasn’t so readily available, this probably meant doing whatever your parents did. Even today, there are hundreds of millions of people in developing countries without the luxury of any type of job choice.

It goes without saying the opportunity to find work you are passionate about, an opportunity awarded with increased education and the modern economy, is a good thing.  But, as we are one of the first generations to worry about finding work we are passionate about, I believe that we are going to squirm a bit in our pursuit of this.  No one tells you exactly how to accomplish this, but I believe many in my generation in the US feel the need to have it in their work.  Until the world comes up with an instruction manual, I think it may be worth keeping in mind that it’s a luxury to be able to find successful work, that we are passionate about.  Although, when making job decisions, without the manual to help us figure it out it sure doesn’t feel that way.

Emotional Labor: Quite possibly the most under-rated professional tool today

I’m currently in the process of reading Seth Godin’s “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable”.  One of the more thought provoking concepts that Seth addresses is the concept called Emotional Labor.  Emotional Labor includes the interactions between individuals, including co-workers, clients, superiors, etc.  Emotional Labor can involve connecting with others, flashing a smile, taking initiative, showing charisma, solving a problem.

It’s important that emotional labor isn’t a concept that takes physical skills.  What it does take is a ton of effort.  It’s very tiring for almost everyone. 

Because it takes so much effort, and it’s not a hard skill (especially things like connecting with others, charisma, asking questions, smiling), nearly everyone I know just forgets it altogether.  It’s easy to think it doesn’t help perform day to day aspects of a job, and because it’s tiring, pass on it altogether. 

But emotional labor is a real low-hanging fruit.  I believe that very few individuals - either at home or work - are really mastering this skill.  As Seth points out, as it becomes almost impossible to produce a cheaper widget in the era of Wal-Mart & Amazon, emotional labor may be the only way to differentiate. 

How does one improve in this area?  I’d suggest to begin to think about those in your own life that do a good job at this and think about what they are doing.  You should have 1 or 2 folks, past or present, that you can think of.  I can think of a friend in college that I’d get lunch with once in a while.  He brought so much energy into those conversations, so much engagement.  Always asking questions, smiling, eye contact, not checking the phone.  We grew closer because his approach to our conversations required interaction, intimacy, and intellectuality.  I left those conversations feeling filled with life, recharged.  I’ve got another friend who, when he shows up, brings so much charisma into a room it comes to life.  There is an energy he brings with his positive attitude, jokes, overall energy.

In both these examples, there is a good amount of intention - questions, attitude, facial expressions, presence.  My guess is it’s not easy to bring that much energy into conversations or charisma into a room, but they’ve realized it’s worth the effort for them.  And it’s under their control.

These are things I’m going to begin thinking more about in my own personal and professional life.  Especially how can I encourage those I manage to bring emotional labor into our client relationships to create a competitive advantage.

12 Steps to Practical Problem Solving by Paul Polak

The 12 Steps to Practical Problem Solving:

1. Go where the action is. “Spend significant time with your customers. This is how you learn what they need,” he says. Not hours, days. Polak lived with his farmers for 6 months.

2. Interview at least 100 customers a year. You do it. Not an employee. Listen to what they have to say. “Too many entrepreneurs build the product they want to build — not the one that’s needed.”

3. Context matters. If your solution isn’t right for the context, for example, if it costs too much for the customers you’re trying to serve, you won’t succeed.

4. Think big. Act big.

5. Think like a child.

6. See and do the obvious. Others won’t, which is opportunity for you.

7. Leverage precedents. If somebody has already invented it, don’t do it again.

8. Scale. Your business must have potential to scale. Remember, your market must include at least 1 million customers.

9. Design to specific cost and price targets. Not the other way around. (Celeste: it means — Do not price to your design, design to the price you need to hit to make your product appropriate to your customer.).

10. Follow practical three-year plans. Two years is too short. Ten is too long.

11. Visit your customers again. And again. “Any successful business in this country is based on talking to your customers all the time. A good CEO spends half his time ‘in the field.’”

12. Stay positive. Don’t be distracted by what other people think.

free market is a scary thing

As everyone probably knows by now, there are some serious issues with our financial system right now.  It seems to me that a series of investment firms took some big risks on loans that wouldn’t get paid back because they are too risky.  Even further, a series of home owners bought homes they couldn’t afford and took these loans.  Now, the market is correcting itself, and some fear is settling in, and we are all paying for it.

Let me give a quick overview of the week.  Monday, the S&P 500 dropped about 4%.  It stayed steady for Tues, so I thought the worst was over.  Than on Wed., it dropped another 5%.  Geez.  Things weren’t good.  I started reconsidering my investment strategy, for good reason.  The fed stepped in, agreeing to pour in billions of tax payer dollars and on Thursday the market rose again.

If the fed stood by, and let the market continue to fall, the truth of the matter is the investment firms & defaulted mortgage holders wouldn’t have been the only ones that would have suffered.  It would have been all the money I have in stocks.  So, I am relieved they did it.  But, should we be taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again?  The problem with that is that it means regulation, and regulation will probably hurt the economy and lead to lower returns.

The free market is a scary thing.  It’s great in that I can get great returns on my investments when all is going well.  But when things sour, I can pay for others mistakes.

It will be interesting to see if we will be entering a new phase in the market, when it is more regulated.  And, it will be interesting to see if we can have our cake and eat it too.  I hope so.