SUPPORTING SURREY
How to leave the office on time every night – The answer is in the gap By Anthony Taylor, ThreeFifty9 Anthony Taylor
W
hat difference would leaving the office on time every night make for you? I’m guessing it could transform some areas of your life. Would you hit the gym more? Go for that evening stroll or spend time with the kids? I used to think it was impossible until I HAD to. No ifs, no buts. Had to. The reason was divorce. I found myself a single Dad fifty percent of the time and with a job 30-miles away down the motorway. The prospect of leaving two nursery-aged kids on the doorstep at 6pm wasn’t viable, and the thought of it physically turned my stomach. The idea of paying a daily £10 fine didn’t appeal much either. Which meant I had no choice. Either I needed to do less work or be more efficient. Or both. Purpose It’s amazing what you can achieve when you have a ‘WHY.’ As Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” My why were two small, innocent children called William and Merryn. Through no fault of their own, they were the collateral damage of a broken relationship. Ten hour days, even in a nursery they loved going to, was long enough. What they needed was time with their Dad. Time that once gone cannot be bought back, no matter how much money a person earns. Seeing their smiling faces, the excitement in their eyes, the feeling of warmth and surprising strength of their embrace at the end of the day, was all the motivation I needed. No boss, no ‘crisis’ can compete with that. But here’s an exciting thing. What I’ve come to realise, somewhat belatedly, is that I’m just as important. My health, physical and mental, and my relationships are just as important. This is why even now the kids are older, I’m much better about walking away from work at 5:30pm. Sharp. What’s your purpose, your why? Find it, and you are halfway there to leaving work on time every night. For the other half, there are some things you can do. Call in the General Dwight D. Eisenhower was an American army general who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he became a five-star general in the Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944-45 from the Western Front. Two pretty big jobs to be fair. One of the secrets to his ability to do those was a time management tool he invented. The Eisenhower matrix.
38 | SURREYLAWYER
The Eisenhower Matrix, also referred to as the Urgent-Important Matrix, helps you decide on and prioritise tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all. In the green box are things that must get done today. They are both urgent and important. Getting that report to your boss today as they have asked, fits that bill. Paying my tax bill by its deadline day also goes into that box. The second quadrant we call Schedule. Its tasks are important, but less urgent. You should list tasks you need to put in your calendar here. Writing that other report due next week goes in this box. My weekly one-to-one’s with my team went in here too. The most productive people leave fewer things unplanned and therefore try to manage most of their work in the second quadrant. That wasn’t me. I spent my days fighting fires, flying by the seat-of-my-pants from one deadline to the next. Some of it was the nature of my work, but I knew I could be better. I had to be better. The orange quadrant is where most of the productivity IEDs live. Those booby-traps that lay waste to hours of your day. These are the tasks that if you could delegate, you should delegate. It dawned on me that I was doing lots of stuff that was urgent, but mainly for other people. All work-related but not stuff that would count toward my annual appraisal. Not what I was being paid to do. Does that happen to you? The fourth and last quadrant is red and called Don’t Do. These are the things that suck the time out of your day. That make you as productive as a sieve for carrying water. These include surfing the internet without reason, gossiping, and the multitude of newsletter emails you get. The content of the last two boxes is why you can’t leave work on time. They stop you from being able to deal with essential tasks in the 1st and 2nd quadrant. 80/20 Vilfredo Pareto’s 80/20 principle has become a bit of a cliché, but that’s no reason to doubt its relevance. When I set Pareto up
