How to leave the office on time every night – The answer is in the gap

SUPPORTING SURREY

How to leave the office on time every night – The answer is in the gap

By Anthony Taylor, ThreeFifty9

What 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.

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 on a date with Eisenhower, it created the most beautiful lovechild…time. Time to think, time to do, and the ability to leave on time. Every day. James Clear, wrote about it in his article the one percent rule, he also outlines a great way to apply it at work.

How to 80/20 your work:

1. Make a list of the ten things you spend the most time on.

2. Circle the two that truly drive your results. Do more of those.

3. Look at the others. Eliminate ruthlessly. Automate or outsource what you can. Press pause on the rest.

4. Repeat.

Stop the Excuses

The next thing I needed to do was to stop making excuses. Excuses for why I wasn’t delegating more. Excuses for why I wasn’t prioritising my work better. Excuses for why I wasn’t more assertive. It came down to fear. The two root causes of all psychological stress for human beings are:

1. The fear of losing approval

2. The fear of a lack of control

These two fears are hardwired into us from hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. They are what kept us alive, being part of a tribe, and controlling our environment to reduce risk. It’s hard to undo that much behavioural engineering, but you can begin to unpick it. The first step is to recognise it. Once you are aware and willing to be aware of it, then you can start to do something about it. Now you have the excuse out of the way here’s what you can do.

The answer is in the gap

It’s 2pm, and your boss comes to you and asks you to get a report done by 5pm today rather than 5pm tomorrow like they originally requested. What do you do? Most people would say “OK,” then start getting stressed. You might get annoyed and frustrated. Then maybe ditch what you are doing and angrily delegate it to someone else, who gets equally annoyed and angry because you’ve just done to them what has been done to you. Or do you do what your boss wants, then stay late to catch up on your other work or, worse yet, take it home?

Let me ask you a question

Would you give your money away so freely? I’m guessing not. So here’s how to stop giving your time away so freely too. Negotiate. Most people think that when a request comes in, it’s a yes or no answer. This drives your stress levels; if you say no, you risk losing their approval. If you say yes, you lose control of your day. In that scenario, either way, you are screwed. You aren’t leaving work on time. What many people don’t realise is you can negotiate.

All you need is a soupçon of courage and two little words…“Yes, if…”. Here’s how it looks… “Can you get this done for me by 5pm?”; “Yes, if you can get me all the information I need by 2pm”; “Yes, if you can agree that I can get this other thing to you by 5 pm tomorrow.”; Yes, if you can speak to Mary and get them to ask Bob to pick up the widget account presentation.”

Once you change your mindset and accept that you and your time are valuable and have a price, this becomes easier to do. It’s much easier to learn that than it is to get divorced and become a single parent and have to do it, for sure!

Set Your UFCs

“Set my whats?” Your Up-Front Contracts. What you will and won’t do and when you will and won’t do stuff. We set them all the time at home. You might agree with your spouse on a Thursday what the plans are for the weekend. That’s setting an upfront contract. What’s going to happen, when.

I use my calendar to set upfront contracts with family and clients all the time. From 8am and to 10am is my content creation time. My family knows not to disturb me unless one of them is bleeding to death or the house is on fire. I take an hour for lunch and finish at 5:30pm. Everything else works around that. It’s called time blocking Dan Silvestre wrote a great article about it on Medium.

I also used my email out-of-office to tell everyone when I would check emails and would respond. It took them a bit of getting used to but it worked.

In time people did one of several things. They would either not bother me at all and ask someone else, figure it out for themselves or they would wait until they knew I was free. All these things bought me time.

The Result

I was able to leave the office on time every night and to be back to get that warm hug, the highlight of my day. I was more efficient, less stressed and amazingly no-one pushed back and I didn’t get fired. Turns out my fears were unfounded. Which means if that can work for me, it could work for you.

Four simple steps can help you leave work on time every day:

1. Get clear on your reason why

2. Prioritise your work using the matrix and 8020

3. Negotiate. Use “Yes, if…”

4. Set your upfront contracts

Get control of your life; you only get one shot. Good luck. ■