Engagement with any social content is fantastic. Good, bad – it all could be the goal! Any press is good press as they say. A couple weeks ago I made a quick post about “If it is important to you – you will always find time“. In that post I made the case that if you identified a current technology as being a “constriction point” or “blocker” – make the time to make the change. From that dialog I had a tremendous influx of comments and questions about business constrictors (in my example being a legacy technology), finding time and most importantly – how!

How do you do it all without feeling like you are drinking from a firehose?!

“If everything is important then nothing is important” (Said by someone important somewhere sometime – if not it is all mine)

Did you know that 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 DOES NOT EQUAL 100? Wait, What??! Sure – simple arithmetic yes (I’m not crazy). Tasks, projects – absolutely not. You have 100% of your time. 5 competing priorities – theoretically giving each 20% of your time one would think it will equal 100%. How about 5 projects. Each project will take exactly 1 week. Each project is equally important. Do you start them all at the same time with the assumption they will all be magically done 5 weeks from now? Spoiler alert!! It is a proven fact that it does not work that way. You have overlap, creep – and all things “messy” when you juggle too many priorities. Let’s not forget you will be called to help on a delivery! There is no “clean-break” from one project to another and then to another. There will certainly be intermittent interruptions. Master of all things multi-tasking; it doesn’t play perfectly!

So back to my discussion.

Finding time if it’s important. It is all about proper prioritization and knowing that when you have proper prioritization, you have a tremendously powerful “NOPE” card to play – and you MUST play it! “Is it one of my very focused and prioritized ‘priorities'”? If not – Pass. Next. Complicatedly simple!! Hold true to that committment! So if you know something is standing in your way – and you have said time and time that your (insert tech) is a culprit – Make it #1 and get at replacing it. Scary, challenging, full of unknowns and uncertainties (plus a bit of frustration). Go go and give it 100% – tackle and conquer it. Then find the next thing. The rest will fall into line!

Retail on,

Oh – here is that original blog post – If it is important to you – you will always find time

Want a great read on prioritization – THE TRACTION LIBRARY!

Jesse