Harness
“Time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is”
- The Rolling Stones
Our family loves to have movie nights. It has been a real challenge to find movies that we consider family friendly, but still meet the standard of a quality movie. Finding something we feel is appropriate for our young teenagers that doesn’t insult their sensibilities is getting harder and harder.
Recently we watched The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a Netflix production that is available now on that platform. Compelling storytelling of the true story of a drought-ridden farmer and his family in Malawi that are facing the extinction of their way of life. A thinly educated son with a creative mind figures out a way to “make the rain” that they so desperately need.
The boys’ father is incredulous about his idea. There is a finite amount of rain, it comes when it wants and it is impossible to control. Of course, the boy is not a rain-maker who magically conjures the rain, but just one who has learned to harness the power of the wind to pump water from the ground so that they can have “rain” year-round to water their crops.
Most leaders have a similar but different problem. They don’t seem to have enough time to effectively get everything done:
Not enough to balance their life and work
Not enough to work on the business instead of just in it
Not enough to strategically plan for the future
Not enough to make wise and thoughtful hiring decisions
Not enough to train their teams or drive culture
Not enough to get appropriate downtime to relax and recharge
The interesting thing is we run with a tribe of leaders that are finding time to do all of those things. And guess what? They have not magically figured out a way to multiply time, but they are harnessing the power of their time better.
We have a quiver full or really great tools that we aggressively apply, but often it just comes down to learning to see things through a new set of lenses. Embracing new concepts that can powerfully change the way you lead. One of our favorite concepts is…
You cannot expect others to do something as well on the first time as you have done on the hundredth time.
Let that sink in for a minute.
We continue to hold onto tasks that someone else could eventually do as well (or maybe even better), because they (OF COURSE) will not do it as well as we do it on the first time as we do on the hundredth or thousandth time we’ve done the same thing.
If you would teach someone else to do a task that takes you 10 minutes a day on average, it would give you back a full week a year!
If you would teach someone else to do something that takes you 30 minutes a day on average, it would give you back 3 weeks a year!
The issue with not having enough time is almost always linked to our inefficient leadership. We haven’t stopped long enough to train others, refine our processes, or simply gotten comfortable with trusting someone else to do the things we do.
Consider
Are you harnessing time well?
As your business, organization, or family grows, are you getting more stretched and overworked?
Are you actively using tools to force you to focus and manage your time better?
Are you getting comfortable with delegating and trusting in the ways that help you multiply your time?