Reclaim Your Time with the 1% : 99% Rule (Part 1 of 3)

Push Back: No Time

English: A Soccer ball. Svenska: En fotboll i vektorgrafik med genomskinlig bakgrund. futebol grego (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently I was coaching a new client on how to create new habbits associated with updating their web sites and other digital properties. To my surprise, this brought out a little push back about not having enough time to do some of the things this small business owner was being requested to do.    All I was asking from the client was to put some 30 minute a day items on his Google calendar to remind him to do certain things each day.

So this got me to thinking about how to create more time in our day.  As I was studying this problem, one of my old coaching sayings popped in my head.  I would explain to the  soccer players I coached, the game is “1% Ball – 99% Everything Else”.  When we first start out learning we tend to focus on the ball, not the “99% everything else” we should be.   The 1% is important, but if that’s all we focus on, then we miss all the rest.

Give me a few moments to explain how this works in business as I use this sports analogy.

Sports Analogy: Youth Soccer

I suggest if you want more time, you need to work on your fundamentals until they take up less time thus freeing up new time to do the more valuable things.  Let me explain how.

When we are training youth to play soccer we focus on the basics: trapping, passing, and dribbling.  These skills are not the most productive, but rather, because we need these to feel natural, almost second nature.  What we want to focus on are the advanced topics: Space, Positioning, Movement, Awareness, Placement, Possession, Finishing, and Defending.  In any given practice session, the more time we must spend on the basics, the less time we have to spend on the advanced, dare I say, more productive skills.

We can easily spot players who have mastered their fundamentals.  “Head-on-a Swivel” is a term coaches use when selecting new youth teams each season.  If we see a person who has their head up and focusing on the 99% of the game, we know they’ve mastered the 1% (at their level of play).

So we train on the fundamentals until they become so natural that we spend less and less time on them and more on the advanced topics I listed above.  Each season we expect growth in the advanced areas, and it is very noticeable when a player still challenged with the fundamentals is placed in a game with those that have mastered it.

Master your fundamentals.  This is what I am recommending you do in your business and private life!

Business Example: Calendar Management

Again, I suggest if you want more time, you need to work on your fundamentals until they take up less time thus freeing up new time to do the more valuable things.  Since I’m talking about time, let me explain buy using a time management tool you should be using, your calendar.

Let’s just imaging a person who spends 75% of their work hours making sure that the remaining 25% of their work hours are fine tuned to perfection.  I know this is hyperbole.  No sane person would do this.   But it brings up a valuable point.  The more time we spend on administrative tasks the less time we spend on value added tasks.

In this example,  if we can improve the administrative process and thus cut the 75% time spent in half, we gain 100% of productive time back.   Let’s say this person takes 30 minutes to figure out the best way to deal with a 30 minute meeting request, we would then focus on setting up a system that allows new meeting requests to flow more naturally and not take up as much administrative time to set and approve.

In the up-coming posts, we will break this down further for you.

More to Come

Part 2 – Technology Tools

In part two we talk  about technology and how it can be used to create new time in your schedule.  To drop a few names: IFTTT, DropBox, EverNote, G+ Hang-outs.

Part 3 – Action Items

In part three we talk about action items for you.  These will be broken down into two parts:

1. Short Term Assignments
2. Routines and Goals

Leave some comments and tell me what you think.

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• Boost Your Time Management Skills with These 9 Techniques (lifehack.org)