How to Save a Million Milliseconds per Day

Saving time is impossible. 

But we all use the word ‘Save’ to mean ‘Avoid Waste’ or ‘Do the things I really want’.
For comparison, you can save $100 today by putting money in the bank or in your sock drawer.

In six months you can go back to the bank (or sock drawer) and get your money out and you’ll have it ready to use.

If you save $100 in a bank with an interest rate of 1% annually, you’ll get $101 dollars back.

If you invest your money in the stock market (not in 2016 of course, but over a longer period) you could get 10% annually and you would get back $110.

Saving time is more like earning interest on a $100.

With time, we are really trying to invest, not save. We want today’s time to give us the best results we can possibly get.  Unlike a savings account, with time you never get back the principle, you only receive the interest (value in the future)

So now that we share a common vocabulary, how does a person save a million milliseconds in a day (or about 17 minutes)?

1.  First thing in the morning … don’t consult smartphone or laptop or morning TV news

Avoid reading any e-mail or looking at Facebook or getting engrossed in the news.

Workout, brush your teeth, read a book, get a shower, eat breakfast, write in your journal, pay a bill or sit quietly and contemplate what you want to accomplish for the day. Better yet, write a list of things you want to get done. If you write the list, you will actually save even more time because you will focus on what you want done by the end of day.

If you avoid digital distractions first thing you can save up to 10 minutes. Reinvest the minutes with purpose...something that adds value to your life.

2. If you watch TV, switch to Netflix and avoid commercials

Yes you will have to sacrifice the latest shows, but you can manage this because your life goal has a professional vector and a family or personal vector.  Neither your professional pursuits nor your family goals will benefit from watching sitcoms (I’m sure someone has a exception to this rule, but I think the exceptions would be TV columnist).

For 30-60 minutes of programming you can create up to 15 minutes to reinvest.

3. Cut down on watching

If you watch two - 30 minute episodes, consider just watching 1 episode.  Have something ready to replace the TV time.  Since your energy is low at the end of the day, you might be able to introduce light reading or perhaps if you find a really entertaining business book, you could indulge in that.  

(Netflix Subscribers: If you want to help yourself cut down on watching, turn off auto-play.  It's not easy to find, so here's the quick details ... Upper Right Corner --> "Profile Icon" --> "My Account" --> "My Profile" --> "Playback Settings" --> Uncheck "Play next episode automatically".)

4. Substitute an educational or professional podcast or audiobook for music or talk radio during commute or exercise

Remember investing time is by definition saving time.  When you take time to invest in your future, you are actually saving time by creating a better more effective you in the future.  

This could be an investment of 15-60 minutes or longer depending on your one-way daily commute or the length of your exercise routine.

To extend this time savings, substitute podcast or audio books on both legs of your commute; home-to-work and work-to-home. 

5. At work, create a goal for every meeting that you host and publish it in your calendar invite

Determining and writing a goal will either shorten your meeting because you can stop when you meet the goal, or it will focus everyone so you can get to your goal quicker.  A goal does mysterious things to your brain that helps you hit the mark. Assume you could save 5 minutes per meeting.  If you have 3 meetings, it’s possible to save 15 minutes in one day.

If you attend another persons’ meeting, you can simply ask them at the outset of the meeting, “What's the goal for this meeting?”  That question will help everyone in the room dive into the meat of the collaboration.

If you think deeply you can probably find more interesting ways to save a million milliseconds.  If you do, you are on the path to something great...maybe saving a million seconds.

Leave a comment and let me know your biggest time waster?

On the Journey of Productivity and Excellence

It was my junior year in college.  I will never forget the lesson.

I did something that solidified one of my life principles: Leverage.

At Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado I took an algorithms class and the major assignment was to create visualizations of sorting routines as they ran.   The idea was to start with a list of few hundred names and then create a plot on the screen that showed how they moved from chaos to order during every step of the process.

As a visual person I loved seeing the graphics on the screen move as each piece of the puzzle fell into place.  It was like Neo in The Matrix … seeing the patterns and knowing that they made sense.

Every few class periods the professor would assign a new algorithm to the process.  Near the end of semester, the professor assigned the grand finale:

Pull all the sort algorithms together and create a single application so that you can upload a single set of data and interactively select any algorithm and watch it run.  The application should return to the main menu and allow a person to again select another algorithm and watch it run.  Rinse and repeat.

There was lots of groaning throughout the class.  Many people anticipated weeks of spaghetti code combined into one big pasta dish that would turn out looking like ten different Italian dishes run through a blender.

Earlier in the semester I figured out I could design a common interface for all the algorithm projects and reuse it for each subsequent assignment.  After all, I’d have to test all the projects, so why not use a common interface and automate the test.

The final project was completed in a few days and it took me very little effort.
A few hours of good design resulted in an easy semester of programming and an even easier final project.  

The professor pulled me aside after he finished grading the final project and he said, “I really liked how you wrote that project.  If I were a software company, I would hire you.”  I thought that was pretty cool.
Putting my 20 year-old elation aside, the real lesson I learned was how to maximize my Leverage.  

Thoroughly understanding the problem creates Leverage.

Good planning creates Leverage.  

Leverage allows you to do something once and have it work for you over and over.

It’s perhaps a little cliche, but Archimedes said it right, 

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

Leverage is a tool available to everyone.  Like any craftsman, you must explore and practice to find the one that works for you. Here are my Productivity levers…

• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey (my foundation for a purposeful and productive life)

• Getting Things Done by David Allen (this is a system for executing a purposeful and productive life)

• The 80/20 Principle by David Koch (a framework for determine the best ways to apply my time and energy)

• The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan (a very specific system for applying the 80/20 Principle)

Every year I re-read or re-listen to these books to refresh myself on the concepts and practical tips for a successful life.  Like a ship constantly adjusting its course on a long journey, the principles and practices found in these books help me navigate the ocean of life and reach islands of success throughout my journey.

What is your #1 productivity lever? Please leave a comment about either your biggest productivity challenge or your biggest productivity lever?

http://www.steveteske.com

How to Get a Higher Education While you Commute

I’ve looked at the statistics for commuting duration and decided that I can get the equivalent of a master's degree while I commute to work and back home.  Master Degree programs vary widely in terms of credit hours, but according to my research an average master's degree usually requires about 36 Credit Hours.  Credit hours are measured as Contact Hours with a professor and then you add another 3 hours of homework.  That’s 4 hours or your personal time per credit hour.  Now multiply by 15 weeks (length of the semester) and your grand total for master’s degree is 2160 hours.

Now that we know how much a typical master degree costs in terms of hours, how long will it take me to get the equivalent education hours while I drive down the road? I’m glad you asked…

Let’s assume that you start your education at the moment you jump in the car and stop when you arrive at work.  We’ll assume the same scenario for the trip from work to home.  

Daily 1 Way Commute in Minutes	Years to Get Master's Degree
30	8.6
45	5.8
60	4.3
90	2.9
120	2.2

Based on the numbers in the table above it could take you anywhere from a little over 2 year to 8 ½ years to get the equivalent hours of education for a master’s degree.   You might be asking yourself a few questions…

• Where am I going to find a college professor to ride along with me for the duration of my commute?
• And how will I convince him or her to show up at my house right when I leave for work?
• Can he or she find a way back to the college or university so I don’t have to drop them off?
• How much is this going to cost me for the convenience and quality of this education?

Fortunately you don’t need to find that special college professor.  You’ve probably already hear of Audible.com by Amazon.  Audible is a subscription service that holds a vast amount of material for every kind of reader/listener.

For our use case of getting the equivalent of a master’s degree, I researched audible’s collection of “The Great Courses” audio books. I determined that Audible has approximately 400 titles “The Great Courses Titles” that sum to 6,300 hours of educational listening. NOTE: This is ONLY “The Great Courses” material which is a fraction of the content on Audible. Many of these titles are recorded by University Professors who hold Ph.D’s is the subject of interest.  FANTASTIC...you just found the professor that will ride along with you every day.

Caveats include

• No face time with a real professor
• No office hours
• No homework
• No accreditation for all your work
• No group projects that are core for many master's degree programs

Nevertheless, you can learn a ton and apply a amazing amount of what you learn by consistently listening day after day.

Check out Audible.com.  Find some courses of interest from “The Great Course” or other self help or business.  DO NOT get a novel...unless you are pursuing Creative Writing or Literature. You need to be learning on your commute to invest the time.

Please leave comments and let me know about what kind of “Master’s Degree” you would like to get while you drive?

-All The Best, Steve.