If you’re not going to be able to give something your all, I believe it’s better to admit it up front and figure out another way to address it. The alternative — sliding into that passive grey zone of mechanical execution — is depressing.

The trouble with the big focus on “time hacking” these days is the lack of discrimination. I’m all for efficiency, when appropriate, but sometimes you need to ease up to accomplish the task. The most effective pace doesn’t always mean the fastest.

On a monthly basis, I spend a day on strategy and planning for the following 30 days. I map out my priorities – my “quadrant 2”, important-but-not-as-urgent tasks that I want to make sure receive the proper attention in the busyness of the days ahead. But what exactly is “proper attention”?

There was a point though – a couple of weeks ago – where I seriously started to wonder how it was all going to get done. Breathing into the proverbial paper bag, I almost convinced myself that I wouldn’t get it done. That I’d show up to one of those events completely unprepared and be booed off stage; forever branded as a fraud and a failure…

Last week I wrote about the risk of being totally tapped out (timewise), and a couple strategies I’ve visited lately around getting back into a place of balance between efficiency and creativity. The point about striving for “70% capacity” seemed to resonate. The interesting part about being 70% booked is in the actual breakdown of that. Lets assume that I have 3 priorities this month, and that I work 200 hours this month. Those priorities, in my experience, typically require 1-2 […]