Ask yourself, “What can you eliminate?”

When working with officials at the City of Georgetown, a very nice lady told me she was absolutely “overwhelmed” in her job. She asked me to suggest anything at all that might help her, and I responded by saying, “What can you eliminate?”

This might sound rude on my part, yet I didn’t mean it to be rude and the woman didn’t take it that way. Instead, she listed intently when I told her about the book, “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferris.

Mr. Ferris points out in his book that it’s crucial to keep asking, “What are the things I can eliminate?” because many of the things we work on in our days are not really that important.

Mr. Ferris puts a smile on my face when he says in his book that, “Being busy is most often a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

He goes on by saying, “The options are almost limitless for creating “busyness”: You could call a few hundred unqualified sales leads, reorganize your Outlook contacts, walk across the office to request documents you don’t really need, or fuss with your BlackBerry for a few hours when you should be prioritizing.”

Mr. Ferris keeps the smile on my face when he says, “In fact, if you want to move up the ladder in most of corporate America, and assuming they don’t really check what you’ are doing (let’s be honest), just run around the office holding a cell phone to your head and carrying papers. Now, that is one busy employee.”

I like what Mr. Ferris says because he makes the point – very forcefully – that a lot of what we work on is not really that important.

How much better would it be for example, to first qualify the leads that will be called, to schedule a time moment to organize the contacts in Outlook, to keep the needed documents as close to you as possible (walking doesn’t just waste time, it invites interruptions), and to forget about the BlackBerry right now since there’s a key priority to accomplish?

I continually tell people that there are four key words necessary for good time management: 1) Plan, 2) Prioritize, 3) Schedule, and 4) Eliminate. The fourth word “Eliminate,” is the one that usually gets forgotten. It’s a crucial word because you can actually “eliminate” a lot of unnecessary things when you plan, prioritize, and/or schedule them.

Consider your cell phone as an example.

Pretend your phone is ringing right now. Do you really need to take that call at this moment? Knowing you receive a lot of calls, why not schedule the times of day when you’ll listen to and reply to them? Why not “eliminate” the habit of answering every call by setting up your voicemail so each caller knows when you’ll listen to and reply to your messages.

And how about all those papers on your desk?

Do you really need all those piles and papers there? Why not eliminate the ones you don’t need today or else they’ll be apt to distract you from the key priorities you need to work on.

The woman who spoke with me thanked me and said, “You know, I’m starting to realize that being “busy” is not being productive. It’s just being busy.”

I loved that comment from her.

My thought for her – and for you — is this: Eliminate what you don’t need for today by scheduling it for another time.

When you “eliminate,” it’s easier to focus on the things that get you closer to your goals. And that’s when you’ll be working at your very best.

Does this make sense to you? Please leave a comment.