Learn How To Properly Shut It Off, Go Home.

Twenty Four Seven On The Success Of Life

In this world of multi-tasking requirements to remain competitive we tend to load up on duties that cannot be properly completed in a single day.  Our lists are longer than the time allotted to complete them.  Not only that, some of the things on our list to complete are projects.  Projects are the kind of work that cannot be finished in a single swoop of activities.  Projects can take a series of connected activities linked together for several days in order to find the finish line.  If you own a business or if you manage one you know all to well how each day seems too short to complete what you wanted to get done.  There is no lack for work duties to exist.

If your daily schedule is not jammed full and you find yourself looking for something extra to do in your business model you might be one of those models who needs more business to occur.  If that is the case, consider adding some tasks that fall within the marketing category of responsibilities.  You can begin to add tasks that will help your model increase foot traffic and customer purchasing.  Begin by looking at your market region and study who has the kind of desire to trade with what you have to offer.  If you discover a large gap in that study, change what you have to offer to match what the market region would support.  This type of work can be some very difficult work.  The trick to succeed in this kind of work is to make it effective and honest.  If you find your business tasks need more things to do, this is exactly where you can begin.  Start building improved customer flows.  Make a list of the things you will need to do to make that happen, successfully.  Go online, to trade publications, to marketing books and find the sources that will help you develop a better way to attract more consumers.  If you have nothing to do you have time to read.  Get more ideas on how to improve traffic flows.  Start adding to your daily routine of work some of the tasks you find that will improve traffic flows.  Begin doing more work on your attraction policies.  Do you have any written attraction policies?  If not, why not?

Each day you arrive to work should be filled with a long list of the things you could not finish yesterday.  Get back to them immediately and begin chipping away at the projects you started.  Learn how to be a completer.  Learn how to arrive to work each day with the same focus and attention you gave on the projects you started.  Learn how to begin the new day right where you left off yesterday.  Make the days run seamlessly.  Stay on point.  Learn how to properly finish what you started instead of quitting what you lost interest in doing.  Stay the course until that course runs its path to a properly fit ending.  Quit practicing the dysfunctional approach to management.  Get organized, stay organized and complete what you started.  Write it down if you find you forget how to do this important step.  Success is not the by-product of a dysfunctional mind.  In order to gain one, you must get rid of the other.  They do not run side by side, together in the same race.  It is one or the other.  Face up to this truth and change the way you approach your task management.

My father was a self taught businessman.  He was a school drop out.  He was also a man of his own skin.  He did not enjoy having someone else tell him what to do.  He was also far from lazy.  He could 'out-work' just about anybody.  His work levels at any one of his jobs was filled with the extra mile of activities.  If someone told him to go sweep the property and grounds he would do it quickly, with a high level of attention  to detail and would also repair the broken garbage cans on the premises while doing it.  None of his work activities would be recognized as average.  He was always serious when he did his work.  He would be a great employee for any place of business.  Unfortunately, he was a bull.  Bulls tend to want control.  They are great workers and do a lot of great things, but they will challenge a leader who floats along the leadership trail.  Place a bull underneath the wings of a weak leader and that weal leader will get run over in time.  The bull will charge at all times and will run right over anyone standing still in his path.  That is exactly how my father went to work each day.  You would never catch him sitting in his chair trying to figure out what to do. "Doing" is the only way you would ever find him.

As a result, he came to realize early on in his working career that he would best be served by owning his own business.  That way he would have nobody standing in his way to do what he does best, "doing."  He could become the owner of his desire to do a lot each day.  He could determine on his own what needed to be done each day.  He could find more work to do that needed to be done.  He could control how his doing could produce more success.  He could fill his day with more than the day could absorb.  He could become successful doing what he found was worthwhile in doing.  When he finally wore himself out and passed away, he owned his business for 42 years.  It was solvent and making money.

Go Home, It Is Part Of Your 24/7 Responsibilities.

My father never learned how to stop at 5 P.M. and go home.  He would get a bite to eat at the end of the day and continue on with his treks of work.  He was most satisfied doing his work.  He raised four children and never really knew who they were.  I once had a great mentor tell me that it is of no shame to admit where you came from.  However, the same mentor then added that it is of no great credit to remain there.  We tend to hide where our lives have traveled and we tend to avoid talking about some of the difficult experiences we all had to endure.  It is one of the terrible anomalies of human nature.  We all come with some poorly folded pages in the books of our lives.  The trick to learning how to succeed in life is to admit these anomalies exist and to secure a better use of them.  My father did not now how to properly shut it off and go home.  There was always too much to do.

I can remember playing tons of sports in all three seasons of school and becoming pretty good at all of them.  My picture still hangs on the wall of my high school as the athlete of the year, my senior year.  I was a total jock.  My father may have attended one or two of my sporting events in my whole life.  I played Division I college baseball for a major college and my father made it to one game.  One.  He found his way to work 10 to 12 hours every single day, including Sundays.  Learn how to properly shut it off, go home.  See what the rest of your personal world is doing.

I am not much different than my father.  I work continuously.  Hence, the title of this blog...24/7.

The fruit does not fall far from the tree.  We are part and parcel of where we came from.  We are what we were given to see.  Our social heredity determines much of how we work and play.  Even so, we can modify how we manage what we learned.  We can improve our learning skills and we can improve our desire for better outcomes.  Our lives are waiting for us to manage them well.  Our lives need to be guided.  We are the ones with the hands on the steering wheels.  We can elect to drive our lives in the direction we most want to see traveled.  Owning a business model can become such a serious interruption to how we drive our lives that we can forget who is in charge of the wheel.  Eventually, the business can grow up and begin to drive us.  After a while of being driven by the business, we think it is the only way we can perform to succeed.  We grow up trying to succeed and while we were giving it our all, we failed at success in our home lives.  This is a very common occurrence for business owners.  I see it a lot.

I had another business mentor in California many years ago give me a brilliant lesson on this subject.  He walked by me one evening at 5 P.M. and said, "Go home.  See you tomorrow."  Then he left.  He was my boss at that time.  I had admired his leadership.  He was the one who pulled out the watch and timed you when you asked permission to talk to him about something.  He managed a very tight time structure schedule, diligently.  It was amazing to watch.  The next day we came back to work he asked me, "What time did you leave work last night?"  I told him it was about 2 hours after he left.  Then he said, "You must have fooled around for two hours during the day...right?"  I said, "Excuse me?"  He then delivered his lesson.  He told me that if I had made it a habit to lose track of the work I came to do during the regular day, then I would need to stay after hours to catch up on what I fooled around and failed to do.  My extra two hours should have exactly matched the two hours I fooled around.  He told me that I should learn how to do my work during the first 8 hours so I could go home when the day is done.  I told him I did not fool around during the day and stayed a couple of more hours to get more done that needed to get done.  He was quiet for a few moments.  Then he said, "You are terribly confused.  You need to unwind whatever you were taught about doing great work.  You need to learn how to shut it off properly and go home.  There will always be more to do, every single day, every single month and every single year.  Most leaders have more to do than the days can deliver.  Get used to it.  It will be right there when you return tomorrow.  Then you can pick up where you left off.  Learn how to properly shut it off and go home."  He paused for a little bit then said, "Go, get back to work so you do not have to stay after hours because you fooled around wasting time in my office."  I got up and began to leave his office when he said, "The next time I see you staying after hours I will consider you fooled around during the day."

That night my boss walked by me as he was going home, "Learn how to properly shut it off, go home."  I did.

I do not especially like watching movies.  It has never been my button for fun.  My past does not include movies.  I bet I have not watched 10 of them in my whole life.  My wife loves to watch movies.  They are pure enjoyment to her.  She can watch the same ones over and still enjoy them.  Not me.  Since we have been married, I bet I have watched two thousand movies in my life.  I enjoy them now.  I watch them with my wife.  I work way too much, still, but I have learned how to go home more often than in the past.  Go see more ballgames.  Go visit your children more often.  Go spend valuable time with your spouse.  Learn how to enjoy the rewards your work has come to deliver.

Learn how to properly shut it off, go home.

Until next time...