PLANNING TO WRITE

• If you are concerned about the volume of email you receive, remember, it’s not them, it’s all of us who are guilty. If you send out 2 emails, and copy 20 people on each, you have contributed to the glut of email by sending out 40 emails yourself!
• Do not copy people needlessly. Ask yourself why you are copying everyone – if it is to make you look good, it probably is not necessary.
• Ask employees who report to you not to cc you, unless they include a short note explaining why they are copying you.
• Hire someone to go through your email when you are on vacation and eliminate what is obviously unnecessary.
• Use the phone instead of sending an email. If you find yourself typing a lot and telling a “story”, then it is better to call.
• It is very difficult to convince others through email, especially when you know that they already have entrenched positions. Find another way.
• The best use of email is for short transactions: “Here is the document you requested,” “When is the meeting?”, “Can you provide an answer to a question”, etc.
• Just say no. If you’re on a mailing list for which you have no interest, reply by unsubscribing.
• Unsubscribe from newsletters. If you want to learn something, take a course. If you are hoping that occasionally some useful tidbit will come through on a newsletter, then you are wasting your time. Unsubscribe.

WRITING

• Check the spelling of your email before sending it. Spelling errors seem generally accepted in email. But go beyond acceptable. Aim for excellence.
• DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS. This is perceived as shouting.
• Re-read your email before sending it. Writing quickly often results in awkward grammar.
• Consider carefully what you write; it’s a permanent record and can be easily forwarded to others. Never accuse people, call them names, suggest they aren’t being smart or criticize their spelling. Assume their intentions are genuine and that they are good people. Be polite and assertive if necessary (i.e. to spammers) but not vindictive.
• Write succinctly.
• Write descriptive subject lines. Many busy people will only open messages with captivating subject lines. Think creatively.
• If you must forward a message, put your comments at the top.
• Do not keep all of your messages in your mail box folder. Create new mail folders with names that categorize your mail and move messages into them. Thus, new mail is quicker to find.
• Create folders for : Things to do, Upcoming Events, Manager Issues, Subordinate Issues,Reading, Family, and folders for each of your major customers.
• Be careful with punctuation. A lot of periods can separate thoughts….. but use a lot of exclamation marks and it looks like you’re angry!!!!!!!!!! How does a line of question marks look ??????? You might not intend strong emotion, but the other person might think you do.
• Avoid cyber-speak. Not everyone is familiar with the cute acronyms used in Email correspondence, such as IMHO (in my humble opinion) or FWIW (for what it’s worth). Performing a mental translation each time slows down the reader. Do not make reading difficult for them.

All of these catch up some day. That’s when the trouble really begins.

So you need to avoid procrastination in order to prevent these negative consequences. One way to do it involves adding accountability. You need to be accountable to yourself. You can do this by writing your tasks on a to-do list. When you include items that you have been putting off, you begin to create accountability. As you do your work during the day, you glance at your to-do list and see that outstanding item. You have committed to doing it. So the time to do it is now.

At the end of the day, review your to-do list. Did you meet all of the goals that you set for the day? Did you get all the tasks done that you said you would? If not, what got in the way? An external factor that was unavoidable? Or your own procrastination? The temptation is to re-write the task on tomorrow’s to-do list. After all, you’ll get to it then. But that’s the problem. You don’t get to it. So there is a danger in repeating tasks on successive to-do lists. If your own disinterest caused you to put it off, writing it down yet again won’t change things. Instead, write down a small part of the task that you could very easily do. For instance, you need to clean up your basement. You haven’t yet. However, you could certainly go down there and list all of the boxes you need to go through. And if doing your taxes is too daunting, how about simply gathering up all of your tax receipts and putting them into a pile? It’s a start.

There is another even more powerful way to build accountability. And that is being accountable to someone else.

Take a task you have been procrastinating on. Break it into small pieces and choose the first step. Then make a deadline. When are you going to accomplish it? And what will it look like when you finish? You can’t just say, “Work on a project…” Instead, you need to say, “Complete the research from three sources required for the project…”

Now, here is the all important accountability step. Let someone else know what you plan to do. And ask them to check up on you. It could be a spouse, partner, parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, neighbor, work buddy – anyone. It’s helpful, but not necessary that they have a stake in the task. If you need to do a household repair, then telling your spouse is a good idea, because your spouse will benefit from the task being done.

Maybe you feel that the task is one you would rather keep quiet. The delay you have encountered is embarrassing, so you need someone to be accountable to, but it doesn’t have to be someone close.

We just launched www.BuddyHIve.com. It’s a web site that allows you to be accountable to someone new. You list a task, and we will set you up with a buddy who will check up on you. The innovative part of this is that your buddy is also counting on you to coach him! So you establish mutual accountability. This is the ideal situation, because both of you have the other’s interest at heart.

So stop procrastinating. Build accountability. Buddy up and get stuff done.

Your time is worth it.

Independent consultants work on their own providing a range of services from accounting to cost management, coaching, productivity improvement, graphic and web site design, and strategic planning. Some bill their time by the hour; others bill by the project and some are on retainer.

Over the years, a number of them participated in a time and motion study using our innovative TimeCorder device to track how they spend their time. Most tracked about 100 hours.

The main categories of activity where they spend their time include planning, marketing / selling, client service, administration and travel and other. The “other” category includes activities that are not part of other categories as well as personal time.

Overall they work 52 hours per week, a considerable increase versus other knowledge workers in our database who work 47 hours per week.

Selling time takes up 11 hours per week or 20% of the time. Veterans who had many years experience and a full calendar of clients spend just about as much time selling as those who are new to the business; 10 hours per week for the veterans and 12 hours for the rookies. The message for consultants is clear; you always need to be marketing.

As for client service time, it would be great to be billing every hour of the day. But the reality is that all the other activities need to be done. So client service time, most of which is billable, only reaches 13 hours per week, or about one quarter of the time. For those who are really successful, service time is higher, in the range of 20 hours per week or 36% of the time.

Planning is a key activity that represents 3.5 hours per week. Critical within this is 2 hours per week spent developing new products and services. Consultants recognize that they cannot rest on their laurels; they constantly need to be thinking about what new products and services they can introduce to their clients.

Administration is a huge time hog for most knowledge workers. And so it is for consultants who need to take care of all the tasks that are not connected to sales and service. General paperwork represents about 4 hours per week; filling out reports, submitting tax forms, and everything else that is required to keep a business going. This along with other administrative tasks adds up to 10 hours per week.

Finally, travel is also a necessity. Consultants who deal with local clients need to be there to do on-site work, present reports, and gather data and implement their recommendations. Typically consultants make 8 trips per week of 47 minutes per week, adding up to 6 hours altogether, or 11% of the time.

Check out the video below where I highlight some of the key points from the time study of successful consultants. If you are a consultant, be sure to allocate your efforts on your highest priority activities. After all, your time is worth it.

The problem is NOT that there isn’t enough time. Time doesn’t expand. The problem is that people burden themselves with too many activities. The key to success is how you allocate your time to the important ones. In time study research we’ve conducted for clients, average employees spend about 50% of their time on A and B priorities. But among the top performers, time spent on A and B priorities approaches 60%. That’s an increase of 5 hours per week that can make all the difference.

Here’s how to think about setting priorities. “A” activities are those that influence long term results. Ask yourself, if you had nothing else to do tomorrow, what would you do to affect your results one month from now? Those are your “A” activities. For sales people, this means selling, which usually only amounts to 23% of their time. For managers this means supervising people, (18% of their time) and planning (7%). What should you be doing? Your top priority items should take up 15-30% of your time.

When you think of your high priority activities, don’t just say, “I’ll work on the budget” or “I’ll work on my recruiting plan.” Be specific by listing activities you can complete today. You can’t do the entire budget, but you can set up a spreadsheet for salaries. You can’t recruit a new hire today, but you can review and update the job profile.

“B” priorities are the activities in your job description that must get done today. These are the things that keep you busy. Depending on your job, they might include providing customer service, running monthly meetings, preparing reports, designing products, inputting data, supervising staff or shipping products. For most people, “B” priorities represent 30-50% of their time. These are the activities most people do well in their job. But they’re also the things that prevent them from getting to the “A’s”. That’s why you need to plan the “A’s” first.

“C” priorities are those unplanned or unwritten aspects of your job that have to be done. Whereas “A” activities are planned by you, “C” activities are often planned for you. They include department meetings, routine requests from your subordinates and inquiries from other departments. They also include administrative activities such as filling out expense reports, reading reports, filing and sorting through e-mail. Our research indicates that administrative tasks take up 20-25% of the time. Within this, paperwork alone can take 5 hours per week. If you’re spending more than that, the system is bogging you down.

Travel is also a “C” priority. It has to be done, but isn’t a key factor in the success of your job. And, let’s not forget lunches and breaks. It’s ironic how people will plan a lunch meeting or coffee break to the minute. Yet they never get around to planning their major projects. Breaks are necessary, and incubation time away from work can help you solve problems better. But breaks are still just “C” priorities.

Finally there are “D” activities. This means delete, delay, delegate or drop. Get rid of them. They include reading the paper, handling tasks that should be delegated, and excessive Internet surfing. Some of them are technological time hogs; fixing a photocopier paper jam, waiting for a computer to boot up or recording a new voice mail message every day. Beware of them. Miscellaneous time can be as much as 5% of the week.

So how do you spend more time on for your high priorities? First, take the time to plan for them. Set aside the same time every day to plan your daily activities. Choose a quiet time when you can review past accomplishments, as well as future things to do. Then write down a list of A, B, and C activities that relate to your goals.  Write your list in your time planner, on an app or even on a Post-It note. Include specific activities, such as “Prepare exhibits for monthly report,” rather than vague tasks such as “Work on report.” Later, when you’ve completed an item, check it off. Doing this gives you a sense of accomplishment, even for small tasks.

Block your time. Schedule time for your “A” activities first. Plan to do them when you’re at your peak and when interruptions are least likely to occur. Make an appointment in your planner, and allocate that time for high priority activities. Then, if someone asks you to meet during that time, say “Sorry, I have an appointment.” No one will ask whom it’s with. It’s an appointment with yourself.

Then it’s time to start by working on your A items. They should always come first. Don’t work on a C just because it’s easy to do. And if you find your A tasks are overwhelming, or if you don’t think you have enough time to do anything on an A priority, the activity is too broad. Break your A priorities into small manageable chunks, so they’re easy to accomplish. Even with just five minutes left before lunch or before an appointment, you should be able to make some progress on an A priority. Your time is worth it.

We’re testing different ways to promote the site. So, in seeking out those who were experiencing time management challenges, I went to Twitter on a recent Sunday night and searched using a procrastination hash tag. A hash tag is added to a tweet to indicate a subject. I was able to find all the tweets where people had specifically included the word “procrastination.”

To my surprise, the floodgates opened! Hundreds of students in a few hours, confessed to not doing their studying, or not making any progress on school projects. Some couldn’t even start packing for upcoming trips. I was surprised at how Twitter has become an on-line confessional.

Procrastination seems to be a particular challenge for students. My web designer, who is close to that age, suggested that students often face a massive block that is extremely difficult for them to overcome. Some do, and perhaps they are the ones who graduate from college successfully.

By watching the tweets throughout the week, one can see patterns of activity.

In the middle of the week, tweeters are reasonably nonchalant,

“Since 2pm, I’ve stared at blank manuscript, ate a mars ice cream, watched TBBT, & learned how to whistle and hum together.”

Or:  “Still haven’t started my homework, well I guess it’s time for a shower.”

Then by Friday night, with the entire weekend stretching ahead of them, students are optimistic that they can eventually get to their school work.

“I always wait for Sunday to do my homework, procrastination at its best.”

And on Saturday night, there is still time: “Should I do my homework tonight? Pshh hah no thanks.”

But then on early Sunday evening, with only a few hours until an assignment is due, they express worry that they might not get it all done.

“I wait until the last minute to do EVERYTHING. “

“Damn… definitely just starting my history children’s book! Due tomorrow…. and have had 2 weeks to do it!”

“History paper due in 12 hours and I haven’t started yet.”

Then, late Sunday night, many are prone to resignation, doubt, and self-loathing. They realize that time is just about up, and they are in a precarious situation with little to show for all their distractions.

“Should have started this psychology before the day it was due!”

“Can’t focus on this homework.”

“I’ve got to stop doing this to myself.”

Few celebrate their successes. The majority use Twitter as a confessional. And almost none reach out for help. They will often confess to what’s distracting them; “My senior paper may as well be on twitter and Facebook, because it seems like that’s all I’m doing. “

Most tweets seem to be written by high school students, because  “homework” is a popular topic. One would not expect to hear this quite as much among college or university students. Among that group, essays and papers need to get done, not homework.

Another curious item, noted around March break, is the difficulty people have with getting ready for travel, particularly packing:

“Leaving in 6 hours, haven’t begun to pack yet.”

“It’s seriously not setting in that I’m moving in 11 days. I need to start packing. “

Clearly putting things off is a huge challenge for this group. As one of them put it, “I’m a big fan of procrastination, or as I like to call it, postponed time management.”

They need to set goals, they need discipline, and they need accountability. That’s why we built www.BuddyHive.com.  They need it.

We like to complement the time study results with additional data, so we often provide employees with a brief questionnaire prior to beginning a study. One of the questions asks: “What things, outside of your control, get in the way of your productivity?”

The idea of this question is that some productivity inhibitors such as procrastination are within employees’ control. Some are outside their control. Or apparently so. It’s our contention that many of these hindrances can in fact be managed by employees through better time management training. Nonetheless, employees often believe productivity is spinning out of control through no fault of their own.

The most popular responses to the question are listed below.

The top-rated item deals with paperwork and general administrative tasks. Interestingly, respondents are rarely very specific about this. It isn’t monthly reports, or weekly expense accounts that fluster them – just general administrative tasks, of which there are many.

The second response, dealing with customer issues is ironic because many of the people who respond to this question provide customer service as part of their job. The same customers that employees serve are also perceived as getting in the way of their productivity.

Computer systems and equipment problems are third highest on the list. Despite massive investments in technology over the last twenty years, technology gone wrong continues to be an issue for many employees. Connections are slow, software is buggy, equipment doesn’t work, and user-interfaces are clunky. Indeed, this issue is clearly outside of employee’s control, and many organizations have little sense of the negative impact of technology.

Item number four deals with phone calls. Interruptions by phone are perceived as much more of an issue than email interruptions. It seems emails can wait, but phone calls cannot.

Rounding out the top five, problems originating from other departments are a perennial concern. After all, it’s easy to blame someone else. So it would not be surprising to go to the other departments and find that they have issues with this department. Put in a room together, the two departments might find common ground and develop simple productivity initiatives. With time diagnostics pointing out where the opportunities are, companies can impact knowledge worker productivity without massive investments in infrastructure. Sometimes the little things add up.

In the meantime, here are a number of defiintions of procrastination. Do any of them fit?

• To voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay – Piers Steel
•  The intentional and habitual postponement of an important task that should be done now. – Harold Taylor
•  To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.  – The free dictionary
•  The act of replacing high-priority or important actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one brings enjoyment, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. – Wikipedia
•  An automatic problem habit of putting off an important and timely activity until another time. It’s s a process that has probable consequences. – William Knaus
•  The starting point of becoming excellent in time management is desire. Almost everyone feels that their time management skills could be vastly better than they are. People resolve, over and over again, to get serious about time management by focusing, setting better priorities and overcoming procrastination. They intend to get serious about time management sometime, but unfortunately, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The key to motivation is “motive.” For you to develop sufficient desire to develop time management and organizational skills, you must be intensely motivated by the benefits you feel you will enjoy. You must want the results badly enough to overcome the natural inertia that keeps you doing things the same old way.  - Brian Tracy
•  Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy. ~Wayne Dyer
• Procrastination usually results in sorrowful regret. Today’s duties put off tomorrow give us a double burden to bear; the best way is to do them in their proper time.    - Ida Scott Taylor
•  Procrastination is the biggest enemy of a successfully planned day. When you get a late start, it can make one activity spill over into the time allotted for the next activity, causing a domino effect that leaves many items on your to-do list undone. – Julie Morgenstern
•  Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage. ~Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby
•  If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin. ~Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
• Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin. -Victor Kiam
•  Procrastination is a tough time robber to overcome. It is a real test of our commitment to apply sound management principles to a problem area…we must analyze what we procrastinate about, what interruptions and excuses we find to get out of doing that difficult or unpleasant task. – Jack D. Ferner
•  Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday. – Napoleon Hill
•  When procrastination becomes a persistent habit, it is a serious threat to professional and personal success.  – T. Bittel
•  Proximity to temptation is one of the deadliest determinants of procrastination. – Piers Steel

Writing an agenda in advance forces you to determine which items you want to cover. You can also use the agenda to communicate to participants what they will be considering and what is expected of them. An agenda helps create order and control at the meeting. Ideally, those attending should have a copy in advance.

If you are not in charge, approach the chair beforehand to make sure there is an agenda and that your items are on the list for discussion.

The most important item on the agenda is the purpose of the meeting. You should be able to state it in one succinct sentence, such as, “To review and approve details of the annual budget.” Keep the list of items to be covered specific and focused. Ask yourself what you expect to happen after each item is finished.

Of course, the agenda needs to include the time, the place, and the names of those who will be attending and the start and end times. End times are rarely included, but when they are, you can bring some urgency to the meeting by counting down the time remaining, especially when items run long.

Consider starting meetings at unconventional times. Time study research that we conducted indicates that meetings tend to start more on time on the half hour, rather than on the hour. Also, if you want a short meeting, schedule it for later in the day. Our time studies show that meetings are shorter later in the day. Business has a tendency to move quickly as five o’clock approaches.

A few days before the meeting, send out the meeting invitation and agenda.  Some people wonder whether they should send a follow up confirmation – often this is just a waste of valuable time.

If you’re unable to circulate an agenda in advance, write it on a flip chart or white board before participants arrive. Or give everyone a printed copy.

Meetings become dysfunctional when homework has not been done in advance. Attendees debate issues back and forth based on their impressions, feelings, biases, recollections, and quite often their loud voices. Instead, they need to come to the meeting armed with reports, research, recommendations, surveys, and conclusions from prior discussions. So as chair, encourage attendees to do this work in advance. Then, the meeting agenda will accept reports and recommendations rather than trying to formulate them. “Rubber stamping” a recommendation is not a bad thing. It works effectively when adequate homework has been done.

The investment you take to plan meetings thoroughly will result in meetings that people want to attend. Your time is worth it.

 - – - – - – - 

Before we begin this story, perhaps we should go back to the beginning: birth. Sylvia Slattery’s entry into this world was certainly not without incident. In fact, it was quite a dilly.

Prior to the long-anticipated event, the as-yet-unnamed Sylvia had become quite accustomed to the warm, cozy environment inside her mother’s womb. She really wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Someday soon, she would get around to it. Meanwhile, she spent many a happy hour kicking the inside of her comfortable nesting place and planning a few changes to the upholstery. The color scheme just didn’t work. And those walls would have to go.

Eventually Sylvia was born. Her arrival, about three weeks overdue, was a taste of many things to come. Perhaps it was an omen that the onslaught of her mother’s labor had coincided with the return of an overdue library book, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.

While an infant, Sylvia quickly learned the art of procrastination. Oddly timed feeding sessions were not just a daily habit, they became an obsession. Just as mom was ready, Sylvia wasn’t. Sylvia preferred to gurgle incoherently—the sort of behavior normally associated with city councillors.

A few years later, on the first day of kindergarten, Sylvia waited until the second day to show up.

Show-and-Tell sessions proved an exemplary introduction to the fine art of excuse making. One day when it was Sylvia’s turn, she got up empty handed and recited a lengthy apology that displayed a level of intelligence and obfuscation well beyond her years: “With regard to the subject at hand, the aforementioned demonstration of personal artifacts, a temporary deferral is requested until a full and complete presentation is available…” Subjected to this speech, some of the kids screwed up their faces in revulsion, as if they were being offered a bowl of cold rice pudding tainted with Brussels sprouts and chicken liver. Most of them just took a nap. Sylvia’s loquacious style was to haunt her on a fateful November day years later, but more about that later.

In grade nine, Sylvia developed a new series of excuses for failing to complete projects on time. By then her teachers learned that her mother had died six times, her house had burned down on three different occasions, she had been through fourteen different grandparents and her pet dog was run over on a monthly basis. Sylvia’s penchant for exaggeration once got her caught. The dog gave it away.

Of course, when she grew up, Sylvia’s problems were of a quite different nature, but more about those later.

University life presented a whole new set of deadlines and, thus, ever more elaborate excuses for not meeting them. She was known to hand in essays at 7:00 a.m. which were due the day before. She would slip them under a professor’s door, with a predated note. One time, a professor who got wise to her methods called her to assign a mid-term report. “OK Sylvia, I’m assigning you ‘The Effect of Yodeling on Eighteenth-Century Scandinavian Pottery Making: A Comparative Analysis.’ Please call me if you have any questions. And by the way, it’s due yesterday.”

Without even thinking, Sylvia asked, “Can I get a two-week extension?”

“Oh, I suppose,” answered the all-too-wise professor. “I’ll see you two weeks from yesterday then.”

Certain events in one’s life mark a turning point. These significant occasions change us from the way we were to the way we are: the first kiss, graduation from high school, becoming engaged. For Sylvia, it was the discovery of postdated checks.

But that was surpassed by another event of monumental importance. Halfway through her last semester at university, she burst into her roommate’s room. It was a roomy room, exactly the sort of room a roommate would normally room in. Sylvia had a look of ecstasy on her face. “Guess what?” she exclaimed.

Her roommate Ignazia, who had been sleeping, feigned enthusiasm. “A new boyfriend? You got an A on that yodeling thing?”

“No, silly! I just found out you can buy stuff now and pay later! Isn’t that amazing?” The world had rarely seen better days.

Later that year, Sylvia became a charter member of the Last Minute Club. And it was no surprise that her favorite song was “Tomorrow,” her favorite mini-series was The Day After and her favorite play was Same Time Next Year.

Some people set their watches ahead to make sure they’re not late. Sylvia set her calendar ahead, though not always to great success. As a result, she once celebrated Christmas in late February.

When she reached adulthood, Sylvia refined the art of keeping up with yesterday. Her idea of a pleasant Saturday morning took place on Sunday afternoon, sitting on the front porch she hadn’t got around to repairing, sipping warmed-over coffee from the day before, reading the previous Sunday’s New York Times.

But her dilatory tactics eventually would come back to haunt her. The details can now be revealed. It was a usual day at the office, as Sylvia spent the early part of the morning starting to catch up on various tasks she had put off from the day before. As she was reading her mail, a sudden revelation of grave importance was revealed to her, as revelations normally are. Unfortunately, space is limited and so details cannot be provided. Suffice to say that whatever it was would just have to wait for another day.

from the book,  ”A Complete Waste of Time” by Mark Ellwood

One subset of employees that we regularly study is sales reps. Their main job function is to call on prospects and customers, aiming to increase sales and service existing needs. On a weekly basis, their planning time typically takes up 4.8 hours per week, or 10 % of a 47 hour work week. Planning activities are what we refer to as “A priorities” These are activities that affect one’s results a month or more in the future.

Included in these activities are determining long term strategies, territory management, account planning, deciding which customers to contact and presentation preparation. It also includes team meetings to plan strategies and share information, plus planning one’s daily to-do list.

Within the 4.8 hours per week on planning, most sales reps spend about 2 hours planning their daily schedule and activities. Another hour is spent in presentation preparation, and just under an hour in team meetings. The remainder is other planning activities, listed above.

So what do we know about planning and results? Are time management trainers correct to encourage you to do more planning? The answer is yes, to a degree. There is in fact a correlation between daily planning and time spent directly selling to prospects. (Selling time includes making presentations, calling, and sending emails.) The chart below shows four groups of sales reps, distinguished by how much daily planning they do each week.

Those who plan more are able create more time for selling – but only to an extent. Spending 2-3 hours per week, or 24 to 36 minutes per day results in 12.5 hours for selling. This represents 26% of the time. However, too much time spent doing daily planning (over 3 hours per week) becomes counterproductive and as a result, selling time decreases, as shown in the bar on the far right.

So be sure to invest the time to plan well. It’s easy to procrastinate, or to let interruptions get in the way. Instead, take the time to focus on your goals. But don’t go overboard. Your time is worth it.