Michael Hyatt's Blog, page 25

How to Do One-on-One Meetings

Leaders are often great solo achievers. But to be a truly great leader, you need to lead a great team. We’ve noticed that some leaders give too little attention to team members. Others smother them with communication and requests for updates. It’s challenging to find the right level of interaction to keep a team on track.

5 Steps to a Clutter-Free Workspace

(And Why You Need to Put Them into Action Now)

A lot of productive people operate in disorganized workspaces. The problem is that they’re not as productive as they could be. The hidden culprit stealing their focus is clutter.

When I moved into my new office a while back, I was in the middle of a massive video shoot. Time was tight, and I just wanted to move my stuff in as quickly as possible.

I didn’t organize with intention or strategy. I just threw stuff in drawers and cabinets with little rhyme or reason. What I didn’t consider at the time was that the disorganization and clutter would be a hindrance—even subconsciously—to my daily productivity.

Clutter is proven to work against even the most productive professionals. “When your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus,” says Erin Doland, summarizing the findings of researchers at the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute, adding:

The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment.

The distraction that clutter introduces often goes unnoticed—yet its restrictive influence on our brains is powerful.

With this in mind, I strategically cleaned out my office, all with the goal of decluttering for maximum focus. The two hours that I spent organizing were well worth it. I gained a serene work environment, free from the subtle distraction that chaos introduced.

Clutter is something we must eliminate if we want to experience the freedom that comes from productivity. Here are five steps to kill the clutter and organize your workspace for maximum efficiency.

1. Set aside time to declutter. What gets scheduled gets done, so get it on your calendar. I suggest that you plan for two to three hours of clean-up.

2. Put all your items in the center of the room. I know what you’re thinking. And, yes, it is going to be a big, ugly pile. I learned this technique from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and it really is the best place to begin. Pull everything out of the cabinets and drawers. Don’t try to sort it or organize it. Just get it all out there where you can see it.

3. Make a list of all the natural groupings. Survey the pile and write down the possible categories present. This list might include topics like audio, computer, photography, office supplies, miscellaneous, and so on.

4. Decide what is going to go where. I suggest that you use a five-zone organizing system. The stuff you use most frequently should be closest to you. The stuff you use least frequently should be farthest from you.

Zone 1. The items you use daily. These will be the things you use all the time, and they should be closest to you. For me, most Zone 1 items are on the desk. You want to have as little as possible in this zone. My examples include: pens, computer, keyboard, and Kleenex.

Zone 2. The items that you use frequently. These should be within reach or just a step away, but not actually on your desk. Perhaps they’re in drawers or cabinets very close by. My examples include: stapler, screen wipes, scissors, and paper clips.

Zone 3. The items that you use occasionally. These should be the next closest, usually within a few steps of your desk. Perhaps they’re in a cupboard, file cabinet, or some other local storage. My examples include: audio equipment, video equipment, and computer cords.

Zone 4. The items that you use rarely—or the items that don’t fit inside your workspace. These could be items that you put inside a storage closet of some kind. My examples include: extra copies of my books, extra office supplies, lighting rigs, and big camera gear.

Zone 5. The items that you never use. Are you holding onto items that you simply do not use? I encourage you to let go of possessions you haven’t needed in twelve months or more. Get rid of them! You have three options: trash them, donate them, or sell them.

5. Place each item where it goes. I always use containers to be sure items don’t get jumbled up in the drawer or cabinet.

The goal is to be able to walk into your workspace every single day with laser focus. A serene, organized environment guarantees that your brain is not distracted by things; instead, it sees only the high-leverage tasks at hand. What steps will you take this week to fight for focus by decluttering your workspace?

How to Have Two Successful Careers in One Happy Home

As a leader, you’re probably used to being in charge. So when two executives occupy the same household, it can lead to tension. Spouses don’t take delegation well, especially when they’re also leaders! Miscommunication and unmet expectations quickly turn to resentment. Why does it feel like home is often the most stressful place to be?

4 Keys to De-Stressing Your Two Career Home

Historically, there was one primary breadwinner in a family. One spouse, usually the husband, went to work. The other, usually the wife, managed the home. For my parents’ generation, that was still the norm. 

Demographics began to change with World War II, when many more women were needed in the workforce. Since then, there’s been a steady rise in the number of women working outside the home. In the United States, that percentage rose from about 38 percent in 1948 to more than 56 percent in 2016.  

Interestingly, women are now more likely than men to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 29 (34% to 26%). And women far outnumber men in some professional occupations, including speech pathology (98% women), human resource management (74%), social service management (71%), and pharmacy (60%). 

With 70% of mothers who have school-age kids in the workforce, the two-career household is now the norm, not the rare exception. 

What does that mean for the marriage and the home? This can be a difficult topic for some couples, especially around the division of household labor.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Over the years, my husband, Joel, and I have made our share of mistakes in dealing with this. Along the way, we learned some valuable lessons for taking the stress out of home life. Here are four keys to relieving the tension around managing a two-career household. 

1. Talk About It

If you aren’t honest about the struggles of making it all work, you’ll likely wind up in conflict. Lack of communication creates fertile ground for resentments to grow. 

Be open, honest, and trusting with one another. Conversations go best when you assume your partner wants to share the load and has your best interest at heart.

2. Focus on Equality, Not Fairness

The workload at home is never going to be exactly even. So don’t get hung up on the idea of a 50/50 split. Instead, focus on equality. 

Depending on who’s traveling or has a big professional deadline, one spouse may pick up extra duties for awhile. Just be sure it’s not the same spouse who always picks up the slack. Treat each other as equal partners, and the workload will be equitable too.

3. Challenge Norms

Though the reality of domestic life changed rapidly over the last couple of generations, but the perception of gender roles has come along slowly. Many couples still think of household chores as a woman’s responsibility, even though that means many women essentially work two jobs—as an executive during the day and a house manager in the evening. 

Maybe Mom doesn’t need to take the kids to all the doctor appointments or parent-teacher conferences. Those tasks could be shared. The same is true with shopping, meal preparation, house cleaning, or laundry.

4. Hire the Help You Need

If one of you thrives on vacuuming or lawn care, go for it. But if both of you find a particular task exhausting and demotivating, there’s a simple solution: Get help!

Neither Joel nor I are particularly good at fixing things. If there’s a gene for being handy, it skipped a generation here. Honestly, we’ve probably had more fights over who should complete small handyman projects than anything else. 

One day, we finally saw the obvious: we don’t have to do this. Some people who make a living repairing screens and cleaning gutters. We finally agreed to hire out these tasks, it eliminated lots of stress from our relationship.

The way your parents or your friends handle organize their homes may not be the best solution for you. This is your game, so design it the way you want it. And remember that it’s a team sport. Communicate and cooperate, and you’ll discover that this is a game you can win.

Top 10 Tips for Leveraging an Executive Assistant

So you think you think you might need an executive assistant, but you’re not sure where to start? Here’s help! 

How to Get the Most from Coaching

You know a good coach can help you grow your business. But it’s not as easy as paying the fee. Not all programs deliver what they promise. Maybe you’ve already come away from a coaching experience feeling it was a waste of time.

How can you be sure this will work?

7 Ways Successful Creatives Think Differently than Unsuccessful Ones

It Takes More Than Talent

As a publishing executive, I worked with authors for more than three decades. I’ve also worked with speakers, recording artists, designers, and other creatives. I have had the privilege of working with the best—and the challenge of enduring the worst. What separates the two?

That question is of greater importance now than ever before because creative work plays a bigger role in business today than at any previous time. Ask any entrepreneur.

The easy answer is the wrong one. It’s not talent. Talent definitely plays a role. But that doesn’t explain why some creatives with marginal skill become successful and others with extraordinary abilities never really make it. (I could name names, but I would get myself in trouble on both counts!)

Instead, I think the determining factor is how they think. Successful creatives cultivate a different mindset than unsuccessful ones. This is evident in seven ways.

1. Successful creatives think big. The best creatives think, “Go big or go home.” If they are going to go to the trouble of writing a book, preparing a speech, or recording an album, they might as well make the biggest impact they can. They aren’t naive about the amount of work it will take, but they still dream big. They are always asking, “What could we do that would exceed everyone’s expectations?”

2. Successful creatives take responsibility. The best creatives take responsibility for the outcome. They don’t expect someone else to make them famous or successful, though they realize they can’t succeed without others. They own their work and accept responsibility for how it is received by the market.

3. Successful creatives listen well. The best creatives are not know-it-alls. They understand that being good at one thing (like writing, speaking, or singing) doesn’t mean they are good at everything (like packaging or marketing). As a result, they listen to those who have more experience. Ultimately, this raises their probability for success.

4. Successful creatives seek help. While the best creatives accept ultimate responsibility for the outcome, they enroll others to help them succeed. They know they can’t do it alone. As a result, they build world-class teams and don’t hog the credit. They happily shine the spotlight on their teammates. They are constantly asking, “Who else can I enroll to help get me where I want to go?”

5. Successful creatives work hard. The best creatives are not lazy. They don’t assume that their work is done once the book is written, the speech prepared, or the album recorded. In a real sense, their work has only just begun. They don’t display a spirit of entitlement. Instead, they roll up their sleeves and do the work that lesser creatives are unwilling to do.

6. Successful creatives demonstrate grit. Nobody bats a thousand. And creative work is subject to a high number of frustrations, flops, and failures. But the best keep going regardless. They don’t let setbacks define their worth. Instead they keep showing up, even when things don’t go their way.

7. Successful creatives remain humble. The best creatives know that success is elusive and fragile. They know that they didn’t attain it on their own, nor will they preserve it on their own. This makes them grateful and humble. Though they face the same temptations to become arrogant, they understand the dangers and comport themselves accordingly.

The bottom line is that you have more control over your success than you may think. However, you must develop a winning mindset and cultivate the habits of successful thinking. This is what separates the best creatives from all others. Which of these habits do you need to work on?

3 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Business Coach

You’re a high achiever, and you want it to stay that way. That means you need some coaching. But these days, it seems like everybody with a laptop and a website is a business coach. How do you know if you’ll be getting solid advice?

5 Reasons You Need to Get Better at Saying No

Finding the Positive in the Negative

I have a hard time saying no. Perhaps you do too. This problem is more common than we think, especially for those who are empathetic or nurturing. We just hate the thought of hurting someone else’s feelings.

It was a long time before I noticed this problem in myself. For most of my career, I’ve had administrative assistants who said no for me. If someone had a request, they had to get through an assistant first.

This gave me the buffer I needed to consider the request more carefully. When I declined the request, I nearly always let my assistant do it for me. The fact that I didn’t have to deliver the bad news myself kept me focused and productive, and it helped preserve relationships.

But here’s the thing. I didn’t realize what a gift that was. When I left the corporate world, I figured I could get along fine without an assistant. That meant the requests all came straight to me. And, left to my own devices, I said yes far, far too often.

A third of the time I wanted to kick myself as soon as I did. Another third of the time I wanted to kick myself shortly afterward. How did I get myself into this mess?

“Saying No has always been important,” says William Ury in his book, The Power of a Positive No, “but perhaps never as essential a skill as it is today.” The reasons he lists are the ones I experienced. All my yeses meant I was overcommitted, shortchanging my relationships, and unable to do my best work.

I bet you can relate.

The Reason We Struggle

Why do we have such a hard time saying no? Ury says it’s because we want to protect our relationships, and that’s definitely a big part of it. But we even say yes to perfect strangers. I think it has to do with keeping up appearances. We want to appear helpful or can-do. But it’s a trap.

When we say yes too often, we tend to hurt our relationships. Not only that, but our performance suffers, so it’s impossible to keep up appearances. We let everyone down, especially ourselves.

After a while of fielding all my own requests, I decided I needed an administrative assistant again. But before I hired an admin, I started turning my no boat around on my own. How?

I resolved to say no to everything unless there was a compelling reason to say yes. I switched my default response from an affirmative to a negative. Things changed with just that determination, but I was able go even further when I wrote down five reasons for saying no.

Say No for a Better Yes

This list is the why behind the what. It turns out there are very good reasons for flexing your no muscle. If you struggle with this, I think these five reasons might help you as well.

Here’s what I wrote.

If I don’t say no,

Other peoples’ priorities will take precedence over ours.
Mere acquaintances—people we barely know!—will crowd out time with family and close friends.
We will not have the time we need for rest and recovery.
We will end up frustrated and stressed.
We won’t be able to say yes to the really important things.

This last one was the clincher for me.

Here’s what Patti Breitman and Connie Hatch say in their book, How to Say No Without Feeling Guilty:

Out of guilt or fear of confrontation, we take on more projects, invest in someone else’s priorities . . . In the process, we dissipate our most valuable personal resources—time, energy, and money—on things that aren’t important to us. Each time we agree to something without enthusiasm for interest, we waste a little more of these precious resources.

Now let’s turn that around. Every time we say no to something that is not important, we are saying yes to something that is: our work, our relationships, our resources, our margin. How often are you saying no?

Why You Need a Business Coach

You’ve worked hard and achieved a lot. But success brings a new problem: What to do next. That brings a whole new pressure from your team, your customers, and yourself. You may feel like you’ve used all your best ideas. From here on out, you’re faking it. That can be super stressful.