Jim and I started talking while waiting to board a plane recently.  After commiserating about the hassles of air traffic these days, I asked him what he does that he needs to travel frequently. A sales rep for a chemical company, he flies weekly to cover his east coast sales territory.

The Rationalization:

When I asked him if the frequent trips affect his performance, he said they did but not in the ways I might expect.

“Most of my trips can be done in two days so I’m not like other sales folks who are never home,” he told me. “But because I’m out of the office with clients so often, I usually end up having to fit a week’s worth of work into three days.

My office days are filled entirely with meetings and phone calls that I can’t take when I’m on the road,” he explained when I asked him to elaborate. “I end up only having time to respond to the really urgent matters when I’m in the office.  I rarely find time to do the important work—strategizing or future planning around my accounts.  Honestly, I’ve got no time to do what really matters.”

Does this sound familiar?

The Diagnosis:

It isn’t surprising that many of us struggle to focus on the tasks that are likely to add the greatest value over the longest term. Our environments are filled with distractions—emails, meetings, phone calls, unexpected client requests—and we tend to respond to what feels most urgent in the moment rather than what is most important in the long-term.

Addressing what is most critical requires both awareness and intentionality—exactly what we lack when we are constantly fighting fires.  

As we boarded the plane, I told Jim that the most effective ritual we have found to overcome this challenge is to “do the most important thing first.”  The ritual varies according to each individual’s needs, but it contains some basic elements:

1. Deciding in advance what you want to work on
2. Scheduling time to do it
3. Setting clear starting and stopping points.

Most people find it most effective when they schedule it first thing in the morning when they are mentally alert and face fewer distractions.

The Ritual:

Jim waited for me when we landed at our destination and told me he had designed his ritual.  He was going to set aside one hour every Friday morning between 9 and 10am for strategy and reflection work.  He chose that day because he rarely travels on Fridays and because there is no standing meeting or phone call during that time. 

Additionally, Jim planned to block the time off in his shared calendar so that colleagues would see he was not available. He had already crafted an email message to his supervisor explaining what he was doing and why he was doing it, and asking for his support in protecting that time.

As we made our way to the parking lot, I encouraged Jim to make sure that he set aside a bit of time on Thursday to decide on what he would address in that hour so that he could be as focused and efficient as possible.  I gave him my business card and asked him to let me know how it went.

A month or so later, Jim wrote to me saying that his Friday morning rituals had a huge impact. “No matter how crazy my week is, I know that I will still be able to push the important things forward,” he wrote.  “I’ve made real progress on a number of client strategy documents that I’d ignored for weeks. I’ve noticed that I am thinking about my key accounts differently and I know I’m adding more value to them.” 

He went on to say that his boss had suggested that others on the sales team adopt this ritual because of the difference in the way Jim was thinking about his accounts. “I did have the time to do this work,” he wrote. “I just wasn’t making the time for it.”

What important task would you like to make headway on?  How could you learn from Jim’s success?