You Are Doomed To Failure Because You Have Too Much Time

[RazorCut]

How is your year progressing?

It’s now the end of January. Has that initial spurt of motivation, dedication and enthusiasm slowly been dissipating or are you as fired up for this coming month as you were for January? Did you make any New Year resolutions and if so are you still remaining faithful to them or are they sliding by the wayside as the pressures of time and effort take their toll?

Did you plan out your year in detail and are you on schedule?

Odds are that your efforts will shortly start to wane. The goal lines that you set for this year are still a long way off. Heck you’ve got another 11 months before you become accountable for the achievements that you set for yourself this year right?

You can afford to slacken off a bit, put things off till next week or next month. With 11 whole months ahead of you there is plenty of time to catch up and make up. Am I right?

Well yes and no. Yes, you still have a nice long timeframe left in which to attain the goals you have set for yourself this year. The problem is that that timeframe is exactly why many of us do not achieve what we set out to do. It gives us false hope and security that we have plenty of time to realise those goals when in actual fact we will be productive for a very short period over these 12 months and January is generally one of your most productive.

See the chart below as an indicator of typical dispersion of effort.




See how it tends to be all downhill from here on until we finally get to the gradual realisation by the back end of the year that the year is almost over so we start to panic and put in a spurt of effort to try and make up for what we failed to achieve up until that point?

This is human nature for you. Work tends to expand into the timeframe it is allotted. A concept known as Parkinson's law. This lack of urgency creates sloth, de-motivates and distracts us. It’s the very reason why most of us fail to achieve the greatness we know is within.

So what can we do about it? Just by recognising the danger we can fix the problem.

This is going to sound nuts to many but the simple truth of the matter is:

We simply have too much time in which to achieve our goals.

And this is why we fail to achieve them.

Now imagine if the earth did not take 365 (and a quarter) days to orbit the sun but merely 90, or even 60 days. Imagine if all that you wanted to achieve in 2016 had to be accomplished by April 30th or even March 31st.

Now that would galvanise the mind wouldn’t it?

When you seen how much you needed to do in this shortened timeframe then all of a sudden there would be a state of urgency that would propel you into action. In fact the actions you would need to take over that relatively short period of time would pretty much keep you focused throughout this shortened year wouldn’t it? Keeping you on track and moving forward.

So why don’t we do it? Why don’t we rip up our current rule book and plan to achieve this year’s goals in the next 60 or 90 days? Can’t be done? Says who? How do we know until we try? The truth of the matter is we will probably achieve far more if we attempt to complete it in 60/90 days than if we continue with our current course of action with 31st of December as our deadline.

Like it or not all of our barriers are self imposed. We can achieve far more in far less time than we realise. Don’t let the earth’s orbit dictate how long it takes you to improve your life.

Further reading:

http://amzn.to/1nuq2eA - The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less Richard Koch

http://amzn.to/1Q0IFxE - The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months Brian P. Moran,Michael Lennington

 

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[amp0193]

We simply have too much time in which to achieve our goals.

So why don’t we do it? Why don’t we rip up our current rule book and plan to achieve this year’s goals in the next 60 or 90 days? Can’t be done? Says who? How do we know until we try? The truth of the matter is we will probably achieve far more if we attempt to complete it in 60/90 days than if we continue with our current course of action with 31st of December as our deadline.

I think there's a lot of truth to this. One of my two main goals for the year, was to get some wholesale customers for my products. I had planned to "start thinking about what all I need to do for wholesale" in the summer, and get a few stores stocking my stuff by the end of the year. I had a huge opportunity fall into my lap 2-weeks ago, which has forced me to man up and knock out this goal in a span of 4 weeks, as I'm up against a hard deadline to get it done.

Parkinson's Law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"

 

[marklov]

@RazorCut Lots of toes your steppin on lol

 

[Leo Hendrix]

I do not make New Years Resolutions as I see or presume that is something that side-walkers and slow-laners usually do.

Just continuing to work on my One thing and slowly but surely making progress, finding tools such as personal productivity tools (Dayboard is working wonders so far) and trying to implement the Pareto principle in my life and work.

 

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[Andy Black]

Work tends to expand into the timeframe it is allotted. A concept known as Parkinson's law.

Yep. And turn it on it's head and reduce the time you've got, and you'll still get the work done.

Great post. Thanks @RazorCut

 

[RazorCut]

@RazorCut Lots of toes your steppin on lol

No toes intended (and don't see your logic there to be honest). I've had a couple of false starts last year and am not where I wanted to be at this point in time.

Currently I'm doing a 55 hour working week including the commute in order to provide for my family which doesn't leave me much time to move forward. With that in mind I've been revisiting my beliefs and assumptions, reading and re-reading in an effort to find the key to making rapid and lasting progress with my currently limited time and resources. Time is always a ticking.

Theoretically, when you analyse what you do in a day in the cold light of 80/20 thinking there is no logical reason why you cannot condense those small meaningful daily actions into a much shorter time frame. For me to move forward at this point with limited time I need to be extremely economic in my output. That got me thinking that if I can contract a day then why not a week, a month or even a year? It made sense to me that if one can condense ones daily actions by stripping out the 80%+ that achieves nothing then if you look at the wider consequences there is no reason why 12 months cannot be condensed into 60 or 90 days and in doing so momentum, motivation and desire can be maintained. Seems a win win to me.

I'm going to give it my best shot and report back in 90 days.

 

[RazorCut]

(Dayboard is working wonders so far)

I take it that Dayboard is a bit of a cross between Momentum and something like Todoist?

 

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[RazorCut]

I had a huge opportunity fall into my lap 2-weeks ago, which has forced me to man up and knock out this goal in a span of 4 weeks, as I'm up against a hard deadline to get it done.

Nothing like a forced timeline to focus the mind. Hope it all goes well for you.

 

[marklov]

No toes intended (and don't see your logic there to be honest). I've had a couple of false starts last year and am not where I wanted to be at this point in time.

There goes my dry-humor lol.

I meant it in a good way of course, I got caught up in 'having too much time" so to speak.

Last year I said I would take it easy january since i have 11 months and taking it easy ended up being 6 months long then realizing i wasted half a year I was able to kick some a$$ but not enough!

Your post makes sense.....My local gym is already dwindling back down to the regulars.

 

[Marc B.]

If you have big dreams and find yourself with nothing to do, you're probably in the slump. Deadlines make a huge difference in productivity. That section in your graph from August to December is like the last stretch in a marathon, when the finish line is in sight and you make an all-effort sprint to completion. We make short-term goals to capitalize on that productive sprint over and over again, and I think the hardest part is fighting burnout, exhaustion.

 

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[H. Palmer]

Hi, interesting post, Razor Cut.

I studied your graph and my guess is it's needs some readjustments in that the movement up in the second half of August should be much steeper while in September and October the effort level should be the highest of the year, above January.

There's another effect besides the "the year is almost over so let's race to the finish line" and that is "we're back from the summer holidays full of energy, so let's kick a$$" again. At least that's how it is for most people.

I've found two solutions to tackle the danger of procrastination when working on yearly goals.

. I have been planning my years in the last 5 or 6 years (in 2015 and 2016 I retreated into a hotel for a weekend to do just that) and one of my solutions to the danger of procrastination is to translate the yearly goals toward the months. So I plan my months also.

. Another thing is the goal for the year should not be isolated from the rest of your life. You should have life goals and long term goals (like 5 years) as well and you should translate these into yearly goals. The reason is that life or long term goals allow you to set VERY BIG goals and those are the ones that are close to your heart and inspire you to take action all the time. Like building up 10 million dollars and live in a mansion or introduce 1 million people to a life philosophy, those can be long term goals that really inspire you.

So the yearly goals should all be checked off against the long term goals. Some of them you reach this year, most you get a few steps closer too.

When I did that this year I discovered that there were a couple of long term goals that were close to my heart that I didn't make any progress toward in the first draft of my goals for 2016. So I changed my 2016 goals and now I'm much more satisfied with them and this urges me to move forward every day. I'm working 90 hour work weeks and I really like it.

 

[RazorCut]

Last year I said I would take it easy january since i have 11 months and taking it easy ended up being 6 months long then realizing i wasted half a year I was able to kick some a$$ but not enough!

We are all guilty of doing similar. We all know what we should be doing but most of us waste valuable time procrastinating or doing tasks that do not lead us forward but intentionally con us into feeling good as we now have a nice tidy desk, all our files are indexed, we have finished reading that book on productivity etc.. Basically we will do anything but what we know we should be doing. It's totally crazy when you think about it and a lot of it is down to a lack of urgency because we always feel we have plenty of time or we get to a point where we renegotiate our deadlines as we now don't have enough time left. Still there is always next year, right?

If compressing that time frame by a factor of 4 or even 6 creates enough urgency and focus then we might very well be able to achieve what many would say was impossible.

There are probably some good case studies out there. I may see if I can track some down. In the meantime my desk needs tidying.

 

[RazorCut]

We make short-term goals to capitalize on that productive sprint over and over again, and I think the hardest part is fighting burnout, exhaustion.

This shows your dedication. A lot of people never get to that stage as they fall off the productivity conveyor belt long before they would experience exhaustion and burnout.

 

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[Leo Hendrix]

Yes @RazorCut exactly.

Dayboard appears to be in beta phase, and allows you to allocate 5 tasks per day, if not completed they roll-over to the next day.

The thing I like about it is whenever I open a new tab on chrome, Dayboard pops up with my tasks, helps to keep you focused.