[0:08] You can achieve more by doing less. If your first reaction to that statement is that I'm crazy, this podcast is for you

[0:16] I'm Rusty Gaillard, and this is Do Something Different, a podcast for high-achieving, successful people to elevate and escalate their performance to the next level. I was first introduced by this concept of achieving more by doing less through one of my very earliest client interactions. This was someone who's an executive at Google and was working like crazy. The way he portrayed that to me was describing that he had not been to the doctor in five years. Thankfully, he was healthy. He did not have any issues, but he didn't even have time for that most basic of self care actions to go to the doctor for a simple checkup. He didn't have time. He didn't make time. He would go to work early in the morning. He would be in meetings all day. He would come home for a few hours with family, and then the rest of the evening was spent catching up on work and emails and deliverables in order to be ready for the next day. The next day was the same thing, rinse and repeat.

[1:18] He said to me that he wanted to create something in his life. He always wanted to create something. And the idea he had was for a non-profit. And he felt very strongly about this, but he had no time in his day to create it. So I asked him, what do you need in order to be successful creating this nonprofit? He said, well, it would be great to have five hours a week. Okay, there are three big buckets that you can draw from in your life. You can take out a personal time, you can take out a family time or you can take out of work time. He didn't have any personal time, so that was not an option. Family time, he ruled out. He had several children and it was not worth it for him to take time out of

[1:58] his family. So the obvious answer was to take out of work. But how do I take five hours out of my work schedule? My work is already booked. I'm working extra hours just to keep up. There's no way I can do it. That is the problem that we tackled together. To find five hours that he could take out, not permanently, but as a little experiment and see what happened.

[2:21] We did that experiment. He took those five hours out. He invested it in his nonprofit that he wanted to create. And he was successful in doing it. No degradation to his work performance. And he was able to invest in this nonprofit. So we did it again. We did it again the next week. Well, he did it again, to be clear. And when he did this week after week after week, a pattern started to emerge. He was able to take time out of his work week to invest in himself. And by doing so, when he went back to work, he was more effective. He made faster decisions. He used his team more effectively. He was more focused on the key things rather than all of the noise. And as a result, he was more successful and more effective and he got promoted.

[3:10] Now, most people would not see that as a logical progression. Most people would say, how could you possibly get promoted by working fewer hours? That was the first time I had seen it, but it is certainly not the last. One of my recent clients had a very similar experience, working long hours managing a team on opposite parts of the world, both in California and in India, which if you don't know are 12 hours apart, and it's hard to arrange a conference call at a reasonable hour when you're 12 hours apart from the other person. So this person was working early mornings, late nights, working with people both in the US and in India, managing the team, deeply involved in the day-to-day operations and delivery of the work his team was producing.

[3:55] We found ways to delegate more to his team, to empower him so that he could invest in things that he wanted to do. He could shift what he was doing at work so he was doing work that he was better at, that was more strategic, that he enjoyed more, that had a bigger impact on the company. The result, more recognition for a different way of working for him, more control over his schedule because he was not on as many of these calls at odd hours of the day, and he was doing work that he enjoyed.

[4:27] I've come to label this as the success trifecta, where you can have more impact and success in your professional career. you can have more control over your calendar, and you can have more enjoyment and fulfillment from the work that you're doing. Most successful high achievers see that as almost impossible. How could you possibly be more successful by working less? When you have been successful in your career, first in academics and then later in work, by working hard and doing everything well, the idea of doing less is completely counterintuitive. And that is the challenge.

[5:10] I talk frequently about the combination of mindset and skill set that you need to be successful. I want to give you a little bit of both in this podcast episode to help you start to crack this code on how you can be more successful at work by putting in fewer hours. I'm going to do that with a four-step process that uses the acronym CALM. C-A-L-M. C stands for clear your head.

[5:40] The reason you have to clear your head is when you're stressed you don't make the best decisions we all know this this is why your good ideas often come to you in the shower or when you're out for a walk when you're not sitting in front of your computer pounding away we're going to get back to that because this is for many people the hardest part of this c clear your head a is for assess what's important.

[6:06] If you're focused on the noise, if you're focused on the wrong things, you're never going to be successful. So you have to take a step back and do that strategic assessment of what is actually important. What do you like to do? What does the company need? What does your team need? Where can you really add value that's going to make an impact in your job and for your team? So that's the assess part.

[6:28] L is for limit distractions. One of the simplest ways to do this is time blocking. I'm not going to get into the details of how you do time blocking. Most people know how to do it. The challenge is honoring it. I block time on my calendar to do something important, but then I always give it up because something else shows up. We're going to talk about addressing that as well. And the M for calm is about manage your team. I just a few episodes ago released an episode on how to delegate more effectively. Go back and listen to that episode because most people don't fully utilize their team. They have their team doing work, but they're still personally directly involved in the production and the review and the assessment of that work. How when you are very good at delegating you give ownership of things to your team and to the extent that you are not involved in the same way it doesn't take the same level of involvement of supervision and your team gets more ownership they can be more successful you're more successful because it frees up your time to focus on other things manage your team so c-a-l-m c clear your head a assess what's important l limit distractions time blocking is a great way to do that and m manage your team so that they can produce results and it's not all tied to you.

[7:48] That's a very simple approach. And that's somewhat in the skill set category. But I want to go back to the C of this, which is to calm your mind, because that is a mindset issue.

[8:02] Decision fatigue is a real thing. I was just talking about this with a client recently, who was saying he had just finished a large push to get through a project and he was tired. So many of us, when we reach that point of decision fatigue, when we know we're not thinking clearly, we don't take a step back. We keep pushing. When we're confronted with a challenge, a problem, an analysis, something that we're working on, we want to keep pushing through until we get that satisfaction of getting the answer, of getting a breakthrough. Learning to step back in that time, change your situation, change your energy, go do something different to calm your mind, to clear your mind is going to be way more effective than pounding your head against the wall. I've had multiple clients come to me and say, one of the most powerful things I've learned is to honor that in myself, that when I need a break, when I'm tired, when I'm not at my most effective to take a break, to step away, to clear my mind so that when I come back, I can be fresh and resourced. I can be more effective in making decisions. I can get insights. I can solve problems faster than if I had stayed at my desk pounding and pounding and working and trying harder to get through. So there's two parts to this question of clearing your mind. The first part is knowing that you need to.

[9:29] In order to know that you need to clear your mind, you have to start paying attention to what are your behaviors and what are your moods that are indicators that you're in that rut, that you're just churning and churning and pushing and trying to get through something and it's not effective. One of the ways for me that I noticed that is I'm sitting at my desk, but I'm doing things that are not productive. I'm sitting at my desk, I might be scrolling LinkedIn, I might be spending a lot of time on email, try to go through and respond to things, kind of clean things up. Because sometimes it feels good to feel like I'm checking the box on a lot of things, but it's the noise. It's not the big stuff. The big stuff rarely lands in your inbox.

[10:08] If you find yourself spending time, churning, doing something that you know is not productive, pay attention to what those things are. Make a mental list for yourself. So when you see yourself doing it, when you notice it, that's your clue. Oh, hey, this might be one of those opportunities where I need to clear my mind. You might also notice a mood or a feeling that you've got when you're in a place like that. When I'm in that place, often I find my mind churning and I find this kind of frantic energy of like, I've got to get this done.

[10:43] That also for me is a clue. So I'm looking at behavioral clues. I'm looking at moods that I've got. And those are clues to me to say, oh, I'm in a place that's not very productive. I'm not operating as my best self.

[10:56] What do you do in that situation? Simple. Do something different. This is a perfect example of the opportunity to practice a new behavior that can be effective and help you advance. As you think about doing something different, you want to do something that clears your mind. Now, there's two paths you can take when you want to do that. One path is to do something that's soothing but superficial. This is the Netflix kind of approach or, you know, some people might talk about a massage, something like that. It tends to be passive and And it's really, when you get up at the end of that, you don't necessarily feel rejuvenated or energized. The second path you can take is to do something that does take a little effort, but it is energizing. So these are things like exercise, going outside, just walking outside in nature, going for a walk around the block, doing something social, meeting someone for a coffee, having a conversation with another person. One of my clients even recently said doing chores because doing chores gives that sense of satisfaction it's something totally different just washing the dishes can be like hey i'm making a difference here it's calm it's relaxing you're making progress.

[12:10] Doing something like that, that is productive, that's active, that engages you, but it's different from work can be a very effective way to clear your mind. The biggest challenge here, though, is being willing to do it. And this is where it's very connected to time blocking, because so many people know this idea of time blocking. Oh, I'm going to put a block of time on my calendar to do this important work. But then when that block of time comes up, they spend it doing email or they let someone schedule a meeting over the top of it. They basically give it away. That is the same fundamental problem as being willing to stand up when you're stuck on something and clear your mind.

[12:53] Because it's a habit. We all have a habit of approaching work and approaching challenges the same way. And we tend to just keep working at something. We tend to prioritize other people over ourselves. And being willing to prioritize yourself, whether that's guarding your time to work on something important or prioritizing yourself by standing up to go clear your mind, by changing your environment and changing your energy so you can come back refreshed and more effective and more decisive and more insightful.

[13:24] Be willing to invest in yourself and practice that. You've got to grow that muscle. A lot of people say, well, yeah, that sounds great, but it's not really that easy for me. It's not that easy for most people, but you can still do it. You've got to build the muscle by practicing one step at a time. What this comes down to is a willingness to tolerate the discomfort in the interest of your own growth.

[13:52] What has gotten you here will not get you there it will not get you to the next level you cannot have more and more and more responsibility and still tackle it with the same level of detail and attention you have to learn to focus to take a step back and assess what's important that's the a in calm assess what's important l limit your distractions so that you can focus on those things that are important. And M, manage your team so that they are empowered to deliver on so much of the other work that has to get done. And all of this rests on C, having a clear mind as you come into it.

[14:32] What I want you to take from this podcast is an experiment. I would love for you to try an experiment of stepping away when you're stuck. Honor yourself, honor your energy, Recognize when you're not at your best, look at the behaviors, look at the moods that are indicators for that for you, and be willing to tolerate the discomfort of trying something new, doing something different. Step away. Go for a walk around the block. Do some chores. Do a little exercise. Meet someone for coffee. Have a conversation with someone. Try one of those things and then go back to work and see if you're more effective. See if you can be more effective and using all four of these steps of the calm process to deliver more work with less effort. You absolutely can do that if you're willing to do something different.