The Inside Track · Issue #9
Your diary is running your business.
It's 3am and you're running next week's diary in your head. Every job on it is yours. Take a day off and the phone doesn't stop, a quote stalls, and someone waits on a decision only you can make. If you stop, does everything stop?
You're not short of effort. You're short of space. This week: what two of the biggest names in business did to protect it, what I do with my own diary, and a ninety-minute block you can book before Friday.
Here's what it costs if nothing changes. The strategy you keep meaning to write stays in your head. The hire you keep putting off stays on the list. And one more Friday goes by with the laptop open on the kitchen bench while the people you work hardest for are in the next room.
The villain isn't your team or your customers. It's the urgent, and it never runs out. The good news is that you can beat it with a diary, not a miracle.
From Kevin's own teaching
I teach this in Making It Happen (Part 8, hacks and tips), and it's one I had to learn. Look at my diary and you'll find planning and business development held until midday on Mondays and mid-morning on Tuesdays. Why? Because urgent tasks always get done, and thinking time doesn't unless it's booked.
I also struggle to say no, and I've improved. As I put it in the training: “if you say yes to people, you are helping them achieve their goal and you're not achieving yours.”
Steal like a giant
Google: one day a week to think
The story (an outside example, from the United States). In its 2004 founders' letter, Google told investors its employees have “20 percent time”, effectively one day a week to pursue projects they are passionate about and think will benefit Google. [1] Quartz later reported that the policy helped incubate Gmail, Google News and AdSense. [2]
The catch. Quartz also reported that it faded in practice once engineers needed management approval and managers were judged on team productivity. [2] The idea didn't fail. Nobody defended it against the urgent.
The insight. As I read it, thinking time rarely dies because owners stop valuing it. It dies because nothing protects it from this morning's emergency. A block in the diary beats a good intention every time.
The small-business version (under $5k)
- Book it, don't hope for it. Two recurring blocks a week, 90 minutes each, titled with an outcome (“Decide the pricing”), not “admin”. Cost: nothing.
- Write your “only I can” list. Look at last week. Everything someone else could do from a checklist comes off your plate. Ten minutes.
- Buy back hours. Start with a few hours a week of part-time admin or bookkeeping help, and aim to keep the first year's spend under $5k.
- Name a stand-in. Pick one person who can decide small things (you set the limit) while your block is on, and tell the team.
Edge of the world
The week Bill Gates went offline
As The Wall Street Journal reported in 2005, Bill Gates held a “Think Week” twice a year: seven days in a secluded cottage in the Pacific Northwest, no outside visitors, reading papers sent in by Microsoft staff. [3]
The same report credited a 1995 Think Week with “The Internet Tidal Wave” paper, which led to Microsoft's Internet browser, and said plans for the Tablet PC also began during Think Weeks. [3]
The lesson. If thinking time was worth a week to him, a morning is a fair ask of yourself. Corporates can hire people to guard their leaders' time. In an owner-led business nobody else carries the risk, so you have to guard it on purpose. This isn't for you if you're happy being the busiest person in the building. It's for the owner who wants the business to keep moving when they step away.
Three quick wins
- Hand off one standing call. Find the recurring meeting that doesn't need you and give it to someone else this week.
- Write your “no” in advance. One sentence, such as “I can't take that on this week. Can it wait until Thursday?” Use it once before Friday.
- End Friday with a five-line handover note. What's open, who's holding it, and what they can decide without you.
Said best
“It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.”
Steve Jobs, Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Q&A, 1997, on what focus really means [4]
Gates said no to visitors for a week. Google said no to the urgent for a day. Both are Jobs's point: focus is as much about what you refuse as what you choose.
Your block only works if something else loses. Decide what, before the emergency arrives.
The Monday move
Open your diary now. Block two 90-minute slots next week and give each one a single outcome as its title. Make the first one Monday morning. Put your stand-in's name in the invite, and tell them what they can decide without you.
Then protect it like a client meeting. If someone asks for that time, offer another slot, and use the sentence you wrote. The owners who get this right aren't cleverer or busier than you. They simply decided where the thinking happens, and they kept the appointment.
What if you could head home early on a Friday, knowing the business would keep moving without you? You don't need a week in a cottage. You need one booked morning, and you can do this.
If you'd like fresh eyes on where your time is really going, book a free 30-minute call.
Here's to your growth,
Kevin
Kevin D’Ambros-Smith · Founder, Simple-Growth
Sources
- Alphabet investor site: Google 2004 Founders' Letter (United States)
- Quartz: Google's 20% time, which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead (United States; undated page)
- The Seattle Times, 29 March 2005, republishing Robert A. Guth, The Wall Street Journal: Microsoft's "Thoreau" takes to woods to ponder future (United States)
- Rowan Simpson: Steve Jobs on focus, WWDC 1997 Q&A, as transcribed
- Daring Fireball: Jobs at WWDC 1997 on saying no (context for the quote)
The diary and “say no” story comes from Kevin's own training, Making It Happen. The Google and Gates examples are outside material.