WALKING OVER LEGO

Miisa Mink - 4 Sep 14

You know those amazing multi-tasking people who seem to get a trillion things done, all of them brilliantly, all in the space of a week? Yes, you know what I’m talking about. The ones with impressive ‘portfolio’ careers involving daring ventures, who seem to effortlessly juggle business, baby, baking and even have time for a bloke. Well you could be one of them. Yes really. But you have to be prepared to walk over Lego.

Some weird form of motherhood torture? No exactly. Bear with me on this. Sales and marketing guru Perry Marshall says 20% of what we do yields 80% of the results and this applies to everything in life, not just business. When I read this it got me thinking. It was four years ago and I was working hard on all fronts. Building my business, trying to be the best mother to my twin boys and have time for my love life. But was I doing the right things with my time? The 20% that was going to make the biggest difference? Based on this principle I decided to dedicate two uninterrupted hours a day to focus on one important thing that would dramatically change my future.

And this is where the Lego comes in – or any mundane task that tends to distract you throughout the day. Emails. Meetings. Buying birthday presents for your kids’ friends. One of the best techniques to create that two hour window is to ignore things that are not critical. I simply ‘walk over Lego’ instead of tidying it up. The thing is, I work from home so there is a great temptation to keep picking up toys and clean the playroom every day. I don’t. I tell my kids to do it, and when it’s not done, it’s not done. I simply don’t care. If I kept picking up Lego I wouldn’t get that important ‘20%’ stuff done. Simple.

It’s all about batching…

Once a week there is a massive effort to put the house in order. Pick up every single piece of Lego. Put all the toys in their correct place. The same goes for other tasks – even emails. I allocate one hour each day to get through my emails and that one hour is not in the morning when I’m most productive. I simply check any urgent messages and leave the rest for the afternoon. The same goes for meetings that I batch into Tuesdays and Thursdays when I’m in town.

I batch my shopping. I batch-buy presents for my kids’ friends. I do one massive Amazon order about twice a year and have a box full of appropriate toys and birthday cards. Think about it. How many times have you made a mad rush to the shops at the last minute to get something for a party? How long does it usually take? One hour? Multiply that by 30 birthday parties and you’ve lost almost four full working days in a year! It takes me three minutes to get my kids ready for a party.

If all this batching sounds a bit regimented, it is. But it’s enabled me to stick with my two hours a day to get the critical ‘20% stuff’ done, and launch a number of businesses. So forget multi-tasking – that just means doing everything badly. Batching is the way forward.

* Allocate 30-mins to 1-hour slots for each batch in your calendar.

Try to minimise the time you allocate to non-critical things in order to maximise the time you can allocate to things that matter.

*  Make sure you complete each batch

Otherwise you lose time in re-starting and trying to remember where you were up to last time. Leaving a job unfinished means you will end up doing it again and spending twice as much time on it!

*  Create your own metaphor for batching

Mine is ‘walking over Lego’. This helps me to remind myself to focus on what matters.

Lego doesn’t matter.

Miisa Mink

Miisa Mink is a London based entrepreneur, author, blogger and mother to 5 year old twin boys Miika and Aku. She's the founder of women's proactive network, DrivenWoman (www.drivenwoman.co.uk).

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