Imagine that you're an up-and-coming prodigy (what's there to imagine, eh 😉) in the field of software development. You've poured your heart and soul into developing the app of your dreams and tomorrow, (dramatic pause) well tomorrow is the launch day. You're obviously super excited but also super busy, preparing for the D-Day, triple-checking everything. Absolutely no time to spare. Suddenly, you get a message 💬 from one of your clients. Apparently, they have an investor meeting tomorrow and are in dire need of some data. Well, this data is special. Because this data corresponds to a software that you had designed for their product. And since investors are involved, they need this data ASAP. And and, retrieving a particular batch of data is not a cakewalk - the pursuit can end up costing hours of your time. So grandmaster, what would be your move? Will you sacrifice your dream project and derail your entire day, just to uphold the 'client is God' motto? Or will you risk upsetting Mr God 😠 and potentially lose your company some crucial business?
If Sophie's choice would have a corporate-modern day remake, this would be the perfect climax for it. Well, today's discussion also features a ton of seemingly impossible choices. No prizes for guessing - we already mentioned it in the title. It's about time. And self-management.
Don't you sometimes wish that we had 25 hours instead of 24? Or maybe 26 ⏱️? We could get so much done in this additional period and still have the entire day's worth on our plate. But what if we told you, it's not about having extra time - instead, it's about making extra time.
Thanks to some brilliant thinkers, we have with us, a designated pathway 🛣️ to tackle such timely issues. In 2015, a similar leader with the name of Rory Vaden, came up with the concept of 'The Focus Funnel' to help us make better decisions with our time. In 2022, Arrowhead is presenting this theory in the most fun way possible (Narcissism, what art thou?). But before we jump 🦘 into the funnel, it's better that we get to know something about its creator.
Who is Rory Vaden?
A leading expert on the psychology of overcoming procrastination and increasing productivity, Rory Vaden is an extremely popular figure in the productivity space 👨🏻🚀. Vaden's insights are frequently featured in renowned media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, Forbes and more. One of the top leadership thinkers 🤔 of the modern era, the University of Denver alumnus has also won multiple accolades in public speaking. To top it all off, he's also the co-founder of a budding company called the Brand Builders Group.
That's some bio huh. Well, now that we've established how over-credible Mr Vaden is, let's shed some light on his famous time management framework.
What is The Focus Funnel?
So the funnel acts as an assembly line of decision-making, where you input tasks and check them off your list with the help of this funnel.
The first filter to this is Elimination.
Is the task at hand even worth your time? Ask yourself this question and if the answer comes out to be no, you'll see the task disappear from your to-do 📋 list faster than a toupee in a hurricane. We put so much of our focus on what we have to do that we end up chasing everything. But what if you actually stopped for a moment, reviewed your to-do list and got rid of the tasks that actually mean nothing to you? You'll have lesser targets to chase in the same duration. And reduced goals = reduced stress = more time.
So technically, if you go back to the client-launch conundrum, you'll see that one of the two options is now looking much more approachable and reasonable. It is impossible to accommodate everyone as you go on with your schedule and therefore, you gotta start saying no when it's absolutely necessary. So sorry Mr God, your data will have to wait because we're eliminating this task from our to-do list in favour of working towards the launch.
For instance, Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban 🦈 absolutely loathes meetings. According to the Dallas Mavericks owner, they are a big productivity killer. Therefore, Cuban always makes sure that all the meet-ups 🤝 that are not essential to his business are eliminated from his day-to-day schedule. In a 2016 Q&A, the billionaire said,
No meetings or phone calls unless I’m picking up a check. Saves me hours and hours every day.
Who better than Vaden himself to summarise the essence of elimination -
Perfection is achieved not only when nothing can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away. It is the permission to ignore. Because anything we say no to today, creates more time for us tomorrow. You have to realise that you're always saying no to something. Because everytime you say yes to one thing, you're simultaneously saying no to an infinite number of others.
The second filter is Automation.
If you can create a process for a repetitive task, then why not spend some time creating a system for that task? Why buy a calendar 📆 and change the date on it every single day when you can just look at your phone 📱? (If it's nostalgia, then it's justified). On the other hand, if you have a system in progress that gets that task completed every time it pops up on your schedule, you save time.
If you're spending 10 minutes each day, summing your bills, automating this task would save you these 10 minutes every day. That means 300 minutes every month and 60 hours every year! By this definition, isn't automation to your time, equivalent to what compounding interest is to your money 🤑? Why isn’t it common practice by now, we hear you ask? Well, the general notion is to avoid doing anything unnecessary in your day. And since we’re anyhow scrapping by, going out of your way to automate processes is considered to be time-wasting. No sir, the irony is not lost on us 😮💨.
Now coming back to the client's problem, if eliminating the task is not an option at all, you can call for the help of certain automation tools ⚒️ that can whip up the required data in no time. It will require you to set up a system at first and feed some input to the tools. Only then can this automated process work wonders 🌈 for you. So if you have the time and elimination is out of the picture, automation should be the next option on your radar.
Even Amazon has been pushing to automate as much office work as possible, without eliminating jobs. One such case happened with an employee named Dilip Kumar. Initially, Kumar's job at Amazon was to decide the pricing of products and plan their promotions. However, Amazon soon realised that these services can easily be automated by using machine learning algorithms that can predict what products shoppers want and how much to price them. They replaced Kumar with these AI programs and gave him a new job title. As expected, Kumar excelled immensely in his new role. Goes on to show that automation can not only save you time but also gives you more time to achieve more things.
And the third filter is Delegation.
Can someone else do this task for you? Why waste your time doing something if there is a person available who is equally adept and qualified to do that job for you? ('Asking' your classmate to do your homework wasn't delegation Jonny, it was bullying 👀). If it wasn't for delegation, the concept of home delivery would be an unknown concept. Instead of going to the store and picking up the groceries 🥦 ourselves, we chose to order them online, just to conserve our time and energy. If you can apply the same theory in completing your daily tasks, then what's the harm?
Let’s scale back to the client-launch problem for the last time (phew). Considering that you've tried and tried but you just can't seem to find a way to either eliminate ❌ this problem or automate the hell out of it, then there's only one thing left to do. Get another team or an intern to do it. They're also a part of the team and it's a very crucial hour. If they can solve your problem, then don't hesitate in asking for it because you deserve the best ❤️.
Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, is a big fan of delegation. According to the billionaire entrepreneur, you should empower and trust your delegate as much as you can. They may not be able to complete the assigned task perfectly at the first time of asking. You just have to show faith. They'll definitely come around in the second or the third running with your help. If someone with as big of a business empire as Sir Branson says delegation will fetch you results, then there might actually be a bit of gravitas to this technique, don't you think?
The Endgame -
If your task has passed through all the aforementioned filters and is still burning a hole in your day, you are left with two choices ✌️. One of them is completing the task then and there, by yourself. If a task is important enough, cannot be eliminated, automated or delegated and has to be completed right away, your only option is to get it done on your own.
However, if the task is important but isn't super-urgent, you can choose to do it later. This is what we call procrastinating on purpose. Okay, that's what Rory Vaden calls it, we're just living in his world 🌎. But here, procrastination can actually be helpful to you since you're deliberately assigning a later time slot to a task, after having processed it through the Focus Funnel. There is a purpose to it - you aren't delaying the task for the sake of it. And when the time comes, you'll pop the task into the funnel once again. It'll continue to cycle through the funnel until eventually, you decide upon a strategy. After n cycles, you'll either complete the task on your own, or develop the courage to chuck it in the bin - that is, eliminate ❌ it.
And that is how you get things done, funnel style.
The essence behind the funnel
No, not the smell, the ideology behind it. Funnel or not, we all have the same 24 hours available to us in a day. The same 1,440 minutes, the same 86,400 seconds. And that is where the problem starts. It's not about the 86,400 seconds we have today, but the 86,400 seconds we're going to have tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. Someone who wishes to have more time in a day is tending to the issues of that particular day. But someone who is trying to multiply ❎ their time by applying such techniques is thinking about tomorrow.
We usually rate our tasks by their importance and urgency. What multipliers do, is they give equal weightage to a third unit - significance. We've talked about it in length in a previous blog, so if you wanna know more, you know where to go 🚦.
The bottom line is that the focus funnel is just a method. You cannot truly etch it in your system unless you realise why is it important to use the focus funnel. The moment you start giving significance to how your tomorrow will be, you'll start creating time for tomorrow. That's when you'd truly want to multiply your time and that's precisely when the Focus Funnel will come into the picture.
In the end, it's your time - your plate 🍽️. No matter how many healthy blogs you go through, you're the one who'll actually lay things out on the plate when the time comes. We'd still advise you to take a pass on the cheeseburger 🍔 of today in favour of the green salad 🥗 of tomorrow. Don't worry, we'll party together when these 'dieting' days are over. Our treat!
Till next time, stay safe, stay productive and just stay! ❤️
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