Prioritising and Balancing What is Important

Living in Bali gives me many unexpected surprises, which on reflection are usually quite humbling and remind me to respect what is important in life, not only for myself but for others too.  Over a period of four successive days, I experienced a 3 hour power cut when I was about to cook lunch; the next day no gas when I wanted to cook dinner; the day after that no water when it was time for my children to have a shower; and on the fourth day no internet when I had arranged a skype coaching session! I have to admit that by the fourth day, I was starting to get impatient, but I did find ways around these challenges and realised that on reflection these little things that can easily irk us are not important when it comes to the bigger picture of living life. When people say, 'One day, I'll laugh about this', why not laugh now?

What I do enjoy about living in Bali is the complete contrast of the everyday situations I deal with, compared to working in the modern world of commercialisation, technology and business. In my work, I find myself talking strategies about where organisations and their people want to be and then I return to my home in Bali I find myself talking strategies with the house staff about how to prevent snakes from entering our home. Apparently a snake was spotted slithering along the wall that is the boundary to our home. To prevent the snake from returning again, I was asked if I can make a monthly contribution to the Balinese offerings that will be placed in our home on a daily basis. The irony is that, in my world, these little square palm leaf trays containing flowers, incense, rice and small cookies will surely attract the snakes and vermin. It's like putting out a snack for these animals to feast on.  In the Balinese world, these offerings will placate the mischievous demons and express gratitude to the good spirits so that harmony in life can be maintained. To add to this, we now have an offering placed on our cooker every evening, as the cooker unexpectedly stopped working for a few moments one day. I thought it may have been to do with the loose gas connection from the gas cylinder to the cooker, while to our Balinese staff it was the sign of a demon.  I can't help but wonder if the rats and mice who pop down from the rice fields have a party every night on our cooker, but I know the offerings are important to our house staff so I respect them and willingly give my contribution to keep the spirits and demons happy.

These type of humbling situations in Bali remind me about recognising what is important in our lives. What is important to you?  Do you prioritise and balance what is important or do you let life go by without giving it much thought? Do you get caught up in the trappings of trivia, 'busyness' and nagging emotions whirling around in your head, rather than focus on what is really important?  Recently, I ran an Effective Planning and Organising workshop with a group of 25-35 year old IT Consultants. You'd think that technology offers them more than enough planning and organising tools and yet they were missing the vital ingredient that makes our planning and organising most effective. They hadn't stopped to think about what was important. They were too caught up feeling important with all the urgent stuff that they had to deal with, to the extent that they hadn't planned the most important goals in their jobs. You can have all the latest technologically advanced planners and organisers available at your disposal, but if you don't spend some time at least reflecting on what is important, how can you plan, let alone balance your priorities?

I asked this group of IT Consultants, "When you retire what will you tell your grandchildren you did?" A good question to ask yourself too. These consultants didn't have their own children so stretching them to think of grandchildren was quite a challenge for them. This question, however, turned out to be the most poignant for them. They were so caught up with dealing in the here and now, they hadn't given themselves the time to think about what were their important goals to achieve both in their work and life. They were so busy doing, they weren't being. One of the participants confessed that she had no social or family life because she put everything into her job. A job is of course important and it's equally critical to prioritise what else is important so that you can live a balanced life.

In ten years time, how will you remember this year? Will it be the number of emails you sent, the phone calls you made, the number of meetings you attended or how busy you were? Make time to plan and prioritise what is important and take the time to understand / respect what is important to others.

Management guru Stephen Covey (who is a grandfather to 52 children!), tells a story of two men chopping wood. The one man worked hard all day and took no breaks. The other chopper took several breaks during the day and had time to have a nap after lunch.  The chopper who took no breaks was disturbed to see that at the end of the day, the chopper who took breaks had cut more wood than what he had. "How did you chop more wood than me?" asked the chopper who took no breaks.  His companion said "When I took a break, I was sharpening my axe."

What are you doing to sharpen your axe? Make sure you plan what is important. As Stephen Covey says:-

"If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster."

Janet

To find out more about our NoLimits Planning and Prioritising workshops contact Sandra Lai on +65 6232 2466 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +65 6232 2466      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email sandralai@nolimitsasia.com

Breaking the Rules

The theme for me over the last week has been about 'Breaking the Rules.'  A note of caution here, I do not mean breaking the law, I am referring to how good it feels when we sometimes go against the rules of convention, tradition and protocol. Having returned from a week long trip in Hong Kong, where I was running two consecutive workshops and which is a favourite NoLimits programme of mine, 'Presenting for Leaders', it brought back memories and nostalgia of the days when I used to live there. There is something about the pace, buzz and sheer rudeness of the taxi drivers and some of the people in Hong Kong that I find captivating, thrilling and unconventional.  

My first reminder of the unconventional was when I jumped in a taxi to drive me to my hotel. I immediately sensed there was no time for pleasantries when I didn't get a response to my polite, 'pleased to meet you' hello. Many taxi drivers in Hong Kong do not speak English, so I was already equipped with a print out of the hotel address and its location. Using sign language, which consisted of the taxi driver grunting with a firm nod, we both knew where we stood. In no time at all we were on our way. We sped off, as if we were going to race the Formula One circuit, tyres burning, engine screeching, as I and my hand luggage were flung across the back seat of the taxi and I clung onto my seatbelt, desperately trying to fasten it. It was if we had no time to lose at all.

Although Hong Kong is Chinese in so many ways, such as the towering concrete blocks, unconventionally built in an ad-hoc fashion, with their characteristic poles hanging out washing like flags saluting the city; the seemingly rude behaviours where people push in (rules about queuing are virtually non-existent and even when there are attempted planned queues, people still push in); as well as their direct bargaining approach, where you are left wondering whether you did get a good price; it does have some 'homely' and 'conventional' characteristics for me that date back to its British colonial days. The buses, for example, are double-deckers and the fire engines look just like the British ones. It made me smile when one of the Hong Kong participants on my workshop told me that she spent her honeymoon in the main cities of Europe and particularly liked London because the double-decker buses reminded her of 'home.'

The old fashioned Hong Kong tram brought back memories of Europe, until the taxi driver decided to break tradition and beat the congested traffic jam by driving along the tram lines! It felt like being in one of those action packed, car chase movies, where we would do anything to get ahead.

The two storey colonial buildings that nestle at the feet of the ultra-modern, tall, gleaming and architecturally exquisite masterpieces against the dramatic backdrop of the tree covered mountains, demonstrate how the untraditional can mix with the traditional. The rules of keeping the 'old' with the 'old' and the 'new' with the 'new' have refreshingly been broken and can similarly be applied with the way in which we manage our work and life.


While running our NoLimits' 'Presenting for Leaders' programme, I encouraged participants to 'break the rules' of their traditional Powerpoint presentations and stand out from the crowd by using visuals with few words, pictures and no bullet points. I also encouraged them to use metaphors and stories to present their key messages with clarity, impact and confidence. Just because your boss and colleagues use a deck of 68 slides with enough data and words to sink a battle ship, doesn't mean that you have to do this too.

As the great inventor, Thomas Edison said:-

"There are no rules here, we are trying to accomplish something."

Sometimes it's good to break the rules to accomplish what we want and to help us get to our destination quicker, just like the Hong Kong taxi drivers did with me!

Janet

Find out more about 'breaking the rules' of the conventional PowerPoint presentations and how to stand out from the crowd by contacting Sandra Lai on sandralai@nolimitsasia.com