I travelled over the weekend. I got way out of my routine and thus there were no emails for the folks.

I'm back. Like it or not. I shall accept either your thanks or your shaming and do so gracefully.

On my end, I blame this lack of "productivity" more on poor preparation than anything. One of the things I did when I got back home was to read from Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. I've been thumbing through it over the last week or so.

I had not previously heard what Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said about routine:

“I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.”

Even though I accomplished a lot on my trip on a personal level, I negotiated with myself too much and was unable to complete several tasks relating to business that I normally do without much thought.

Anyhow, the point is that even though I tried to adjust, I did not prepare myself properly to do so. Poor preparation turned into poor adjustments and, thus, marginal outcomes—businesswise.

At the heart of it was a time management issue.

On the Games With Names podcast a few weeks ago, Jim Craig, the goalie from the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic Hockey Team was talking about the greatness of their coach, Herb Brooks.

Brooks was consumed with beating the Soviets, but he knew his slightly-more-than-ragtag squad of amateurs did not have much time to prepare to face, let alone defeat, what was the greatest hockey team in the world at the time.

Craig said that one of the things that set Coach Brooks aside was his capacity for time management.

"What's the most important thing in time management?" Craig asked host and former New England Patriot receiver Julian Edelman. "What would your answer be?"

"Productivity," said Edelman.

Craig disagreed. "It's knowing how much time you have."

Generally, I am aware of how much time I have. I routinely chart out my days.

When I step out of my routine, though, it gets a little squirrelly.

What I'm saying is that I didn't really know how much time I had over the weekend. But I pretended I did. Or lied to myself about it. Not sure exactly what it was.

Meanwhile, I think about this stuff all the time and when I fail, I not only attempt to diagnose my failure, but end up putting in place systems to make sure similar things don't happen again.

As difficult and challenging it is to do, I tend to fix things like this in my own life … eventually. It's a process.

We've also had great success over the last year or so helping others create a new path forward.

If you're interested in talking about creating systems and/or to see if one of our group coaching or 1-to-1 opportunities may be a fit, click on over to this Calendly page:

We work with both individuals and organizations in the coaching/consulting space, but not everyone is a fit.

As always,

Brian

P.S. — Even if you don't have the time you think you need, you can still "get things done." Great things, even.

For instance, the Russian composer, piano virtuoso, and conductor, Sergey Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was a notorious procrastinator.

According to Mason Currey,

“Rachmaninoff could never seem to find as much uninterrupted time as he needed. As he wrote to a friend in 1907, 'today I worked only from 9 A.M. to 12:30. Then lunch, and now I write you instead of working. I have one free hour and then an hour’s walk. Then 2 hours’ practice, and then I retire with the chickens. Thus I have only about 4 hours a day for composition. Too little!'”

And even though Rachmaninoff's productivity dropped over the course of the last half of his life, the number and quality of compositions (judging from my limited knowledge of classical music) by Rachmaninoff is, nevertheless, impressive.

P.P.S. – I read a bit about another Russian, too. Tchaikovsky. I'll get to him on another day.

And, contrary to what the politicos and media hacks may want to tell you, not all of the stories originating from Russia amount to "Russian disinformation."

Over the centuries, there have been some pretty impressive Russian people that are worth learning from. It's not all propaganda. To the contrary.