How to do less and get more done: Arne Sigurd Rognan Nielsen at TEDxTrondheim

good morning they wanted to get you back to basis so they gave you me I'm a simple guy not very complex I'm gonna doing 18 percent presentation at 18 minutes presentation and I prepared it for 63 years so you better listen it's a I'm I'm the wise guy I'm the old guy have you ever heard about the Daruma doll the rumored doll is what the Japanese do when they start a new project then they pick up a Daruma doll and they paint one eye to him and this doll is looking at you until you're finished with your private then you paint the last one so let's get started if you steal another person's time you're a spigot thief as one who steals and other person's money that needs what my father said to me and he told me the value of time so my question to you did you steal from yourself do you waste your time do you waste other people's time then you throw away money you'd throw away values so I tell you my story as I told you I'm oh I'm a I'm an old guy I've been working a lot through hold my laugh and I'm being through a burnout three times here my love life the last one was two years ago when I met a wall I was starting vomiting before I went to work I was starting hyperventilating I had to leave meetings because my I was fighting and fighting and fighting to do all what I thought was expected to me that bad from me and my body started to fly it you always have this choice fight or flight my mind was fighting my body was flying so I had to see the doctor the doctor put me on a sick leave for three months gave me medication for two months I went to a coach and he started working through my childhood and see why do I always have to say yes to what I believe people expect from me so I managed to get through this and change everything in my life very shortly the other day I made a test you know they have this test on NRK the radio station a TV station has some programs about happiness in life and I did this test to see how happy am I with my life I'm an 86% er the average of Norwegian people is 64% I'm an 86 err I'm proud of it so let's get on with the work what is time what is time has anybody here seen time has anyone had touched time no so we were talking about time management how can you manage something you can't see and you can't touch it's not about time I tell you what time is time is the world's most sustainable and democratic resource every one of you has 24 hours each day if you get more than the others it's because you live longer so it's a resource Tom doesn't fly time comes it comes all the time so there's a rule of 24 you have 24 hours and time and life is not time time life is not about time it's about what you do what you feel into that time as long as you're on mother earth so I have a rule of 20 on 24 I divide it in three eight plus eight plus eight go on work eight hours work eight hours relaxation or refill and eight hours sleep what is this work is where you pull out what are your energy to to solve problems relaxation what is that refill reading a book walk in the woods with your dog play with your children make love to the one you love listen to music of the theater everything you have to refill what you're empty from from your creativity from an energy and then you need to recharge your batteries you have to sleep so this is a good mix so I also have a successful that I learned from an old friend of mine let's go for it 24 times a times s gives R and you can guess you're all working with mathematics and so on you'll notice there is one constant come on 24 is time it's a constant a is a constant s is a variable and of course R is a variable so let's see what this is 24 is of course time this is my remote control today I do like the dog whisperer so a what is a activities of course that's what we feel alive Street and I will talk about why is a a constant s skills improving our skills and our is of course the result so let's talk about a a activities you have to prioritize everything you do in your life and especially at work especially at work a activities a tasks that lead you directly to your goal so do them do them now next be be activities our activities that support your activities my activities in my office I'm in my office now this is where I work my a activities is speaking to you now the B activity was booking flight tickets to come here and I'm not very good at booking take flight tickets so I outsource them I've give them away to people who dress this much better than I do and probably have them as a activities like a traveling see see activities that are tasks that smoothly are not important and all and that someone else sent to you because they don't think they are important either or else they would have been doing them so what I say don't do them don't do them send them back to the owner let's move urgent versus important what is urgent urgency what happens when you're not ahead of things then you have to solve them up to the deadline so urgent's is about deadlines but important is about values so net there is a rule about that never do unimportant things until you finished the note never do unimportant things until you finished the important things if ever improve your skills you know that was a variable in my formula improve your skills focus on what you're good at become even better at what you're good at and forget about those things you're not so good at why because you achieve more by focusing on what you're good at and it will take a very long time to be better and what you're not good at so focus on the important things let's talk about email who loves email I don't I promise you I hate try to be email smart and there are some scary facts come on one by one hundred and forty four billion emails every day ends in the whole world it's nearly 70% of them are spam garbage rubbish 28% of the work a birthdays use on email the numbers come from McKinsey I believe those guys and 30 hours per week you're using on email or electronic tools to find information and find experts and so on so what's your business title is it email reader how come on you're using 13 hours each week reading email are you email readers no go back and look at your business code and start doing what it says email is for no let's go to die now I talked a little about now I will talk a little about social media and a new way of working everybody's talking about social media internally in IBM where I work have my daily work we are using internal social media more and more instead of email because email is from me to you social media are about jungle drums the first social media was jungle drums one guy in one village tried to send a message to one guy in the other village and the whole village and all those in between gotta say message that was know--let's sharing in open dialogues open dialogues and crowd thinking is so much faster than email working only in your email inbox is like working is like driving a car with a handbrake on so kill email before it kills you it nearly killed me be emailed smart one by one sort email by importance blue dots in my email I have blue dots showing that this email is only for you and I prioritized them then I have some blue dots which is harmful that says this email is for me and for others typically a word group and then I have these circles come on bring him on and I kill them I delete them without reading him and don't respond by email use the phone it's so much faster to use the phone if you can see if they're online then call them because you can listen to their voice you can get what they feel you can ask a question so much faster and never respond an email with more than five lines give a short resume Oh what did we agree upon who should do what and when should we have done it that's it delete these emails without reading them I'll do that I reduced my email m amount by eighty percent reduction in my email because I've were pilot these principles do not open your inbox until you have finished the tasks you decided to use the day and reserve one hour for email work not more okay calendar what's a calendar in my mind a calendar is a time budget B calendar smart don't come on just bring it on never book all the time a new Canada you can't book eight a hundred percent of it earlier free time in the calendar always leave 20% for fire alarms then you have planned for those thing that was not planned see book time for meetings and don't have meetings that is more than one hour book time for important tasks that is what you do book time for important tasks book a meeting with yourself so you reserve that time always have a to-do list and reserve a fixed day for internal meetings I only have internal meetings on Mondays the rest of the week I'm free to do whatever I want that most of the time I spend with customers I even spent time with customers from a home office because I work digitally so I go don't go anywhere be planning smart I know you get the trick come on plan next year on this year's last day what is that you do your new receive next year I'm gonna be slimmer take off ten kilos I'm gonna stop smoking I'm gonna work out I don't tell my wife that I love her I do it a lot more and so on that is not a plan that's a dream it's a plan when you put a date and a number on it if you say I'm gonna take off ten kilos and I reach that goal first of July then it's a plan and then we do the same every hope here every quarter we do the same we do every month you review the month behind and planned a month in front of us we do it weekly yeah you got it we do it every Friday we do it every day we also do a review this is what I do every Friday I have a weekly review I have some things I should check off I have a checklist and I do those things everything in that I can't move on before I have done everything here in my checklist reviewing my address listing some meetings come on be meeting smart have short me things never have a meeting longer than one hour all talking after one hour is that is people repeating what habit what other people say is this waste of time never a meeting without an agenda you know those meetings without an agenda you never get through come on start and conclude precisely on time and do not wait for late customers or late comers if one of those those guys comes and we are waiting from one of those guys 15 minutes and had ten people in the room how much time did we waste then we did what my father said we shouldn't do have respect for other people's talk budget time for eat at each agenda point this we're going to talk about for five minutes this is we're gonna use ten minutes in these eleven minutes and this twelve and a half minute so you have the budget to everybody see how much time you have to discuss it use phone or web meetings save travel travel is a waste of time come on so let's talk about office most of all sit in small boxes boots a read a book that said a booth is nothing is not for human it's meant for horses and we are not horses at least I have only two feet so be awfully smart have less stuff on your desk I know that one journalist in dog law at one of them big non-root Norwegian baton newspapers when he died and and had to move every stuff out of his office they found a bicycle between everything so remove the guest chair you know what happened every Monday morning some guy come to your office he don't talk about what he did in the weekend and he goes on and he goes on and he goes on if you don't have a guest chair he won't go alone because he have to stand come on Reserve's Highland hours put a label on the door saying that you want to be not disturbed come on shut the door turn off your phone get out of your office work at home birth wherever you like to work where you feel happy remember work is not a place it's what you do so be lazy it's professional to be lazy and I'll tell you why how to find a new lazy for you come on lazy people do only the most important things I don't care about the rest and that is what I want you to do to focus on the important things lazy people do right do the things right at once so they don't have to do them again they are 100 percent or they send it to another guy who have to do the rest 25% with it which is not skilled for and then we end up with a solution that nobody wants and nobody was skilled for that so be lazy do things now so you're getting to the end GTD you have heard about GTD getting things done how to finish this in 10 seconds you get stuff in you have to decide this these something I have to do something with if not throw it away out of mind out of sight or put it into a file where you could need to use it later on is it actionable yes can you do it within less than two minutes well do it now out outside I don't mind if not put it in the calendar for another day when you plan to do it yeah start now be persistent and good luck hope I didn't waste 18 minutes of your life thank

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 248,298

Keywords: tedx, TEDxTrondheim, ted x, TEDx, Norway (Country), ted, English Language (Human Language), ted talk, ted talks, tedx talks, tedx talk

Id: sCXCxpsXnto

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 03 2013