Managing the Operational Aspects of Your Life - DBR 027

Do Busy Right

Systems and creativity – managing the Operational Aspects of your life I talk about Attention Compass as a system and a set of workflows. A lot of people say, hey, look, I want to be creative, I want to be spontaneous. I don't want to be rigorously structured. I don't want to, you know, feel regimented, right, all these kinds of ideas come up. So we'll talk about that, in this episode, I'll help you take away a mindset that really is going to put those fears to rest for you. I'll open up a concept called the “operational aspects of your life”. And we'll explore that, and what it means. What happens if you begin to handle this stuff very well? My experience shows that managing the operations stuff well increases opportunities for playfulness, spontaneity, and creativity. The problem: creativity and spontaneity - conflict with structure?

• It’s not really a problem after all
• That’s a bold statement; I’ll back it up for you
• In my experience, you probably spend more attention on identifying your own tasks than you think you do

Operational aspects of our lives

• I'm sure got it from David Allen, but I can only find one instance of him using it
• Parallel: business operations
• The old economy – product operations
• More and more, operations is about running the whole business
• These things are not ‘trivia’, but they don’t produce high levels of value or satisfaction
• Operations is about making running the business as routine as it can be

Lencioni’s contribution – balancing operations and strategy

• Lencioni
• The ‘weekly tactical meeting’
• The Lencioni template – operations and strategy
• How’s your car running?
• Operations should be green lights
• The strategic things require more attention, usually
• The strategic things are also a better ROI for our attention

Our lives have similar operational aspects - examples

• Our lives…
• Our work also…
• If we can manage our own operational things well, we’ll have more time for creative or strategic things

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• What question do you have?
• What topic would you like to cover?
• What's one thing I could do to improve?
• If nothing else, tell me your first name and where you're listening from

The environment is forcing us to manage more of our own things

• Examples of things we need to manage that we didn’t used to
• Operationalize your task list – it is more of a burden than you might realize
• Routine-ize the operational aspects of your life
• Focus on them only when they need it
• Problems here can be costly – fix them
• David Allen’s workweek

Make the routine not take up any more time than it needs to

• The routine gets acknowledged, but the time is on the strategic ‘strategic’ may be creative, play, spontaneity

The point: the appropriate structure maximizes time for the strategic, creative, fun stuff

• When the operational aspects are well-handled (including emergencies)…
• So, the more things you can move in to the category of operational tasks, the more smoothly your life is going to run
• This is true in a business as well
• The way to do this is through process and delegation, which go hand in hand
• I’ll say it again – you probably don’t realize how much attention you’re spending on your own operational aspects
• My clients and I find it very easy to be spontaneous

Takeaways

• Have the weekly tactical meeting with yourself
• Clarify your standard for red, yellow, green
• Operationalize and process-ize
• Example: Operating standards for social media

Send me an email - [e-mail]

• What question do you have?
• What topic would you like to cover?
• What's one thing I could do to improve?
• If nothing else, tell me your first name and where you're listening from

I’m interested in your take. I’m not too busy to hear from you. Let me know who you are and where you are. If you have a question, I’d love to hear it. A suggestion. Let me know how I can serve you better.