Disruptive Week

Last week was a crazy week. It started out with an overnight, tandem driver delivery up to Pikangikum First Nation community in Ontario which includes spending several hours on winter roads. Here is a google maps link to Pikangikum in case you are curious about it’s location. Winter roads are, as the name implies, only passable when it is sufficiently cold and frozen. We left for Pikangikum Monday morning, and returned to our stomping grounds almost 24 hours later. I then slept till a little after noon, and then took the rest of the day easy, spending a couple hours on website development.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I did not hear my alarm go off in the morning, which means I clocked in at work at 11 a.m. and 9:20 a.m., respectively. Sounds lazy, I know.

On Friday, I got home from the Cottage Country’s Lake & Cabin Show at around 10 p.m. and took Saturday off only to man the show from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. After the show closed on Sunday, we spent an hour tearing down and cleaning out, getting me home closer to 7:45 in the evening.

Here is what I noticed: a disruptive schedule disrupted my habits. I did not take my health supplements for half the week. I did not spend some time reading nearly every day (as I did for the previous 6 weeks), and I did not get to work at a consistent time.

The delivery to Pikangikum needed to be done, and the show needed to be manned. Both were a success for which I am grateful. And I am thankful that this week is back to normal. It’s Tuesday now, and I get to reflect on last week, and hopefully get some reading in after I’m done with this note. I took my supplements at the 10 a.m. break this morning and got to eat supper with my dear wifey and two kiddos.

Normalcy is wonderful. Especially after a disruptive week.

P.S. If you are curious what I’m reading right now: Range by David Epstein. So far it’s fascinating. It is making me reconsider education for Trevor and Heidi (my sweet children) in a fundamental way. I’ll probably share more thoughts once I am further along with it.

Have a great week!

— Simon

Feeling Trapped

Productivity Debt

While on the road last week, I listened to an episode from the Big Think YouTube channel.

One of the concepts that resonated with me was the idea that I have a productivity debt to work off. When I get up in the morning, I feel like I need to be at work at a certain time. Then I feel like I need to get a certain amount of work done—though this is more of a feeling than something actually quantifiable, given that I’m mostly a knowledge worker who works in an office. Last week, there were several days when I had less to do than usual, yet I still felt like I needed to be in the office and get work done.

While using less busy days to work ahead is beneficial (which I did to some extent), feeling like I have to work just to pay off my daily productivity debt is not a healthy mindset. As Oliver Burkeman puts it:

“…that is hugely self-sabotaging… because the standard for how much stuff would be enough just drifts upwards, so it gets harder and harder to meet—because the amount of things we could do is infinite.”

He suggests starting with the idea that you don’t need to accomplish anything in a day to feel adequate. Sure, you may need to work to earn a living, but there’s no reason to feel less than because you aren’t meeting a self-imposed productivity standard.

Burkeman also recommends using a “Done List” to keep track of what you accomplish—and I love this idea. Starting at a zero balance instead of a debt ledger is a much more positive approach. Completing tasks becomes a credit to your productivity account rather than a constant attempt to pay off self-imposed debt.

Positive Distractions?

Burkeman touched on the idea that not all distractions are negative. When trying to be productive, I try to focus. One way to achieve this, is by shutting out distractions. This is important if you want to get anything of significance done. But it is possible to go to far.

For instance, in February, I tried to cultivate the habit of reading books. I set aside 30 minutes per day to read, often on the living room couch in the evening. Heidi, my 1-year-old, or Trevor, my almost-4-year-old, would sometimes ask for my attention—“Look, Daddy!” or Heidi asking for attention in a less dignified manner by simply pouting away.

My response was often, “Please be quiet, I’m reading.” While focused learning is valuable, taking a moment to stop and give my full attention to my two sweet kiddos would have been a better approach. In my quest to meet my own rules, I sometimes fall into a rigid, self-imposed box that doesn’t give me any room to breathe. This short video was a healthy reminder, and my mind has returned to it several times over the past few days.

P.S.

In case you want to watch or listen to this 8-minute, 4-second video, here’s the link: Big Think – Oliver Burkeman.

Broad or Deep

One of the things I regret when I look back over the last ten years is the fact that I have switched focus a few too many times. There is a silver lining to this, but lets first talk about the not so good results of ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).

One of the main downsides of having an attention deficit is that my ability to gain traction is diminished. After my stint at the University of Manitoba (read this post for a little more of my story), I worked for a bee farmer for a summer. Eventually I grew and ran my own small commercial honey bee operation. Then I sold my bees and equipment after several lackluster years that included high winter mortality rates and substandard honey production during the summer. A big influence on selling the bees was that a part time job that was supposed to last only for the winter had turned into a full time job. I decided that I was better off selling the bees and working full time at Diemo, a metal manufacturing shop. Diemo provided the opportunity for personal growth and good pay. My time at Diemo (a total of 3.5 years) has been my longest tenure so far of all the places I've worked.

Several good things have come from my time at Diemo. I had a wonderful time of asking Marty, the general manager, any question I wanted. Our discussions ranged from faith, business, and entrepreneurship to people and philosophy. I learned so much during those 3.5 years at Diemo. Just the other week I was looking for advice on a matter. I sent him an email midday, and he responded to my request for a call within several minutes. Relationships like this are invaluable. I look back on my time at Diemo with fondness.

I feel though that Diemo has been an anomaly in my experience. I wish I had five "Diemo" stories to tell. I don't. I hope that my Pine View Buildings story will be another story of few regrets and many fond moments.

The upside to not focusing on one thing for too long at a time is that you can potentially have many experiences. Working at 5 different jobs over 10 years will tend to give you broader experience than working at one job over 10 years. Working at any given thing for a very long time will give you deep experience.

Question is, which one do you want? Broad experience or deep experience? I will break this post off here. I want to get into the deep vs broad discussion in the future.

Happy Zone

This afternoon, I spent 5 hours building out our new website, miniShed.ca. This is not the first website I have worked on. Every time I build a website, I become very engrossed in my work. Time just flies. I don't feel like going home from work. I love to be at home. But somehow, website building engages my brain in way that gives me direct and positive feedback. I want to do more of it.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, big projects tend to get my full attention, while "insignificant" tasks do not. But, somehow all the details in website creation don't deter me from it. It actually draws me in. Creating a cohesive and engaging design is so much fun! I have discovered that "insignificant" tasks that are part of a large or important project are not treated as insignificant by my brain. Adjusting the colour palette, building a beautiful collage, and crafting the text on the home page all take detailed work, but boy is it important to the future of miniShed.ca. And so, my brain treats the creation of the website as another large project, and I thoroughly enjoy the process.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Does time seem to pass by more quickly when at your job compared to other tasks or events in your day or week?

• Do coffee breaks arrive too soon or does it feel like it takes forever for 10 A.M. to come around?

• Are you looking forward to tomorrow morning, ready to jump in where you left off the evening before?

The answers to the above questions indicate to me if I am enjoying what I do.

I, for one, am looking forward to tomorrow morning. Getting that website wrapped up is motivating, as there is real potential for good tied to it.

Procrastinating or Prioritizing?

I find that certain tasks on my to-do list tend to get completed while others do not. Really odd items like...

• order rubber seal for overhead door, and

• get rafter drawings updated and reprinted

...tend to not get completed the day that I initially assign them and thus get rolled into another day's to-do. Other tasks such as...

• get back to customer with quote, and

• have a conversation with CPA about new company acquisition

...tend to get my full attention.

I wonder why. Am I procrastinating or prioritizing? Or maybe both?

Tasks that get me exited are those big projects or opportunities. Tasks that involve maintaining our shop or tweaking small processes tend to drain my energy. Interactive tasks such as having an investor meeting and calling a customer are very engaging and I love working on them. However, when my to-do list calls for an employee one-on-one that may include a difficult conversation that I am not looking forward to – well, that is a different story.

Perhaps, the above analysis indicates to me that I am not delegating well enough. Or, maybe it simply spells LAZY right in my face. Or some of each? 🤷‍♂️

The Worst Employee

I started working my first full time job when I was 16 years old. I loved school and finished high school early with the dream of studying medicine one day and becoming a medical doctor.

I went to work for a carpentry crew. My starting wage: $12/hr. I felt good about my starting wage as the minimum wage at the time was $10/hr., and I was new to the trade, and not yet 17 at that.

I did not enjoy carpentry. The first project I helped build was a 3 story apartment building with 18 suites per floor (if my memory serves me right). It was hot. Very hot. Guzzling down a gallon of water during work was not unheard of. I detested physical labour, thinking that I wanted to work with my brain "doing work that matters". Like helping people in an emergency room or intensive care unit.

When I had been with the company for approximately one year, I was earning $14 and some dollars/hr. We had wrapped up the big framing project close to home, requiring me to commute further. The 40 minute commute was too far a drive for my $14/hr. wage. Or so I thought. The "long drive" combined with my detestation of any physical labour put me in an ugly frame of mind.

I complained about the long drive and that the commute cost me too much money. In the meantime, my work ethic was pathetic. One task, in particular, comes to mind. I was assigned the task of fastening styrofoam to the underside of a bay window cantilever on a new house construction. What now would take me 15 minutes to accomplish, took several hours of time. Clocked in time.

One Friday I told my boss that I was going to quit early that day to go job hunting. What a brat! I deserved to be fired. My job hunt proved to be useless. Not surprising, given my arrogance.

My bosses didn't complain or scold me. They should've fired me or given me an ultimatum: to shape up or to be fired.

I eventually did leave the company to go study at the University of Manitoba, where I took most of the prerequisite courses I needed to get admitted into the College of Nursing. I did enjoy school, hard as some of the courses were (anatomy and physiology, especially). But after a year of university, I emerged with a different attitude towards work. What had changed?

My perspective on life.

Fast forward 10 years. I now co-own Pine View Buildings with my brother, and get to hire people. It's been 10 years since my first job. The roles are reversed. In retrospect, I marvel at the patience the owners of Summit Contracting had with me.

And I get to do work that matters.

2 x Normal

If my compensation would be directly tied to the value I produce throughout my working day, my pay graph would look like this:

Actually, if you average my earnings across the above graph, I would earn $40/hr. See below:

I am not arguing that employees should demand more money from their employers. The above simply shows when my most valuable work happens. This is how my day may look:

8:15 am. Walk into the office and open the Notion Calendar app to check what is on my to-do from the previous day. Add tasks that are not in the list that need to be tackled today. Organize my tasks within the day to optimize efficiency.

8:30 am. I am on a roll. Knock out several tasks that take 15 min., or so, each.

9:00 am. Start tackling a bigger, more critical project. For example, this morning, my assistant and I started to tackle the books on a new company we started to manage recently.

10 am. Morning coffee with the crew.

10:20 am. Back at the above project.

11:00 am. Still at it.

12:00 am. Tackle several emails and other smaller tasks.

12:30 pm. Lunch at the office.

1:00 pm. - 5:00 pm. Complete all sorts of tasks and work on longer term projects.

My brain is the perkiest in the morning. Using peak brain performance for the most demanding and critical projects means I work on those projects in the morning. Also, mornings tend to carry fewer interruptions as small problem and technical questions tend to arise later in the day.

On a typical day, my time at 9:00 am is easily worth many times what it is at 4:00 pm. By 2:30, I can feel my focus and energy start to decrease. In my experience, focus on critical projects burns through tons of energy.

(I am starting to wonder if I should start my day at 7 am. to get an extra hour of power time, and go home an hour earlier?)

I feel like the above connection between time and work-value is more acute for people tackling complex projects, or those who manage people or operations. A truck driver who drive 13 hours per day will not experience the time/work value relationship the same way that an operations or department manager does.

I am writing this at 9:38 pm. I find that creative work flows well in the evening. Even with a head that hurts a little. But, if I work on the most neuron-intensive projects in the mornings, then, maybe... my writing isn't my brightest output. Just keep in mind that the above analysis may be worth exactly what you paid for it. 😀

Less Than Busy

To-do lists are wonderful. Especially when they are connected to a calendar in real time. They help me organize my months, weeks, days, and hours. I need to organize a new product launch with a deadline for March 15th? Break the project down into many individual tasks:

• build the prototypes

• build out the new website

  • home page

  • delivery

  • products

• figure out how to package the product

• do photoshoot

• create assembly manual

The above list represents a project that potentially can take up a month or more. Assigning some tasks to each week and then down to the day allows me to check whether I am on track or not, and helps me double down on the tasks that are falling behind.

As wonderful as these to-do lists with calendar integrations are, they do not create work out of thin air when work is slow. In our business, we experience seasonal sales, with winter months being the slowest. While it is nice to have a little pause after the crazy fall rush, I feel a little frustrated when my daily to-do list isn't a little too long. Perhaps I am addicted to action, but the feeling of being less than productive does set in when I find myself wondering what I should be tackling next.

Here are several strategies to do work that adds value in the long term when I feel like my to-do list is too short:

• Work on getting systems and processes in place ahead of when those will be needed. This may be one of the best ways to effectively make good use of those slower weeks or months. This only works if the need for the systems and processes can we predicted accurately.

• Work on new products or product variations. This helps keep employees busy and helps minimize other more cash intensive production of inventory (if you are in a manufacturing business where inventory is required to operate).

• Go outside of my daily norm of tasks and work on new opportunities. This may include brainstorming possible new business relations and making some cold calls to see if there are holes in our coverage of the market that we may be able to fill.

• Work shorter days, where I work as efficiently as possible to get the necessary tasks done and then go home to relax or work on projects that have been waiting.

Personally, I still prefer being a little "too busy". There is nothing like being the middle of intense action, where we work towards tackling BHAGS (big hairy audacious goals). You agree?