Section 4: How to Schedule the Workday Around Your Own Business

How to Schedule the Workday Around Your Own Business

Quality of Life

When I recall my corporate career before I started my own business, I spent 75% of my time sitting in meetings. Rarely were the topics of the meetings to do with profitability, cost efficiency, or customer satisfaction. Most meetings were about internal matters like employee morale, human resource systems, or company regulations.

I remember some classics like the occasion every employee was squeezed into a boardroom to decide on the type of chair to be ordered for the boardroom we were all squeezed into. One time, all the senior executives, the head of human resources, and corporate lawyers were called to decide if the employees should be allowed to take the previous day’s absenteeism as a snow-day or if it should be deducted from their vacation allowance. The craziest was when I was called from an important customer meeting by the CEO only to be asked for my opinion on the riff he had just created on his guitar… a riff I had to listen to over and again for an hour.

It’s estimated that there are more than 11 million formal meetings per day in the United States alone. Assuming on average that there are 4 meeting participants, which is generously small in my experience, this means 44 million employees are begrudgingly participating in what most consider a waste of time.

On average, each United States employee spends over 40 hours per month attending unnecessary meetings. This doesn’t take into account the even longer time most employees spend to prepare for the meeting. (It also doesn’t take into account the amount of time people spend in non-ad-hoc meetings in the corridors, by the water cooler or coffee pot or even in the parking lot.)

When all totaled, it is said that a typical employee spends over 100 hours a month attending some form of meeting. That is a whole working month for the five-hour workday schedule. It is insanity. Pure and simple.

When you start your first company you have a choice… repeat the corporate madness in your own venture and get burned out, or do it differently. I wanted to focus on growth of the company and  not employee welfare so I chose the latter, but I have encountered many startups that simply repeat the madness. The founder/CEO burdens his or her new hires with the same pointless get-togethers… ‘what are we going to do this week?’ What did we achieve this week?’ ‘What are our company mission, vision, values?’ ‘If our startup was an animal, which would it be?’ Yes, I have seen it all. Madness. When you start a company, you have one chance to kill the meeting madness and that is right at the start.

Set these rules:

1. Remember how you felt when you had to attend dumb meetings? Don’t do that to your own people.

2. Put your ego away. Everyone knows you are the founder and CEO. You don’t have to keep proving it by running meetings.

3. If a meeting is essential, it must have an agenda and a set time that it NEVER runs over.

4. Meetings should be twenty minutes or less. (my running average is 8 minutes 23 seconds.)

5. There is no time for chats about the weather or last night’s ball game. Get on with the agenda.

6. Only include the people directly involved. All involved must be prepared for the meeting by the agenda which is issued in plenty of time. Anyone who turns up unprepared is asked to leave (and then fired).

When possible, hold the meeting outside while walking in nature. Unnaturally lit meeting rooms are death to creativity.

The Perils of Working from Home: Phil

Let’s take a look at a real-life example when someone who was used to the typical 9-5 office set up started working his own business from home.

Getting it ‘Virtually’ Wrong.

Phil was the CEO of a tech company before he started his own business. After years of stressful commuting on congested freeways, he told me how much he was looking forward to the freedom of working from home.

Phil had spent all his working life in a fairly typical office environment. The company had a hierarchy of management, and no decisions were ever made without a meeting being held. His usual workday consisted of several rounds of meetings with department heads and phone conferences with his boards of directors and advisors. The schedule was kept for him by his assistant who also brought him coffee at set times.

He usually skipped lunch in favor of a meeting, but every Friday he allowed the employees to dress casually for his weekly lunchtime staff meeting. His office door was always open, and he encouraged people to stop in for a chat. As commendable as that is, most employees are intimidated by the CEO title, so his most frequent visitors were the senior managers and the head of the human resources department.

Any habit, especially one formed over 30 years, is hard for us to change. The brain is hardwired to repeat certain behaviors whether beneficial or harmful.

With the transition from traditional structures to the hub or virtual, we have to break many hardwired habits and it’s not easy.

I tried to warn Phil not to underestimate the difficulty of the transition. It can take months to

To suddenly go from a busy schedule of human interaction that mostly boosts an ego to the isolation of working from home can be as big an adjustment as transitioning to civilian life after military service.

adjust, and it requires great discipline to develop productive new habits while working from home. Most people assume that it’s an easy thing to do and Phil was no different.

He largely ignored my advice.

Several months later, Phil confessed that he was finding the change very hard, and was considering quitting his business to return to a regular job and office environment.

I visited him at his apartment, a luxury penthouse with panoramic views of the ocean. Floor-to- ceiling windows allowed sunlight to fill every space. It would be hard not to be distracted by the waterfront activity below.

I asked him to show me his office space.

With a sweep of his hand, he gestured around the apartment.

Phil had made all the classic errors I had warned him to avoid. He admitted that he sometimes stayed in bed later than he should and, on those days, he would simply lounge in his pajamas, set up his laptop at the kitchen table, and start work.

Sound familiar?

It’s so tempting to check email first thing after rising, and before you know it half the day has gone and you’re still in your pajamas.

Often, he didn’t shower or shave until after midday. He had constant access to the refrigerator, and there were used dishes everywhere that explained his extra pounds since he stopped commuting to an office.

Loneliness was the hardest thing for him to adjust to.

As a CEO, people sought him out, and his office was always busy. The constant pilgrimage to his office had been an ego boost.

For the first few weeks, some of his ex-colleagues had phoned to see how he was doing with the new company venture, but eventually those calls fizzled out. Realizing his previous company was doing just fine without him added to his sense of loss.

To alleviate the seclusion, he started calling them. It was like a retired coach who can’t stay away from the training ground. Before long, people stopped picking up the phone.

Phil said that although he liked the sense of freedom from the old routine, it meant his new schedule was all over the place. Sometimes he exercised in the mornings and caught up with work later at night. At other times, he put the TV on in the background and would check on newsfeeds while working.

He admitted to being easily distracted by anything that could alleviate the loneliness.

Phil needed rehabilitation, and I started it by getting him to promise that with everything he did and with every detail of his daily schedule, he would ask himself out loud:

Would this be appropriate behavior in the traditional office?

If it wasn’t appropriate in his old way of life, why would it be acceptable now?

I asked him to think about what would have happened when he was CEO if he sometimes lay in bed, or turned up to work in his slippers and pajamas?

How productive would he have been if he set up his laptop to work in the company cafeteria?
Working from home requires not just the same discipline as going to a regular job, but much more.

Not everybody has self-discipline, and Phil’s lack of it surprised me.

We need similar rules, regulations, and schedules when working from a home office.

Getting it Virtually Right

Effective home offices and routines grow out of the same kind of insight that great companies do. They begin with people who can identify their own needs both as workers and as business owners.

It’s important not to assume that it will be an easy transition.

You should prepare for it with the same attention to detail that you would to create a business plan or manage cash-flow—it’s as important.

Creating Your Space

You need to choose a suitable space in the home that will be your workplace. Then you’ll want to assess your business technology needs separately from the rest of the home. The early months of a new business are hectic, so the more efficiency and automation you can build into the set up before you start, the better it will be for you. Space in a home can be limited, but there are certain “must haves” that make developing a productive routine easier.

– Your office must be separated from the rest of the house.
A space that is separate from the main home, and any family traffic, is preferred. It forces us to “go to work” and later leave the workplace for “home.” It builds a boundary between work and home. It helps family and houseguests to acknowledge and respect that boundary. Phil’s contemporary apartment offered no obvious separate workspace, so he took the advice and converted a spare bedroom. A basement or loft space might also work so long as there is natural light coming in. In a separate office space background noises are less likely to disturb you, and if your family can’t see you the temptation to bother you goes away. When you’re in that space, your mind adjusts to that of a working person. Later, when outside that space you can better relax at home and away from the temptations of phone and email.

– An Office Door
Although it sounds obvious, a door that closes off your space is essential. Even if outside noise is limited, shutting the door is necessary. It aids your concentration, avoids distractions, and provides a more professional environment. Many times, I have called a potential consultant on the phone with the sound of dogs barking or children playing in the background of his or her location. It doesn’t give a professional impression.

– Natural Light
Natural daylight should flow into the space. I know people who work out of their basements without a view. It’s even more depressing than the neon-lit cubicles in most workplaces. There are lots of health benefits to having natural daylight pour in, but it also helps alleviate that sense of isolation from the world. However, in Phil’s case, there was too much natural light and the views over the ocean would distract anyone. Again, he realized the need to focus and had blinds fitted so he could filter the light and view.

– Dedicated Technology
The office space and the business you run should have dedicated phones computers, printers, and communication devices. So many people have one device that is used for both business and pleasure. That means constant distractions during the workday and constant business intrusions during relaxation times. A balanced life requires discipline and separation. Your device must not be shared or accessible to others in your family, so no one else in the house can interrupt your productivity, or accidentally answer your business calls. So much can be accomplished with a mobile device, but it’s a mistake to think that the mobility of a device makes you productive simply because you can work from anywhere. There’s also nothing more annoying as a customer than when the business person you are speaking to gets interrupted by a personal call. One device must be dedicated only to work.

(And gamers beware — because the temptation to play is too great.)

Because he used the same smartphone for business and family, Phil had allowed his workday to be interrupted with non-business calls. He also responded to news alerts on his phone and became distracted reading the articles sent in the alert link. Taking breaks is a good thing, but you need to leave the office and use an alternative device. Having separate devices may seem like an unnecessary expense at first, but it’s critical to separate business and home and achieve a balanced life. As a rule of thumb. I have a smartphone, laptop, landline, tablet and printer dedicated to my businesses. They are used for no other purpose. I never give my business access email addresses or telephone numbers to non-business people or my domestic contact details to business people. Most entrepreneurs I know use one device to handle business and pleasure and their lives become chaotic and unproductive, but they don’t realize it. The problem is that they think they’re disciplined and organized when the opposite is true.

– Get Out to Connect
“All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” In the regular office, we get distracted all the time with meetings called without warning, or people coming into our space to ask questions or complain about something. At home there’s none of that human interaction or distraction. The positive side to it is that we find ourselves so much more productive. The downside is that we can easily burn out. I convinced Phil to take blocks of work for 2 hours followed by a one-hour break and to make that a fixed schedule. I showed him some excellent online calendars that allowed him to block out those one-hour breaks so he could send a calendar link to customers and clients that allowed them to pick open schedule times for calls. That way no one could accidentally break his schedule. During the break he was to leave his building and interact with the world. He could work out, go for a walk, or even go grocery shopping.

I didn’t meet up with Phil again for a couple of years, and I’d forgotten the rehabilitation process we went through. I asked Phil to describe his 2nd adjustment period:

How Difficult was the Change?

“After 20 years of going to work outside my home, the transition to working at home was difficult, but manageable. It was stressful at first because I had to set up a home office including updating my computer, learning to back up files, getting a copier/scanner/ printer, upgrading my Internet to faster service, setting up a fax number, getting business cards, setting up an accounting system, etc. etc. etc. It sounds simple, but all this took some time, and some of the tasks were things my personal assistant and staff used to do for me. I felt pretty dumb at the time, like a remedial student. It was humbling. The hardest single technical aspect of setting up the home business was the lack of IT support. In all my previous positions, I simply picked up the phone when I had any issue or question, and an IT expert was there to help. In my home office, I had to wade through my technical computer issues by myself. I tried calling a local IT support company a few times, but they were expensive and seemed to spend a lot of time researching my question instead of already having the required knowledge.
Consequently, I spent a lot of time learning technical computer stuff. But now I’m the neighborhood expert.”

How Long did it Take you to Adjust?

“It took me about 6 months to adjust to working at home. I needed to get a routine going and had a couple of false starts with that. After you weaned me off daytime stock market TV, I started over. Initially, I thought I should keep it like a regular job. Start at 8 a.m., work until 12, take an hour lunch, and then work until 5. But that is way too intense at a home office. Remember, there are no meetings to attend, nobody stopping by your desk to chat, no chatting in the break room, etc. An eight-hour workday at home is more productive than spending 16 hours at the old office. Burnout is a real risk. What ended up working best for me was to break up my day. Work for a few hours early in the morning, then go to the gym, come back, and work for a few more hours, then take another break like a walk or errand, then come back and finish up whatever work was needed that day. This schedule made the overall workday longer, but I found I was less tired and stressed at the end of it.”

What was the Thing you Enjoyed Most in your New Workday?

“Flexibility. If I had a personal appointment that day, I could simply start earlier in the morning or work later in the evening. To take a break from the computer and phone I could go shopping during the week when things are less crowded or rushed. It is amazing how much more pleasant grocery shopping is in the middle of a weekday, than facing the high stress after 5 p.m. or the weekend frenzy. In the winter, I could actually take a walk during daylight hours! A neighbor below me works nine to five and her dog is shut in up all day, so I started taking it for a short afternoon walk, which was good for everyone.”

What did you Miss the Most About a Regular Office Environment?

“Without a doubt, the thing I missed most was the day-to-day people contact and the relationships with other workers. I still missed the friends I made while working and I needed to find an alternative way to connect with people. Let’s face it, it is hard to have a good conversation with a dog! I found other ways to interact with people. I joined an exercise group at the gym and got to know other work-at-home people. I talk to the neighbors, grocery clerks, and others more now because I have more time and I’m not always feeling so rushed. I also joined the local small business owner’s society. They are great ways for executives to meet and share best practices, but just as important is the social interaction.”

Do you Have any Tips to Help Others Make a Successful Transition?

“I think everyone needs to find out what works best for them, and don’t be afraid to make changes if something is not working out. One of the best things about working at home is that your work hours are flexible. If you love to stay up to 2 a.m., then go ahead, and use that time for work. The other thing is don’t take on too much work or play. You need a balance, and it is really easy to stress yourself out by taking on more than you can handle. Most of all though, I realize I almost blew it by not starting off right. Knowing what I know now, I would have spent time getting the office set up before I started my own thing. I lost so much traction and productivity early on, and only after six months was I back on track.”

THE DISCIPLINE FOR A 5-HOUR WORKDAY

Mary Kay Wagner Ash never finished college…

She worked for a variety of direct sales companies, where she rose through the ranks. Rejected for promotion in favor of a young man that she had helped train, she chose to take her destiny into her own hands.

She was 45-years old.

She started writing a book designed to help young women navigate through a male-dominated business world. Before she knew it, her unfinished book transformed into a business plan. It was 1963 and the year opened with gloomy forecasts of a downturn (one that never materialized) and cries for tax cuts. In the midst of it all, a month before she started her company, Mary Kay’s second husband died.

Undeterred, she used her entire life savings of $5,000 and recruited the help of her son who eventually became the Mary Kay Inc. Executive Chairman. She hired 9 freelance consultants who all worked out of their homes, and then she opened her first store in Dallas, called Beauty by Mary Kay.

In 2014, global revenue exceeded $3 billion and, today, Mary Kay Cosmetics is a recognized brand all over the world.

In her autobiography, The Mary Kay Way, she outlines what it takes for a beauty consultant to succeed and highlights the importance of discipline as a tool for the successful entrepreneur.

She repeats this advice in her two motivational books Mary Kay on People Management (1984) and Mary Kay—You Can Have It All (1995).

In them, she describes the significance of discipline of mind, and the importance of seemingly simple organizational skills like making lists. She shows validated data on how productivity and profit increase when business people finish their day by writing a “to-do list” for the following day. She also demonstrates the difference in results between consultants that are disciplined in their follow-up procedures, compared to those who are less so.

She says, “My lists keep me on track, and I give it all the credit when people tell me how well I follow up. I write down everything on follow-through, and once on paper, it becomes a tangible commitment that I must attend to.”

What Mary Kay described seems simple, and it is… No cutting edge technology is involved.
To write lists is hardly a new idea. Most people reading this will readily accept the value of making lists, because they write out grocery and honey-do lists regularly. The same people, however, often fail to take that discipline into their business.

Discipline is an easy skill to master, and perhaps that’s the problem—it’s so easy that most people ignore it. A mentality of discipline is essential in your business, and there are 2 key areas to consider:

#1 Task Discipline.

When you think of something that needs doing, and your immediate reaction is to write it on a list, you have task-discipline. If your immediate reaction is to tell yourself you’ll remember it later, you do not have task-discipline, and your business success will suffer.

– At the end of every day, write out a to-do list for the next day, and set it to priorities. This will do 2 things. First, it helps take the stress away from the fear of forgetting something, and you’ll be more relaxed in the evening. Your family will stop complaining about you being so distracted all the time. Second, by writing the list you make a subtle commitment to perform the tasks. It’s your disciplined commitment to ensure a productive day tomorrow.

– When you enter your workspace the next day, review the list and start the first task immediately. This is an essential discipline. Do not be tempted to check emails, voicemail, or texts first, as they will scatter your focus in a hundred different directions. Get that first task done before you give in to the temptation to do anything else. This is particularly important when we consider the impact of time zones. Many feel they start their day having to play catch up with other zones where the day has already begun. When they enter the office, they can have half a day’s communications to respond to. Avoid the temptation to be distracted by that. Get task #1 done first. You’ll find this advice in many biographies and self-help books. It’s good advice. It works.

– Depending on your type of business, keep a list of customer or client follow-up tasks. We all have the habit of trying to remember promises we made. Customer satisfaction is your top priority so, whenever you create a need for follow-through, write it on a list and in detail, and then schedule it on a calendar. Every day you should review this “follow- through” list and start checking off the tasks.

– Finish What You Start. We have all experienced checking into a hotel or airport when the person supposedly helping us then takes a phone call in the middle of the process. It’s as if a wall is instantly erected between us, and although we can still see the receptionist, we’ve suddenly become invisible to him. He hasn’t finished what he started before moving onto another task, and the impact is to offend us. When something different calls for our attention, we usually stop what we were doing and turn our attention to the intrusion instead. The habit is exacerbated when we work from home because we can find the isolation or loneliness difficult to deal with. If the phone rings or your email alert interrupts while you are working on your project, avoid the temptation to drop what you are doing in order to answer the phone or read the email. The mind says it’s just a quick distraction, but if you respond you can very quickly lose focus on the task you started. When you pick an important task from your “to-do” list, start it and finish it. Don’t allow any interruptions or distractions, no matter how lonely you may feel at that time.

#2 Schedule Discipline.

Working out of a home office can be a challenge to keeping a regular schedule. There are so many tempting distractions around, and family and friends love to pop in for a chat. There’s the temptation to catch the last innings of an afternoon baseball game, check the stock market, play a video game, or get the news headlines. You can do that after you sell your company for $100 million, but not when it’s a start-up.

Kate was someone I knew who started working from home, and then thought it okay to visit her friend down the road once a week for a mid-morning coffee. Soon the once-weekly coffee break became a daily occurrence, and then a half-hour break turned into 2 hours a day of lost productivity.

At home, you’re the time and office manager.

The secret to staying disciplined is to schedule absolutely everything, even your meditation time and your coffee breaks, your trips to the gym and the grocery store, and never deviate from the schedule.

– We live in an age when work finds you wherever and whenever. It’s unavoidable and, actually, I think it adds healthy variety to a day of work. Because working from a home office can be a lonely experience, however, it’s important not to fall into the habit of hanging around in the office waiting for the phone to ring or for an email to arrive. I’ve always set myself a start time and finish time for the home-office environment. Keep in mind that in pleasant weather, I work outdoors on a patio table with excellent wireless connection. Nevertheless, I still keep to a start and end time for that… otherwise burn out can occur easily. I start work at 9 a.m. and do that first task from my list. At 10:30 I schedule a break and take the dogs for another walk in the woods. It’s as good as a power nap for me, and allows me to refresh my mentality. I like to work in 90-minute segments and will typically do the 11-12:30 slot at the desk as well. Lunch is also a 90- minute break that includes a second walk or power nap (I use a hammock in the woods for that and get some great ideas there). I may return to the desk between 2 and 3:30 p.m., but never beyond that. The rest of the day and evening, I may occasionally check email and voicemail, but I never return to the desk. I believe such discipline is vital to maintain a success mentality. One thing you must never do is check email or texts just before you go on your scheduled break. It takes practice and discipline to walk away, but do you want to be a success or not? Remember most start-ups fail, and I can guarantee their entrepreneurs work long hours and are checking email constantly from when they get up to when they go to bed.

– To help avoid the temptation to go into the office too early or stay too late, keep a pad and pen with you at all times and wherever you are. I have them beside my bed, in the kitchen and on the coffee table in front of the TV. I carry them in my coat pockets and the car. When I get a thought or a reminder to do some task, or a simple idea pops into my head, I write it down as soon as it is safe to do so. It stops me sneaking into the office ‘out of hours.’

– Dress for Work. There’s clear scientific evidence that shows people make judgments about others based on what they see. People immediately notice skin color, sex, and age. Within a few seconds, a further judgment about height, hair, and clothes takes place. Depending on what type of company you run, how you dress can have a significant bearing on how much business you get. This should be obvious, but I’m frequently surprised by the sloppy appearance of businessmen and businesswomen who visit my home to quote on a work project. Just because you’re a plumber doesn’t excuse you dripping someone else’s muck through my house, or shaking my hand with dirty fingers. Just because it’s hot doesn’t excuse you turning up in crumpled shorts and vest.

At the same time, other than opinion and anecdotes, there’s no scientific evidence to suggest that how we dress at home affects our performance or productivity. Some people feel they’re sharper if they dress well at home.
Others think dressing casually increases creativity. One of the great pleasures for me in being my own boss is that I never have to wear a tie. In fact, I no longer possess a single tie in my wardrobe.

– Keep Out of the Kitchen. Income Opportunities Magazine reported that 36% of Americans who work from home report that they eat more, and a similar percentage say that they’ve gained weight. Stay away from the kitchen. I find that having refreshments in my office stops me from falling for the temptation of the refrigerator. If I keep out of the kitchen, I cannot be tempted by food. I’m a lover of Chinese teas, so I keep a pot on a warmer on my desk or patio table all the time. It stops me from sneaking into the kitchen and then getting distracted by the biscuit barrel.

-Lock the Children in a Closet. No, not really. As a parent, you love your children (I’m thinking pre-teenage here). But work and kids don’t go together. Sandy, owner of a virtual- style marketing business how she coped with running a company and having two young children around the place offered this advice:

Two words: GET HELP!

Just as in a traditional office situation, working parents will likely want to obtain some level of childcare for younger children. In my situation, there were early months when my newborn was very manageable while handling the tasks required of me. Additionally, the very flexible schedule I was given allowed me to work at nights (when my child was sleeping) or weekends (when my spouse could care for our child). However, as my child grew in mobility (and increased in vocal ability/ volume — usually timed strangely at the same time as any business/conference call), it became obvious I would need at least minimal daycare assistance. In my case, I had someone come to my home to provide daycare. Once there were two children and my schedule became less flexible, I increased the hours with my daycare provider.

IN SUMMARY

I hope I’ve given you a scientific and historical change of perspective from which you can see the rationale and benefits of scheduling your workday to less than 5 hours of office trime.

I can’t oversell the benefit to your quality of life as well as to your family’s. Those who’ve taken my advice seriously have never looked back…
To recap:

The Top 10 Elements of the 5-Hour Workday

1. Separate devices for business and home
2. Lock the office door at the end of the workday
3. Lock business devices in the office as you leave
4. Write a task list before you leave
5. Do the first task the next morning before checking devices
6. Keep each work session to 2 hours or less
7. No more than 5 hours total a day
8. Leave the office location between work sessions
9. Take time in nature during the day
10. Get out and connect if you feel stir crazy