Some people are addicted to work. They get a buzz from the sense of urgency. They enjoy putting out fires. They like stepping in and solving problems. And oftentimes, they are rewarded for doing so. So they have no incentive to avoid or prevent the fires because they get a payoff every time they put one out.
Here is a story of one of my clients – let’s call him Peter.
You Can’t Manage Time – Time Marches on Inexorably – You Can Only Manage How You Use Your Time
Peter owns a small business. The turnover is in the region of 5 million per annum and he has around 10 employees. Many of his team have worked with him for years and they are all hard working souls. Now, Peter worked hard… way too hard it seemed to me. After working with him for a while, I told him that I wondered if he had what Stephen Covey calls the ‘Urgency Addiction’ but it turned out that this was not the case. His reason for being head down and bum up all the time, stemmed from a time years ago, when he was a very young lad.
He said that he worked hard because he always had done so – from the age of 10 in fact. The fact that I was asking him and showing him that I cared about him, set him off. Tears rolled down his face. I had touched a nerve. No one was taking care of him. He was the care giver. When he was just 10 years old, Peter’s father died suddenly. So Peter took on the role as the head of the family. He got part time jobs whilst he was at school and from that day to now, he helped his mum make ends meet for him and his 3 siblings.
Roll forward many years to today. When I asked him, why did he work so hard today. He said that if he didn’t, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. He confessed that he knew that his nearest and dearest were worried about him. His wife wanted him to slow down.
He’d had a triple by-pass 3 years ago and now in his late 50s, she felt that it was time for him to let go of the reins. But he still worked the hardest and the longest in his business.
Fear of Not Having Done Enough
He had a successful, profitable business. This business could work quite well without him. However he was loathe to admit it.
He confessed that he was scared that maybe he hadn’t done enough. Maybe there wasn’t enough of a savings buffer in the bank. He worried that the minute his back was turned, it would all fall apart. So he felt compelled to keep going. He just needed more money in the bank because you never knew what was waiting around the corner. By the way he had a significant bank balance and several investment properties by this point.
It was such a privilege to help him. As his Business Coach, I helped him with his time management skills. It was a joy to be able to help him move away from the day to day in his business… bit by little bit. I supported him through his doubts and together we talked through his fears.
He was encouraged to take the time to think about what makes him happy other than work. This (taking time to think) took him a few weeks. But in the end, with my cajoling him and with me applying kind but somewhat firm pressure, he gave himself permission to think about what made him happy outside of work. He “confessed” that he liked to play golf but hadn’t gotten around to it for years.
Conduct a Time Audit
The starting point for him was to get him to figure out of all the things that he did all week. He did a time audit. I got him to look at which tasks were high fun for him, and which were needing of his skill and expertise. The rest (the low fun, low skill stuff), he was persuaded to delegate. It took him some time, but once done he found that he had space in his day to play golf.
Once he had had a few games, he then booked himself on a fishing trip. It was brilliant to see his smile and his relaxed mood on his return from that trip.
And since things didn’t fall apart as he had feared, finally, he gave himself permission to take some more time to recharge and enjoy some long overdue “Peter” time.
And so, what about you? Does this sound familiar?
