Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Do you also keep New Year’s Resolutions? I’ve kept just one in all the years I’ve tried to make them. What is it, you ask? When you read this, I will have flossed my teeth 2,194 consecutive days. Weird I know, but I tell anyone who’ll listen that I’m basically the Cal Ripken Jr. of tooth flossing. Do you have one that’s actually stuck? If so, I’d love to hear about it. For the rest of us, I think there’s great power in this brand of optimism, even if it doesn’t become a lifelong habit. After all, if you don’t at least try to make a positive change every now and then, then who have you become?
Rather than try and guilt you into making a resolution that might end in, well…not keeping yet another resolution, I have another method for transformation you might consider. Using this method, you’re going to decide what NOT to do in 2018. Doesn’t that already sound better than adding more things? With that, here’s your ever-so-brief guide to a better 2018:
Eliminate, Delegate, Automate
If you take a look at the tasks that keep you busy, busy, busy, keeping you stressed and from doing other things you may find more enjoyable, consider applying these steps to those tasks:
Eliminate – Do you actually need to do this task? In other words, are you doing it just because you’ve always done it, or has somebody else guilted you into doing it? If it’s not something that actually needs done, why not just stop doing it and see what happens? This is the ultimate stress-reducing way to transform your life. Just say “No longer!”
Delegate – If you’ve determined that a task needs to be done, are you actually the best person to do it? Chances are, there’s someone else who may be better at it than you are. They may be able to do it better, faster, or cheaper than you, but you’ve never considered ‘outsourcing’ this task. This can be a very powerful strategy for the person who is always busy and becomes frustrated by having to do it all. Chances are, you don’t; someone else can.
Automate – This is a form of leverage that has become much more powerful thanks to technology. Applying automation to a task can ensure that it gets done right every time without you having to do it. Remember writing checks each month to pay all of your bills? Now you’ve automated most of your financial life through automatic bill-pay and electronic fund transfer (EFT). Imagine other areas of your life where this principal can be applied.
If you’re interested in examples of areas where this process has benefitted me over the years, here are just a few.
I hired a lawn service. It changed my life. Like most people, I would spend hours every week cutting, trimming, and cleaning up our lawn. When I decided to write a book, I realized I needed to find more time in my schedule. I delegated these lawn tasks to pros. Not only did it free up the time actually spent on the lawn, but it meant I no longer needed to own, maintain, and store lawn equipment. Now I’ll come home from work to find a perfectly mowed and manicured lawn and it still brings a tear to my eye. [Note: many retirees think they need to move to a condo when the maintenance of their lawn becomes ‘too much.’ It’s likely much more cost effective to stay in your home and hire a lawn and snow removal service than it is to pay the many thousands in moving costs.]
We invited Alexa into our life. A couple of years ago, we placed the Amazon Echo device in our kitchen, thinking it would be nice to have music available by voice command. One of our favorite features has become the shopping list. When any one of our family members removes the last gallon of milk from the fridge, we simply say, “Alexa, add milk to our shopping list.” When shopping at the store, we open the app on our phone to find a shopping list full of needed items. No more paper lists and arguments about having forgotten to write it down when the milk ran out.
Committed ALL tasks to the calendar. In our business, there are incredible numbers of recurring and important tasks to remember throughout the year. For example, our professional licenses require that we complete continuing education courses. We have deadlines for writing and publishing newsletters, state regulatory agency filing requirements, bills to pay, RMDs to calculate for our over-70 clients, investment accounts and annuities to monitor, and on and on. Trying to keep all of these tasks straight can be a nightmare. A few years ago, I applied this Eliminate-Delegate-Automate process to our business and identified every task we do in a year, all the way down to the seemingly mundane. From there, I added every task that’s required of us (and many that we do just because we love you) to our calendar system, with notes about how to complete the task and when. This meant that there was no longer a need to remember because the automation of the calendar system does the remembering for us. Now we simply follow the system we created to ensure that we’re carrying out our work at the highest level possible.
As you can see, there is no limit to the efficiencies gained by applying this simple process to your life. What’s great is the power that comes from knowing that you’re no longer a victim to busy-ness; you’re choosing to run your life in a way that suits you. It’s a powerful way to get you doing more of the tasks that you want to do and not just those you need to do.
Here’s to an amazing 2018!
All the best,
Adam Cufr, RICP®
