Dear Vivian,

I’m so sorry you had the flu.  I know you felt bad because you are normally are so tough and never complain.  Anytime you actually say you feel bad; we know it is serious.  I am thankful I was able to take time away from work to take care of you and Mom when you needed it.  I spent the majority of my time trying to help you get better, but I thought you might’ve been wondering what I was doing the rest of the time.

I worked some, answering email and the occasional video meeting.  However, what made this week ultra-interesting is that I also was reading The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss.  In the book, he advocates for the abandonment of work for work’s sake.  Basically, accusing most every one of filling our 9 to 5 schedule with activity because we feel we should, not because we must in order to achieve.  He argues that true achievement comes from abandoning this activity driven mindset to pursue those things that interest us and could lead to real progress in our lives.  Some may think his advice teaches people to be selfish.  For others, it will be liberating or inspiring.

One challenge he gives in the book is to narrow your work schedule down to 2 hours per day.  When I did this, it was shockingly easy if I only considered my schedule.  The list of activities, meetings, and conversations I have in a day that I think are absolutely required fit into 2 hours per day or 10 hours per week.  That only includes one division, but the other division requires less than 10. It’s more like 3.  Yet somehow, I am filling more than 40 hours with continual activity.  Granted, this does not include some of the business growth and development I do but was truly awakening to see how much time is taken up by things that are either busyness or simply action for action’s sake.

It also showed me how much time I take gathering information through lengthy methods like conversations or haphazard research instead of drawing from my leadership team.  I realized how many decisions I make or conversations I enter into that truly do not need me.  In some cases we have great tools for this business information, sometimes we do not.  Either way, I am very inconsistent in my accumulation and study of this information.  If I were more uniform and created the expectation it be provided, it would lessen even the 10 hours required per week.

I’m not yet ready to take on his further challenge of getting everything into 2 hours per week, but it is one I intend to contemplate.

There is much conversation in the book about automation.  In the context of our business, I think of it as systems.  With automation, you are required to minimize the inputs and outputs to make the automation possible.  Things should happen with very little thinking, you know, automatically.  With systems, we can still complicate those because we just add people and pieces to it.  We add procedures, then more steps to the procedures, then procedures and training guides to support the procedures ad nauseam.  In other cases we operate without a procedure, just depending on someone to remember, removing the opportunity to automate.  Trying to think of my business systems in terms of automation and which ones we could put on automatic pilot, has been a healthy exercise towards simplicity.

I never want you to be sick, but I was able to make this time useful beyond just helping you get better.  Someday when you have a job, a family and a generally busy life, you will be tempted to fill your week with busyness. Don’t let the busyness distract you from the best and important things you need to accomplish.

Love,
Dad