Are you in business or busyness?
Stop letting task saturation hold you back
There are 168 hours in a week, 730 hours in a month, and 8,760 hours in a year. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Jeff Bezos or the CEO of a credit union; everyone has the same amount of time. The difference between successful and unsuccessful leaders lies in how they choose to use that time.
According to Cassie Holmes, an associate professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, most people tend to look at time from a ground-level perspective, which means that instead of looking at a broad overview of time, they only think about things in light of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That’s a problem. When making decisions with this limited view, every activity incurs a short-sighted opportunity cost.
For example, performance reviews are coming up, and you have to work on those right now. This means having to set aside that project that would allow you to expand your membership opportunities or delay working on the new loan product that would result in a huge opportunity for your credit union and your members. Or in another instance, spending an evening or weekend catching up on email equals the inability to spend intentional time with your family and friends. There’s always a trade-off.
As part of every strategic planning session I’ve lead over the last few years, we help clients build a game plan for successfully executing their strategy by asking “What can hold you back from accomplishing these goals?” Can you guess the number one answer for almost every project? “Task saturation.” Today’s credit union leaders are stretched thin. Overseeing numerous compliance issues while managing day-to-day operations leaves them feeling overwhelmed, ineffective, drowning in busyness.
