An owner told me the other day that he’s going to use his shelter-in-place time to get more done in the business.

He has time on his hands, he said. So he’s planning big -- to edit sales scripts, automate forecasting, rewrite the employee manual, redesign the website and more, much more.

No Facebook or cable news for him. He’s going to spend his time being productive. He’s going to multi-task his business into shape so it’s ready to roll when the pandemic passes.

I had to rein him in. He was like a dog who sees three squirrels at once and doesn’t know where to turn…

...so he spins in circles.

Get more done in the business? Not this guy.

How to Stop the Wheel-Spinning

“Slow down,” I urged him. “Pick one...”

I asked: “What’s ONE THING you and your company can do better?”

He took a deep breath and said, “Forecasting. We can be much better at forecasting.”

I continued: “And what’s ONE THING you can do to make that possible?”

After a long pause, he bellowed: “We can make it easier for team members to share data.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

The next day, he focused on ONE THING. He outlined a data-sharing system.

The day after that, he would focus on one other thing to improve forecasting.

The Time-Productivity Paradox

Business people think time is the ultimate currency. When they’re stressed and not getting things done, they say, “I wish I had more time.”

When they get more time, too often they spend it by chasing more squirrels.

And there’s the paradox: More time often leads to less productivity.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

More time can lead to greater productivity when we...

Focus on ONE THING.

That’s the right game plan when you’re cooped up in quarantine. That’s the right game plan when everything is back to normal.