Do You Have 5 Minutes?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jul 24, 2012
What about 4 minutes and 11 seconds? We'll get back to that in a couple more minutes, if I can borrow your time for some moments.
I know a lot of people in leadership positions who are always busy. They're so busy that if you ask them if they can spare 5 minutes of their time they'll tell you "no".
What are they doing? In their minds they're managing. They're putting out fires, teaching someone how to do something, fussing (this is a Southernism that means complaining about a person or something) with someone about something, sitting in or conducting meetings, on and on and on.
I'm here to tell you that if you, as a manager or leader, are doing this type of thing all day long, you're probably not very good. Yes, I put that in your face, and hopefully now that I have your attention we can proceed.
No one can do it all, no matter what the business is. So many people are scared to train others to know what they know and as much of it as they know. So many others say they don't have the time to train someone else to learn what they know.
Of course both of these are a lot of nonsense.
If you hold people back because you're worried you'll lose your job, either you're not very good at it or you don't have enough confidence in your abilities. You also hurt the team because your employees will always be held back by that bit of knowledge you refuse to share.
If you don't take time out to train someone else to do some of the things you do, you'll never have time to do some of the other things you're supposed to be doing, or might want to do, because you're scrambling around hoping to find the time to get to those things. Not only will that not ever happen, but you never find out who's capable of taking on more work or even some leadership roles here and there.
If you're always on the go and never have any moments to think, you can never do your job properly. No business grows without some thinking time. If you're one of those people who's frenetic as a manager while you're at work, you probably don't leave the job at work when you go home. That doesn't do anyone much good, no matter how good you are.
Back to the original question. Do you have 5 minutes where you can just sit back and relax, or talk to someone, no matter what the conversation is about? I have found that I learn the most about what's going on when I could take some time to talk to others, whether they were in my department or not. They might not even know that they're helping you out, and you might not know it either.
Sometimes, all it takes is 5 minutes to sit down and gain some perspective, or to just put your mind at peace. Sometimes it can be even a shorter period; do you have 4 minutes and 11 seconds to watch a calming video with a little bit of calming music in the middle of your busy day? Think about it, or else watch this little video and just calm down. A brief break and some peace in your mind; do you really not have enough time for something like this?
Midnight Sun | Iceland from SCIENTIFANTASTIC on Vimeo.
It depends on the job, I don’t really think that many leaders would “give” and train the rest of the team on regular basis, when you hire somebody you expect a bit of knowledge, the rest can be understood through practice. I think it depends on approach, 5 minutes are nothing and during the time I have had a full time job being a manager, I usually used to take 7-10 minute brakes with my team every 1-2 hours and have some brainstorming.
Carl, you’re an interesting case to be sure because I’m not sure if you’ve ever taken just 5 minutes for yourself during a work day. I’m trying to learn this one, even though I work for myself as well, because though I know I waste a lot of time, I never feel like it’s “me” time, relaxation time, thinking time if you will. Making a conscious effort to do that is something I used to do when I had others working with me though, and it’s something I need to do now.
I guess you are right, Mitch. May be in the last 2-3 years I rarely have those 5 minutes for myself, until recently. Getting back to the point of teaching other. Probably it is same as you, but our jobs can be learned at school and what we have learned is through experience, it is difficult and probably impossible to give those experience to others, sometimes it is not only about knowledge, but 6th sense that you build during the years of practice.
Some years ago I was, sitting in my home, office stalled on a writing project– I THOUGHT I’d done all of the research but something was missing. The piece didn’t zing. When I kvetched (a yiddishism for fussing) about this state of affairs to a friend I got the best, and simplest, piece of work advice I’ve ever received — Pick up the phone and make another call, maybe several calls. The answers will come (along with many more questions — but is that a bad thing?).
Stephanie, it’s never a bad thing getting more information and taking more time if that’s what you need to do. Sometimes it’s just thinking time; nothing wrong with that either. And it’s nice having someone else who can help you in the thinking process.
I treasure my time, but I keep open minded about opportunities, not trying to do the same thing over and over again, no matter how practical that thing might be. Simply hearing a second opinion about something or trying to get the whole picture is simply crucial for me.
Thanks for your comment George. Open minds are fine but every once in awhile you might have to calm your mind to expand it as well.