Last episode, we made the case that most nonprofit organizations could get better marketing results by subtracting and focusing: fewer channels, fewer tools, fewer asks.
But what about you personally? How could you get more done by doing less? What we find over and over is this: Most nonprofit leaders don’t need to work harder, but they do need to stop spending their best hours on the wrong things.
Recently, two different executive directors confided in Lee that they’re stuck. Both run organizations that do life-changing work, and they do it well. But both leaders have spent more than 10 years caught up in tasks instead of goals, and both said the same thing, unprompted: We could be doing so much more if we could get out of this rut.
Lee knows the pattern because he’s lived it. Twenty-five years ago he sat on 13 boards, panels, committees and commissions at the same time. Thirteen. He now caps it at three organizations, and says he makes a bigger difference on all three.
Here are seven signs you’re doing too much, and what to do instead:
- You say yes to every seat at every table. Thirteen boards is not 13 times the impact. It’s occupying seats instead of moving needles. Pick the few commitments where you can actually change an outcome and step back from the rest.
- Your calendar runs you. You put things in it, and when they come up, you do them. That’s backwards. Block your biggest priorities first, a week or two ahead, before anything else claims the space. Everything else works around them.
- You start the day in your inbox. Email first means small things first, and the day fills up from the bottom. Put the thinking and creative work early in the day and early in the week, when you’re sharpest. Routine tasks can wait until afternoon.
- You’re doing work that isn’t yours to do. For every task on your list, ask whether it should really be you. There are coworkers, board members, volunteers, and vendors who want meaningful work. Hand it to them.
- Every ping gets an answer. The average worker gets hit with 275 interruptions a day, roughly one every two minutes, and for most of us it takes 23 minutes to get back to deep focus. Write a personal communications process, something as simple as “I check email at 10 and 4, text me if it’s urgent,” and share it. Not everyone will love it. But you’ll get more done.
- Your schedule has no give in it. Emergency dental surgery, a crisis at a program site, a funder who needs an answer today. Something always happens. Leave deliberate open blocks so the unexpected doesn’t flatten the whole week.
- The same draining task keeps eating the same hour. If a weekly report costs you an hour of chasing people for data, fix the process instead of repeating it. Set one goal each week that buys back time. Do that 52 times, and the compounding will be hard to ignore.
Doing less isn’t doing nothing. It’s refusing to spend your best hours on work that doesn’t require you.
Lee also recommends three books on the subject: Getting Things Done by David Allen, Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell, and Winning the Week by Demir and Carey Bradley.
And he’d like to hear your productivity tips. Get in touch here.
Jaclyn Uloth:
Welcome to How to Market Your Nonprofit, the Counterintuity podcast featuring interviews with experts in marketing, fundraising, strategy, and leadership who offer how-tos and inspiration about how you can help your nonprofit succeed and grow during a time of chaos and change. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience in marketing, strategy, and nonprofit management, here’s our host, Lee Wochner.
Lee Wochner:
Before I get into what I’m going to share with you today, please hear me. I’m here to help. I’m not here to scold. Because what we’re going to talk about, I think I’m doing better now, but I used to do poorly. So I’m here to help. I’m here today with some actionable advice on how to get more done. Because I know you want to get more done.
You’re running a nonprofit for a reason. You want to make an impact on the world. And the more you can do, the greater your impact, except to some degree, the less you do. And I mean personally, the less you do, the more impact you can make. That’s one of the things I’m going to share. And let me also note that it’s difficult to do marketing to grow if you’re not making the best use of your time.
So again, trying to be helpful here. So before we get into this advice that I truly hope helps you, because that’s what we want to do at Counterintuity at all times, be helpful. Let me tell you what qualifies me to give this advice. First, because in our regular work of working with nonprofits and meeting nonprofit leaders,
We at Counterintuity come into regular contact with good, earnest, hardworking people who are frequently working a lot and not getting quite enough impact. And I’m gonna share why. They’re working themselves really pretty hard and taking the problems home with themselves and rolling it around in their heads at night. And that’s because they’re good people trying to solve real problems and make the world a better place. Many of them are doing a lot of things.
But they’re not necessarily achieving an impact that aligns with all that work. And so what prompts me to share this particular week on this solo cast is that in just the past two weeks, two different nonprofits have told me just how caught up they are in doing stuff rather than achieving big goals.
And they both realize it and they want to achieve the big goals. And both of them have self-diagnosed as having been stuck in a rut of doing small things, tasks, things that have to be done for more than ten years. That’s a long time. And and what do they do? What they do is really important.
And how they’re doing it really well. Absolutely changing people’s lives. But, and their executive directors volunteered this. We could be doing so much more if we could get out of this rut. And so that’s where this comes from. So, not here to preach, here to help. and you know, take it for what it’s worth, but I mean, I
I think there’s a lot of things here that you can implement that will help, and I certainly hope so. So, secondly, for sure, here’s what qualifies me for this discussion. In my own management of nonprofits, and at many times in my own life, I have made the same mistake. I’ve mistaken doing a lot with achieving a lot. And I’ll share just one example. There was a time 25 years ago when I was sitting on 13.
Different boards, panels, committees, and commissions at the same time 13 of them. Gee, wasn’t I important? And what was the impact of all that showing up and sitting in seats during those meetings?
Not much, I don’t think, because there were 13 of them. Because I wasn’t focused on moving the needle, I was focused on occupying the seat. Now I make it a rule. I’ll sit on three at most. So there’s a change I’ve made, and there’s an impact from that. So right now I sit on three boards: a small nonprofit, a trade group, and a foundation board. And you know what? I’m able to
Be part of making a far bigger impact. And in a way, it’s like romance. You can date around with different people, but in my experience at least, to be in love, you’re better off focusing on one. Which takes me to the mantra I shared with two different clients just last week. Focus takes you far. So today I’m going to share some tips on how to focus, how to achieve more.
And blot out the interruptions and distractions that are hobbling you, keeping you from really meeting your mission. And there are more of them than ever. So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about why this is a problem. So here goes: according to a study by Microsoft, the average worker experiences about 275 interruptions and distractions.
Per day. 275, which breaks down to roughly one interruption every two minutes. That’s a horrifying number. Except when I first learned it, I wondered if it was too low. Those interruptions and distractions come from digital pings, texts, emails, people you work with, whatever notifications you’re getting on your phone, your impulse to jump on Facebook.
Chatty people dropping in on you, let alone the dog barking, the UPS driver at your door, and who knows what else. Each of us loses an average of two hours a day responding to these distractions and this recovery time.
Because it takes an average of 23 minutes to return to deep focus after a single disruption. Again, this is from that Microsoft study. So that’s the first problem: constant interruption. And the second problem is routines that don’t serve you. It’s easy to get stuck in routine. Our minds prefer routine. Routine is safe.
Get up, check your email, handle whatever’s in there, handle the daily tasks, deal with every interruption as it arrives, then go back to the email and the daily tasks, and the next thing you know, your day is done. Nobody ever died from that. But you also don’t achieve big things from that. And you’re not able to really do deep thinking and big planning from that. If you want to achieve big things, and I know you do, we all do.
You’re gonna have to prioritize the big things and not all of those little things.
Now, I know, yes, I know, you have to do those little things, but they shouldn’t be your priority, they shouldn’t be your focus.
So that was problem number two. Third problem: your slavery to your calendar. You put things in your calendar, and then when they come up, you do them. So really, who is in charge here? You or your calendar? I feel that way about my phone, by the way. When my phone rings and I have to answer that phone, or there’s a text, what is it? Sometimes I’m like, well, gee, the phone’s in charge. It took me a while to realize that. I don’t want my phone to be in charge.
So in this case, clearly at the moment, it’s your calendar that’s in charge. We’re going to be changing that in a moment. You’re going to take charge of your calendar. Fourth problem. You’re doing stuff, all those routine items, all those tasks, but they don’t amount to the proverbial hill of beans. Yeah, I know that sounds harsh, but please know I’m mostly talking to my past self. As the saying goes, examine the log in your own eye before you pound point out this.
Splinter in someone else’s. So let’s unroll some solutions to these distractions and to the reason most of us, most of the time, feel like hamsters on a wheel. Let’s start with this. It’s time to take charge. Take charge of your time, own your time, own your schedule, own the way you work, own your life, and own your success.
We always talk to clients about their success because you can build upon success and there always is a lot of success.
Think how much more we could do with even more success, building upon prior success, if we eliminated some distractions and exerted more control. So we’re going to get through these quickly. I could go on and on on this subject, just like anyone who has reformed himself. And there are plenty of productivity books that you can check out, and I’m going to refer a couple of them. And I encourage you to do that.
But if you put these few things in place, I promise you you’re gonna see a massive result. Okay, so number one, and there are five of these. Here’s number one. Number one, put big things first. In the daily routine I talked about above, we generally put email first. Get up, check your email.
And then you write into tasks. Whether you went into an office, you worked from home, whatever, you get up, you check your email, and then you write into tasks.
But in 1989, Stephen Covey published The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And what he noted was that they put important life and work priorities first before filling their time with minor tasks. And the metaphor he developed was of rocks, pebbles, and sand in a jar. And things fit into the jar better when you put the rocks in than the pebbles and then the sand.
So we all have 168 hours in a week, but too many of us take those as a loose framework rather than a container for what we can hope to achieve that week. So the jar is those 168 hours. The rocks are your major goals, your health, your family, your core values, the big things you want to accomplish. The pebbles are medium priority tasks, second projects, chores, and such.
And the sand, the sand is those distractions and busy work that suck up too much of our day without giving much back.
So here’s our first productivity hack. Put the big things in your calendar first every week. Two weeks in advance, if you can. I’m doing two weeks right now. And yes, they will shift around when I get to the second week, but I’m plotting out two weeks in advance. We’re never gonna get the big things done if we don’t put them first. And let me tell you why I’m able to go to the gym four times a week. first of all, I need to go to the gym. I love the gym.
and it helps me feel great. And all of my stress, whatever stress I would have and anxiety, just melt away. And I just love going to the gym. And I’m able to do that because it goes into my calendar every week as one of those rocks, those big things that I insist on. And it goes in there alongside with what I’m doing with my wife, because obviously that’s important. And alongside my big work priorities, the big projects I’m doing for and with clients.
To help them move forward or with counterintuity itself. Those big things come first. So if we’re working on a big project for ourselves, for clients, if my wife and I have something planned, if I’m going to the gym and I am going to the gym, those things go in first. Other things have to work around that. Then I put in time to handle the routine assignments at counterintuity where I do a lot of writing and editing and such. So right now we’re recording this podcast. It’s in my schedule.
So that’s tip number one. Big things first. And then you put the other things in. And put them earlier, earlier in the day, earlier in the week. We are sharper, smarter thinkers in the morning. Put those thinking and creative things early in the day and early in the week. Don’t expect to be digging into those at wine o’clock. there’s a mistake I’ve made.
put the big things earlier in the day and put the other things that are almost like palate cleansers, little taste tests. Put them later. Tip number two. Set a big goal for each week and hit it. Imagine if you could do that. Imagine if you could set a big goal each week and hit it. You would have done 52 big goals over the course of a year.
What an amazing feeling of accomplishment you would have. So, what is the big thing you can do each week that will seemingly create time for you? Is there something you do every week that’s draining? And there has to be a better way, and you may even know what the better way is, but you’re just not doing it. Make that thing a priority for your week. Change it, fix it, improve it, put it in place.
And every week on Sunday before the week starts, lay out one of those big things that will save you time and stop draining you and make that the thing you will accomplish in the coming week. So, example, let’s say you have a report you have to do each week. And each week you need input from Maria and Dress and Tom, right? And so you email them or call them, hey, I need that data so I can write the report.
And then you wait for it. And when you get it, you write the report. You may have spent an hour checking in with them and checking back in with them and then collecting and collating the information. And I just wonder, how could you change that so you wouldn’t lose that hour? Maybe you can automate it with AI. Increasingly, that’s a solution. Find some way to automate it with AI. Maybe you could set up a calendar reminder for each of them with a form they can fill in.
there are no doubt lots of ways to make an improvement,
But what would not be an improvement would be this. Just continuing on as is and losing that time. And by the way, losing time for Maria and Dress and Tom as well.
Every week you’ll have put in place some process improvement that will magically create more time for yourself and more relief. And as those stack up throughout the year, you’ll see that that success builds and builds for you. Tip number three of the five tips. For everything assigned to you or that you’ve assigned to yourself, ask yourself: should this really be me? Should I be the one doing this?
Thirty years ago when I was managing a small arts organization and we were opening a second location. How exciting, right? Second location. I was eager to go down there and help build out the space. I mean, I come from a family of builders, and I had so much joy being part of building the first space seven years before. I was lit up by the prospect of going down and pounding nails. And wouldn’t the ghost of my father be so proud?
Except my board chair, who was and is a very wise man, said to me, Let’s say you’re the best attorney in Los Angeles and you’re the best window washer. What should you do? And I said, I know, don’t be the window washer. And he said, No, don’t split your time. Thirty years later, I still think about that. That was a good lesson. And I still count him among my closest friends.
He wanted me to go raise more money and build additional crucial connections for our launch in the new space. And he saw me building out the space as a misuse of my time. Others could do that, and he was right. I promptly rearranged my duties, invited someone out for a drink, and picked up a five thousand dollar check in nineteen ninety-nine dollars that we hadn’t been anticipating at all. I never would have done that if I had been down there pounding nails and sawing wood.
None of us can do everything. And each of us is better at different things. We have individual skills and talents. And at counterintuity, I am well aware of what I’m not good at. It’s a very long list, but also aware of what I am good at. I focus on what I am good at and I’m and I interrogate the requests I get and the tasks I get to ensure that yes, it should be me doing them.
And so earlier this week, somebody on our team kept suggesting that someone do a demo to do something. And that person has no need of that demo because that person doesn’t work in that area and isn’t going to. And why would they do that demo? It doesn’t make any sense to us. So again, we each here need to interrogate our calendars to see what we can be doing, should be doing, should not be doing so that we can achieve more.
There are 8 billion people on the planet. We can find others to pick up the slack, coworkers, board members, volunteers, contractors, vendors, and so on. They too want to lead a life of meaning. Invite them into doing what they excel at so that you can do more of what you excel at. And as best as possible, don’t do things that you’re not the best equipped to do. There are other people.
Tip number four. Tip number four, I am calling wiggle room. Because nothing and nobody is perfect. So leave yourself some wiggle room in your calendar. I want you to fill in the blocks of your calendar with those rocks that we talked about, and then those pebbles, and then I want you to add little blocks for jellyfish. I made that up. Sorry, Stephen Covey, I made that up.
If you grew up where I grew up, you know that jellyfish are the things you didn’t see in the water, and they float in and unexpectedly sting you. So decide how much jellyfish time you need. How much of that’s going to happen, how much wiggle room for unexpected things that must be done, and put them in your calendar as well, these jellyfish. Maybe it’s two hours a week, maybe it’s one hour a day.
But whatever it is, leave some space because something will happen. So for me today, it was sudden dental surgery. Well, that was fun. I hadn’t been expecting that, but wow, I suddenly needed it. So it took two hours of out of my schedule. but you know what? I had prioritized what was really important, and I had enough air, enough wiggle room in my day, in my week.
That I was able to make the adjustment and still get my priorities done. Tip number five, and this is the this is the last one for today, and there could be so many more, but I really want this to be actionable for you. And when there’s too much, we just don’t do any of it. Tip number five, and this may prove to be the one you love the most, we’ll see, because here’s how to deal with distractions.
Write your personal communications process. And put it in place. What is a personal communications process? It explains how best to interact with you.
In a way that serves the person who needs to connect with you while wait for it, benefiting you. Without a personal communications process, there’s an expectation that you will jump to on every interruption. You got a text, you respond. Your Outlook through another email into your view, you respond. Somebody showed up at your door, you open it and get pulled in. But if you own your day, own your time, it doesn’t have to work that way. Instead,
You could have a process that says, for example, quote, I check emails twice a day at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. If this is an emergency, please text me, period. Close quote. And you put that perhaps in your auto emails at the bottom. Autoresponder, tape it to your door, tell people, you spread the word. Or it might say, when my door is open, please feel free to come see me. When it’s closed, please email me.
Your policy obviously will be specific to you. Some of us like texts, some of us like direct messages via Slack or Teams or Asana. Some of us work our email, but set up a pattern, a process, and follow it. Without that, you are subject to just jumping up in response to every potential interruption. Rather than doing that, put your phone and your email and everything else on do not disturb and just check it once or twice a day. So
Earlier this week, I was in a meeting and I get a text from a client, somebody I like a lot, really good guy, doing big things. and he’s I’m sorry, it wasn’t a text. He’s calling me and he’s leaving a voicemail. And I thought, I wonder what that is. And I wait, stop. And my and I just hit the button on my phone that’s that auto replies with I can’t talk now. Can I call you back?
You know, the text that an iPhone can send. And I get a text back from him that says, it was nothing important. Great. And we spoke later and it was a fun conversation about something, but it was nothing important. When you write a personal communications process and you share it with people, you create economies of time for yourself when you think about it, and sometimes for them, because you’re all making better use of time.
Is everyone going to like this new practice of yours? Probably not. Will you get more done? Absolutely yes. Remember, we get interrupted every two minutes, and it takes 23 minutes to regain focus. Want to accomplish big things? You’ll have to take charge of your time and your focus. There’s a lot more where this comes from, this whole topic.
Of making best use of the limited time we have here on Earth. I could also get into decision making, but let me just say in passing, it’s better to make a decision than to leave an issue lying around for weeks and months. That sort of procrastination is a real-time killer. And again, I’ve made that mistake. Not anymore. and there’s so much more on this overall topic. I I but I can recommend three books. There you go. These three books, if you want to invest a little time,
I think it will help set a new mindset. Getting things done by David Allen. I read that 25 years ago and I’ve used it ever since. Packed with useful information about how to get things done. Although, you know, 25 years old, so some things have changed. Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell about creating the systems and mindset shifts. There you go, mindset shifts, necessary to engage in the high-value work that brings you energy and fulfillment.
And Winning the Week by Demir Bradley and Carrie Bradley. Really helpful. Between those three books and others, and a determination to have greater success in my work and in my personal life, after seriously you misusing my time so many times, have led me to want to offer this advice to you. So that we can take on big things, so that we can do the marketing we need to grow our organization.
So we can serve more people and help make the world a better place, even better. So I hope you find this helpful. If you have further tips, I’d love to hear them. Maybe we can share some of them. I’m sure you know some things I don’t. Please email me at lee at counterintuity.com if you’d like to share some productivity tips. Please hear. I’m not asking you to grind away doing more, quite the opposite. I’m asking you to make strategic use of your time.
and enjoy life in general a little more because all of my nonprofit friends work really hard and it and you guys have really important jobs. So we’re always eager to share helpful information with the nonprofit community and the world at large. So if you’ve got something to add to that, please do send it to me, Lee at counterintuity.com. And thanks so much for listening. We’re always grateful to have you and thank you for what you’re doing to make the world a better place.
And now I think it’s time maybe that you could take a break. Thank you.
Jaclyn Uloth:
Thanks for listening. How to Market Your Nonprofit is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please like and follow the show. Visit counterintuity.com to learn more.
