Skyrocketing Your Career

Are you starting out your career and wondering how you can make the biggest impact possible? Are you well into your career but feel like you’re simply running in place? Or are you firmly on your own meteoric rise and looking for ways to gain that next competitive edge? You’re in the right place. Let’s Roll!

DISCLAIMER: The below is largely focused on applications as an individual contributor. However, much of what’s outlined is applicable for those in managerial positions as well. Further, applying these practices will set you up well to perform significantly better in both advanced individual roles and managerial ones.

Apply The 30,30,30,10 Rule

I first came across this idea on LinkedIn from Steve Tappin.

1. First 30 — Do Your Job
2. Second 30 — Form a Tribe
3. Third 30 — Be the CEO
4. Final 10 — Have Fun*

*Putting “have fun” in writing makes me cringe, but bear with me as the Final 10 is less about sunshine and puppies (although dogs rule!) and more about maintaining sanity and making your work look effortless.

Quick Summary

The First 30 means doing your job better than most (think >90th percentile) in only 30% of your time. Sound impossible? Keep reading. This step alone will get you very far.

The second 30 is about banding together with a group of people to take on large and complex goals, projects, initiatives, etc. The above article talks about this idea more in the context of large-scale undertakings with other leaders throughout your organization. However, if you’re not in a leadership position, you still need to work on the second 30. For one, it gives you allies in the organization to learn from and escalates your profile in the org. For another, if you build these relationships early by taking on smaller cross-team tasks, then you’ll be more successful later when taking on larger and more complex projects. Large initiatives go much more smoothly when key leaders are already aligned. The second 30 pays dividends in both the short and long-term.

“Be the CEO” sounds like a huge step above your paygrade, and, at first glance, certainly doesn’t seem like something you should be spending 30% of your time on. Wrong! Skyrocketing your career requires you understand what’s above you. If CEO sounds way too far from you on the org chart, take the smaller step into your boss’s shoes. How does he or she see the world? Then stair-step your way up the org chart as needed. This step is HUGELY important because it provides CONTEXT and gives you the “WHY?”.

If you’re hustling away after some goal that turns out to be misaligned with the goals of those above you, you’re worse off than if you had done nothing. Being the CEO is about being mindful of the “Why?” Knowing why helps you answer your boss’s (or your CEO’s) questions before they’re even asked. For example, when a boss thinks “who should I promote next?” you’re the obvious choice. Why? Because the last dozen times he or she had a question, you were the one with the answers.

The above 1/3 splits are recommended for 90% of positions, but they’re not steadfast. Depending on workload at any given time, you can flex up and down as necessary (emphasis and). Just don’t forget that each of the three categories are equal. If you’re in a role that doesn’t cap rewards on additional work (e.g. capless commission sales), doubling your First 30 could mean a lot more money. However, many roles will not reward you endlessly. In many organizations, doing double the work doesn’t merit double the pay or double the promotions. While you should make sure to note the amount of work you accomplish during negotiations, what’s really going to push your career (and paycheck) are increased responsibility. Increased responsibility comes from increased trust, and you gain trust via a combination of the first, second, and final 30s.

Have Fun. I personally hate this phrase. I have what I’d call more of a realist life approach rather than the kumbaya, let’s all get along, walking hand-in-hand to the end of the rainbow types — Rust from True Detective (s.1) is one of my heros. For those more like-minded to my worldview, replace “Have fun” with “Don’t be miserable.” Essentially, you don’t want to appear to others as miserable, or worse, actually be miserable. You want to make this incredible work you’re doing look effortless, and you want to do it with class. Plus, there needs to be room for the “Why?” you’re putting in all this effort, and the answer is because it’s fun (or makes you less miserable, whichever you prefer).

You also need to make the final 10% of your time useful. Yes, parts of it can be used to watch movies, chat with coworkers, enjoy your favorite hobby, etc. However, make sure you fill this time with rich experiences that make you more of a well-rounded person. Experience is measured in experiences, not in time. So go read a book, watch genuine movies/tv and not trash, explore hobbies that require skill, go on an adventure. These experiences bring new perspectives that will allow you to: 1) be more creative when solving problems, and 2) be able to empathize with more people (read: becoming a more active listener).

Today, we’re focusing on the First 30. More to come on the rest in future articles.

First 30 — Do Your Job

Essential to any form of employment is being able to do the basic tasks required of your position. Your first goal in any job, especially when first starting (or starting over), is to do your job equal to or better than 90% of others in that job. You don’t have to be head and shoulders above everyone, but you have to be noticeably really good in the eyes of both your peers and superiors.

Here’s the kicker — figure out how to maintain that performance in just 30% of the time. In a standard 40 hour week, that’s 12 total hours so 1.5 work days or a bit under 2.5 hours a day — find what works best for you. Mr. Tappin’s article gives some insight about how to accomplish this first segment as a leader, but I’m talking about individual contributor roles.

How in the world are you going to perform in the 90th percentile in just 30% of the time? Truthfully, it’s easier than you think. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles (see par. 1 of Bottom Line here), it’s time to get RUTHLESS. Here’s how to create a plan of attack.

Break it Down

If you’re already operating in the 90th percentile, you should already have some ideas and know-how of the basics of the job. Start to break apart your work into smaller sections. If your tasks are similar for any given day, break up your day into the specific parts. If your tasks vary from day to day, expand your analysis to a weekly level — on Monday morning, outline everything that needs to be completed by EOD Friday.

The above analysis should look something like a Kanban Board or a Story Board with individual tasks or groups of tasks like — send client emails, build reports, compile spreadsheets, team meetings, individual meetings, research new widget, etc. Once you’ve got your overall tasks/responsibilities broken down, you’re going to put them into an impact/effort matrix (easily googleable).

Impact v. Effort with visually stunning Excel and Screenshot skills

Most people will tell you your impact/effort matrix shows you the priority of your tasks, and then you’re all set. WRONG! The matrix is simply an analytical tool. I like to start with the high effort, low impact box. Stop doing anything in this box. You might have originally thought you need to shave 70% off of all your tasks. Not true. Life gets much easier when you can shave 100% off of these high effort, low impact tasks. Just don’t do them. Be RUTHLESS.

Taking a cue from Agile, the key here is to maximize the amount of work not done. Shift your focus away from work items to actual goals. Question why you’re doing any particular task. If you can’t come up with a good answer, find out who wants you to do these tasks, and ask them. “That’s the way we do things” <- not good enough of an answer. If you don’t have a good answer as to why a task should be done, simply don’t do that task.

Have as many conversations as you need to avoid doing high effort, low impact tasks. Note that effort can be measured in time as well as difficulty. While a monotonous and simple task (e.g. deleting spam emails) may seem like low effort, throw it into the high effort category if the task requires significant amounts of time.

Take care when applying this ne last trick for finding low value work items to avoid. I hold no liability in the event you encounter negative ramifications. You’d be surprised how often (significant majority of the time) most tasks are neither monitored nor measured AT ALL. Are you on the fence about whether x or y task matters? Just don’t do it. If it matters to someone, they will find you. Then you can ask them why it matters. Sometimes they have good answers; sometimes they don’t; most of the time you don’t have to do those tasks anymore.

Meetings

Speaking of time, ever been to a meeting? STOP GOING. Sure, meetings are necessary for a whole host of different reasons, but there are thousands of articles, workshops, and more showing that an overwhelming majority of meetings are a waste of time (e.g. here). Meetings make people feel important and like they’re “on top of things.” Often clients might ask, “How do you ensure XYZ is done thoroughly?” An answer might be, “We meet monthly to review those items.” This answer in English reads: “I’ve no idea; we make 10 people waste an hour a month so we all feel better about it.”*

*Review meetings aren’t all bad. However, if a meeting is simply “to review whatever” then it’s likely bullshit. If there are specific details about how “whatever” is reviewed, then you’re likely in a more important meeting.

Don’t get me started on internal meetings. For 90% of work requiring you talk to someone, pick up a phone or use Slack (or similar messaging service). For the other 10%, more is accomplished in as-needed 5 minute face to face meetings than any other meeting format. I’ve seen this come true in over 1000 different situations, and I haven’t even hit 30.

Ignoring 25% of the matrix gets you well on your way to pushing your entire job into 30% of your time. Now is when you want to focus more on time per task. Which box is full of tasks taking up most of your time? There are a number of different strategies to tackle these last three boxes.

AUTOMATION

First up, automation. Both the low effort boxes are prime pickings for automation. In software, the opportunities for automation are endless. Send reports automatically, group subsequent tasks to kick off automatically once the first task starts. Always remember that computers are really good at executing directions so long as the directions are clear. You don’t necessarily have to be an engineer to automate. Just think, “could a computer do this better and quicker than me? Or more helpful, without my input?” If so, figure out how. You can figure it out yourself or find someone that can. Do you think your situation impacts others? Ask your system admin, folks in IT, or ask around in general: “anyone found a way to automate this task or eliminate manual intervention?” Even if the answer is no, you might gain a critical mass of people also struggling with the issue, and now you have a better argument to your superiors about finding a way to solve the problem.

I mentioned in a previous article how to find the smartest person in the room and learn from them. This tactic is specifically useful for automation. While you may need to start small (e.g. getting a cup of coffee, helping them schedule a meeting, etc.), you can learn things from these people that will help you automate tasks in your own work. HINT: you identify these people by looking at what they’ve accomplished (e.g. often they are where they are by automating a majority of low effort tasks).

You don’t have to automate everything. Many people struggle with this step because they try to automate the entire task. Most tasks can be broken down into smaller parts or steps. Even automating one step in a process allows for that much quicker completion. Not only do you save time by having parts of a process automated, this saving frees up your mind to think more intentionally about the remaining steps which may spark ideas about automating those as well. There’ve been day-long tasks I’ve completely automated by taking a step-by-step approach. I started by automating the last step, next I realized I could automate two steps in the middle, then I figured out how to kick off a whole chunk of steps at once. I finally spend a little over an hour automating the remaining couple steps and string the whole workflow together.

Second up, SPEED! This method can either be really fun or potentially miserable depending on your personality. However, it’s necessary if you’re going to get through the First 30. Make sure you don’t start here; you don’t want to waste time getting really fast at completing tasks you’re not going to do anymore (due to low impact or automation). Time to speed up your work life, and if you’re lucky, you’ll start finding more speed in your personal life too.

PLANNING

How many times a day are you deciding what you should do next? Do you simply find something to do and do it, then when you’re finished try and find something else to do? Are you working merely at the behest of the most recent email in your inbox? STOP and get organized.

Personally, I’m a fan of to-do lists. I use Google Keep, Notepad, Mac Notes, post-its, legal pads, whatever is closest. Pick something that works for you. The concept is more important than the software. Take a few minutes at the beginning of each day and write up what you want to accomplish that day. You should be able to do this in 5 minutes. 5 minutes planning at the beginning of the day can save hours.

I used to spend 5–10 minutes after EVERY task throughout my day figuring out what to do next (and I know plenty of people that still do). Depending on the number of tasks in a day, eliminating this constant revisit to the “What do I do next?” question saves an incredible amount of time. 10 tasks at 30 minutes a task is 5 hours. Reevaluating after each task — avg 5 minutes each repeated 9 times — is an extra 45 minutes. That’s 45 minutes you save which you can use for a decent lunch break, getting home on time for dinner, or MORE tasks!

Take 5 minutes at the beginning of the day (or end of the day before) to line up tasks to be completed, and then GO! … start knocking them off the list.

SHORTCUTS, SHORTCUTS, SHORTCUTS

Gmail’s shortcuts help — shift+?

If you need to read a 200 page book and you read 50 pages an hour, you’ll finish that book in 4 hours. The only way to improve that time is to increase your reading pace or avoid reading all 200 pages. With each and every task, always think (even for a few seconds) if there’s a way to do less than what you think is necessary. For example, are there some chapters that aren’t relevant to your goal? Is there an abridged version or available summary?

Your next option is to increase your reading pace. Reading is essential for a myriad of reasons (e.g. 500 pages a day by one man’s account), and the more you read, the better your life will be. Learn how to speed read. The first step to faster reading is stopping yourself from saying the words in your head. There are plenty of resources available online about how to practice faster reading.

Many people read in their head at the same pace as they would read aloud. That’s often because most people took that approach when they learned to read and then stopped. Avoid limiting your reading pace to your talking pace. Reading a book is used here merely as an example, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. In the same vein, you also want to avoid limiting your pace at other tasks.

For example, you may have learned to navigate a computer with a trackpad and/or mouse. Now, every time you switch applications, you take your fingers off the keyboard, you go to the mouse, you move the mouse to the bottom or side of the screen, click on your desired application and continue. You’ve allowed your brain to slow down to keep pace with the speed of your computer navigation skills. Now, try this — ALT+tab (Win) or CMD+tab (Mac). There you go, you’ll be 10–20% faster with a computer in less than a week.

The point is that there is ALWAYS a faster way of doing something. Don’t let bad habits inhibit your ability to THINK. I can’t say it enough — be RUTHLESS!! Especially with computers, you can always go faster. As Bill Gates would say, conduct Business at the Speed of Thought.

Isolate the tasks in your life that are causing the most time, and evaluate every single step within those tasks. Whether you find a workaround that decreases the overall work required or you find a literal keyboard shortcut, always be striving to be faster.

GROUPING

Also under the heading of speed is the grouping of tasks. The jury is out on multitasking (just look it up). Focus on one task at a time all the way to completion, and then move on to the next. Constantly switching back and forth is inefficient.

You can double down on your single-task focus as well. Take advantage of the way your brain works by grouping like tasks together. For example, you can split days into meeting days and work item days; split individual days into chunks — couple hours here for email, couple hours there for spreadsheets I need to complete, etc. I even do this when I’m folding laundry. Step one is sorting — pile of undershirts here, pile of boxers there, socks pile next to that, and dress shirts hanging on the ironing board to press. I then repeat the same motions for each pile 5–8 times until I’m finished with each pile. Go ahead and time yourself to see how much faster it is; not ashamed to admit that I have.

CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

The above advice can be applied more generally, but there are plenty of ways to speed up your work that is specific to the type of work you do. These tasks are largely up to you to speed up. While I can’t offer direct advice on those tasks, I can tell you the majority of tasks can be done 10x faster on average. How? Implement a continual improvement program.

The cadence is up to you (weekly, monthly, etc.), but continually revisit your largest tasks (effort and time) to think about ways you can accomplish those tasks faster. If you’re always writing emails, look at ways to reuse old emails or take advantage of email templates. If there’s a significant distance between two frequently visited places (even one side of a room to the other), see if you can eliminate trips or move things around. If there’s a printer that takes forever or a process (like laundry) you have to wait on, find tasks you can shove into that waiting period, improve the process, or replace the thing taking too much time.

WRAP-UP

Doing your job really well in only 30% of the time requires a lot of hard work and determination. However, if you keep at it, you should be well on your way in only 6–12 months. Getting through this step alone is likely to merit a raise at the least, promotion(s) more likely. It also will free up loads of time for you to relax and decompress. I’d recommend taking it easy for a week or two as a reward once you’ve hit the 30% mark. Then, on to the next.

1. First 30 — Do Your Job
2. Second 30 — Form a Tribe
3. Third 30 — Be the CEO
4. Final 10 — Have Fun*

Remember!

1. Meetings — For every meeting, ask if that meeting helps you with your goal(s)? If no, stop going. If it’s required, ask how that meeting helps you with your goal(s). Repeat as necessary. Don’t be afraid to say “No.” Explain your goals, and off a meeting with them and/or superiors to realign if necessary. If they insist, offer 5 minutes on the way out the door at the end of the day.
2. Automation — always be looking for things you can make a machine do instead of you. There will always be more work to do so automate away.
3. Planning — failure to plan is a plan to fail. Don’t spend more than a few minutes planning each day as things are always subject to change. However, plan enough tasks for the day to keep you working all day so as to avoid wasting time figuring out what to do next.
4. Shortcuts — Has anyone ever asked you, “Why do you always have to look for the easy way out?” My response has always been: Why oh why would I ever take the hard way? The hard way might be the right way so this answer doesn’t always apply, but don’t get caught up in a martyr complex and get to work!
5. Grouping — like tasks at like times. Switching from email to spreadsheets to client meetings to internal meetings takes its toll. Group tasks into blocks to avoid the added time it takes your brain to switch gears.
6. Continual Improvement — take a few minutes every week, month, etc. to think about how you might do your work that much faster. 1% better a day makes you 37 times better a year.

Next time, we’ll start our journey on the Second 30 — forming a tribe. For now, keep in mind the below, and please reach out, comment, etc. I love to hear feedback about the article, hear others’ approaches to things I’ve already outlined as well as items for consideration I’ve missed entirely.