In a bobsled, there is room for two (or four) people … and zero distractions. The sole focus is on getting through that next frozen turn safely at the highest speed possible. Do this, and the race results will take care of themselves.
It’s little wonder that a bobsled photo adorns Master the Moment: Fifty CEOs Teach You the Secrets of Time Management, Pat Brans’ book on what makes the most successful people on the planet tick, tick, tick.
Lesson No. 1: “You can work as efficiently as you want, but if you’re working on the wrong thing, your total return is less than that of somebody who focuses less effort on something with higher impact,” says Brans ’94, a software engineer turned productivity-through-technology guru in senior management positions at corporations like Sybase and Hewlett-Packard. He is currently a visiting professor at the Grenoble Graduate School of Business in France.
Among other things, Brans provides master classes for senior executives, teaches time management, and does corporate training on using email more efficiently, delegating work, and optimizing meetings.
Master the Moment features superstars like Richard Branson of the $25 billion-a-year Virgin Group, as well as those less familiar, like Dan Packer, an African American single father who went on to head Entergy New Orleans Inc., a Fortune 500 company. What they share, Brans says, is a vision of what’s important and how to best spend their energies, leaving time for family, hobbies, and, yes, Web surfing.
“I think Internet micro-breaks are a great idea,” he says of recent studies suggesting that checking in on Facebook or the sports blogs is not the time suck many employers perceive it to be. “When I teach classes, if possible, I’ll stop the class every 25 minutes for a five-minute break. I tell the students beforehand that I’m going to do this, and I ask them to be fully present for the 25 minutes and then they can do something else for five minutes. It works. They tend to pay attention, and it makes for a more enjoyable and productive experience for everybody.”
As for the French, Brans debunks their national reputation for inefficiency, pointing to the built-in breaks in his adopted country’s employment/life model. So when they work, they work. And when they play, they play. It’s a concept that’s proven difficult for many Americans.
“One of the principles I teach is to think about your big goals once a week. Spend the rest of your time focusing on the one thing you’re doing now. Sometimes I have trouble with that one myself,” says Brans, who juggles teaching, appearances, and a website (www.master-the-moment.com), which lists news and seminars, as well as tips for conquering the clock. “Pick very few priorities and stick with them. “