Many of you know that I’m two-thirds of the way toward earning my MBA, which is why I’m fascinated by this “MBA” program put on by marketing guru Seth Godin.
Essentially, Godin set out to teach a select group of people everything he thought they should know to become expert entrepreneurs. They read books, went on field trips, considered great ideas (discover why Ideastorm and MyStarbucks “are brilliant”), met interesting speakers and challenged each other and challenged themselves. As Godin notes, “It’s surprising and disappointing that real companies don’t expose their people to this sort of learning. Too busy working, I guess.”
The premise for the endeavor is fascinating; also fascinating is reading the class blog — SAMBA — where the “students” share all the interesting ideas they’ve pondered over the past six months.
The Zen Habits guy – Leo Babauta – made a rather radical suggestion recently. One that came down to essentially working for just a few hours a day, then rewarding yourself with a nap. (Not Seth, obviously.)
The difference in this kind of day versus the eight, nine, 10 hour days someone else worked?
That two to four hours was only to be spent on something amazing.
The kickers (which he doesn’t get into) are these:
1. Amazing isn’t necessarily fun. So picking that something amazing to work on doesn’t mean the time is going to fly by. It’s work. And sometimes the most amazing results come from doing the stuff we hate most.
2. Can you even pick something amazing to do for that time? Or has your job come down to so many unimportant details that you find your plate doesn’t actually have any amazing projects on it to work on?
Do you have something amazing to do for a couple of hours a day? Can you find it? Less than amazing is just wasting your time. And you don’t get your nap.
Excuse me, now, while I go do something amazing … then take a nap…
-rp-
At some point late in my three decade career, I realized that about 40 hours a week were just treading water and 5 to 10 were spent actually swimming against the current. It was a nice epiphany, but the problem remained that it takes great discipline and perserverance to swim against the current. Some weeks I was doing good to put in an hour or two.