Time Saving Tip #4: Don’t Be An Ostrich

Not the most uplifting of titles but if you’re trying to cut out on distractions and really focus, sometimes you may have to take the path of least resistance and not take part in conversations that yield nothing and are going nowhere.

I have blogged at length about the steps that I have taken to remove distractions and make better use of my limited time on projects that made sense and were more worth while. Big part in dumping the newsgroups, blogs and such has not been the relative abstraction I’ve created to stop myself from paying attention to them during the day, quite the contrary, I knew I would be tempted to look every now and then. And I do, I even posted maybe 3–4 times last week. The trick in optimizing the amount of time I waste in newsgroups is knowing when my post was not going to do me any good: Will replying to this post make me come off any better or will it make the person on the other side feel any better? I have really tried to ask myself that question every time I hit submit, leading to longer times of me holding on to the left mouse button for dear life. In the end, it has reduced my involvement in fruitless efforts and reduced the amount of time wasted on issues I have no hope of affecting the outcome of. And if I can’t make a difference, there is no point in trying.

As another public example of this consider David Schrag’s post titled: Even the job descriptions for Microsoft licensing are complicated, which caught my eye due to a very nice headline. He starts making a nice point but it all falls apart with his usual illusion that a $260 billion dollar company might have people in it that can directly, independantly and unilaterally cause change to the very thing that made Microsoft a $260 billion dollar company to begin with, just so it could simplify SMB licensing and help his dozen clients that have no choice and will pay for Microsoft software regardless of the price.

So, do I respond to Schrag’s post with the same thing I’ve told him a hundred times, fully knowing he’ll delete the comment and continue to stick his head in the sand, or do I just dismiss it and move on?

Truth is, if you’re like me your day is full of Ostriches and the secret to recouping some of your time is identifying your Ostriches and letting them just burry their head in the sand without wasting your time. Client that doesn’t want to take your advice? Fine, here is a sandbox. Problem employee that won’t change? Here’s your sandbox.

Consider the alternative – consider the amount of time you waste going against something for which you already know the outcome and are repeating it just for the sake of… what? Exactly. You’re the ostrich now.

As my buddy Erick says…  Hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. Don’t waste your time fighting battles you can’t win.