The Compass & The Clock
We all know people who are busy but not necessarily productive. They are working hard but not getting anywhere better. I’ve heard it said that a busy person who is not productive is like an Octopus on roller skates; there’s a lot of motion but no progress.
I am brought in to coach many leaders who are stuck in this busy vortex. They are doing a lot, but not getting to where they want to go. The good news is, there is hope. Through understanding the compass and the clock, I help people figure out exactly where they want to go and what they need to do to get there.
Your life will either be led by the clock or the compass. The clock is simply a series of hourly blocks that dictate how you spend your life. The compass represents the direction of your life and where you’ll end up. Most people are more concerned about their clock than they are their compass. We have thousands of books about time management and how to maximize your time, but very few about the direction of your life and your ultimate purpose. The problem is, you can become proficient with the clock, but your life ends up at the wrong destination in which you never wanted to be. That’s because the clock should be a slave to the compass, not the other way around. The compass should always come first. It directs how you use your clock. Purpose has to be defined before proficiency. In fact, how can you become proficient if you don’t know the meaning?
I have a friend who was contracted by the military government to make specific top secret machinery parts. They were so top secret that he didn’t even have clearance to know what he was engineering. They would send him the schematics, and he was tasked to build individual pieces. The government outsourced various parts to different contractors, so no one person knew the whole project. I can remember my friend telling me how difficult it was to make the contraptions without knowing what he was designing. He couldn’t be proficient as he wanted because he didn’t know what it was. He became frustrated knowing that he could do better work if he just knew how it all was supposed to work together. A compass for his effort would have been much better.
You can master the clock, but be completely lost without a compass. Your time is simply an overflow of determining your destination. Once you know what you are trying to accomplish for you can go to work to make it happen. You have to know your why in order to find your way. Highly successful people are consumed by their big why. They are purpose-driven in their pursuit of greatness.
You’ll never truly maximize your time (clock) until you define your purpose (compass). So, before you set out punching the clock, make sure you are reading your compass first. Each hour should be getting you one step closer to your ultimate destination. If your time is not moving the needle towards your purpose, you need to adjust your daily agenda. Too many people are wasting their time away working on things that have nothing to do with their purpose. Not because they don’t want to, but because many don’t even know what their purpose is. You can’t talk about productivity without talking about purpose; they go hand in hand.
What is your big why? Where are you trying to get? As author Simen Sinek said, “Achievement happens when we pursue and attain what we want. Success comes when we are in clear pursuit of Why we want it.”
Pull out your compass and define where you want to end up. Get a clear picture of where it is, what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.
Now, use the clock to determine the daily duties it’s going to take to get you where you want to go. Don’t let anything else distract you from getting to your ultimate destination.
