Page 186 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

174 COACH YOURSELF TO A NEW CAREER

still have plenty of time to play with friends and family, but you
definitely won’t have any time to waste. If you are starting your
own business, you’ll be glad you set up the structures to automate
your life now so you can focus on your plans—a new business can
be as demanding as a new baby when you are just starting out. See
my first book as well, Coach Yourself to Success, for ideas on creat-
ing more time.

Leverage the 80/20 Rule to Create
Even More Time

The object here is to get your current job done in two hours a
day so you can use the rest of your time to think about your new
career or business. If you are too busy, you won’t have time to start
building your own business or even to find a better job some-
where else. Don’t worry that your performance will suffer; every
client I’ve ever coached to get the job done faster has only been
seen as more valuable by the employer. This is the power of using
the 80/20 rule—the principle that we get 80 percent of our results
from 20 percent of our time investment. If you can identify the 20
percent that matters, you can safely eliminate about 80 percent of
what you are currently doing.
I wasn’t willing to experiment with this principle until I was
willing to be fired. Much to my disbelief, when I did this at my
old job, they didn’t want me to leave. I practically had to beg them
to let me take the severance package! You will still be doing 100
percent grade-A work for your current employer and not slack-
ing off. You’ll just be doing what is really important and makes
a difference and be letting the unimportant stuff go. You may be
surprised to discover how much you don’t have to do that you
thought you had to. You’ll also be working much more efficiently
in order to get your work done sooner.
One client was determined to get caught up on her work, so she
went in every Saturday for a full month. She realized that she had
more work than she could finish in one week, so she’d either have