Recognize that everyone has too much to do. How to do more than we think we can is a puzzle we all struggle with. Other than working harder for longer hours, there are three ways to fix the problem: having fewer things to do by prioritizing and saying no, finding the right people to delegate to, and improving your productivity. Some people spend a lot of time and effort accomplishing very little while others do a lot in the same amount of time. What differentiates people who can do a lot from those who can’t is creativity, character, and wisdom. Those with more creativity invent ways to do things more effectively (for instance by finding good people, good technologies, and/or good designs). Those with more character are better able to wrestle with their challenges and demands. And those with more wisdom can maintain their equanimity by going to the higher level and looking down on themselves and their challenges to properly prioritize, realistically design, and make sensible choices.
Don’t get frustrated. If nothing bad is happening to you now, wait a bit and it will. That is just reality. My approach to life is that it is what it is and the important thing is for me to figure out what to do about it and not spend time moaning about how I wish it were different. Winston Churchill hit the nail on the head when he said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” You will come to enjoy this process of careening between success and failure because it will determine your trajectory. It makes no sense to get frustrated when there’s so much that you can do, and when life offers so many things to savor. Your path through any problem is outlined in these principles, and in others you’ll discover yourself. There’s nothing you can’t accomplish if you think creatively and have the character to do the difficult things.
Use checklists. When people are assigned tasks, it is generally desirable to have them captured on checklists. Crossing items off a checklist will serve as both a task reminder and a confirmation of what has been done.
Don’t confuse checklists with personal responsibility. People should be expected to do their whole job well, not just the tasks on their checklists.
Allow time for rest and renovation. If you just keep doing, you will burn out and grind to a halt. Build downtime into your schedule just as you would make time for all the other stuff that needs to get done.
Ring the bell. When you and your team have successfully pushed through to achieve your goals, celebrate!
Use Tools and Protocols to Shape How Work Is Done. Words alone aren’t enough. That’s something I learned from watching people struggle to get themselves to do things that are in their best interests. After I shared these principles with the people at Bridgewater and refined them, nearly everyone saw the connection between the principles and our excellent results and wanted to operate in accordance with them. But there’s a big difference between wanting to do something and actually being able to do it. Assuming people will do what they intellectually want to do is like assuming that people will lose weight simply because they understand why it’s beneficial for them to do it. It won’t happen until the proper habits are developed. In organizations, that happens with the help of tools and protocols. Take a minute to think about how this applies to your reading of this book, or reading books in general. How often have you read a book describing some behavioral change you’ve wanted to make but then failed to? How much behavioral change do you think will result from this book if you don’t have tools and protocols to help you? My guess is hardly any. Just as you can’t learn many things by reading a book (how to ride a bike, speak a language, etc.), it’s nearly impossible to change a behavior without practicing it. That is why I plan to make the tools that I describe in the Appendix publicly available.