How do ultra-successful people get so much done in a day? In this episode, Lori and Jimmy share the basics of essentialism, called “The 3 ‘E’s”.

Episode Keys

• Why it is critical to exercise your “no” muscle when asked to perform tasks in which you have no desire or passion.
• How to explore your options for greater impact and results before simply starting a project.
• When and how to eliminate activities from your daily schedule that bring you little or no value.
• Using the Eisenhower Matrix to help you make decisions and stay focused on the “big rocks” in life.
• The greatest method to increase your productivity is to execute fully and completely on the big, hairy audacious goals in your life!

Podcast Transcription

JW:
Man. It is a beautiful snowy Monday in the great state of Oklahoma. You know us say, here we are enjoying the best of winter, nothing like a good four-degree wind chill to start your day. I think if nothing else will get you awake, go outside for about two moments. That’ll be all you need. Hey, this is a great time to talk about something that I know a lot of us are experiencing. Got a new year off this start, you are looking happy, you got goals. And then what happens that first week of work, train wreck, they bring you all of these projects, all these tasks, and just expect you to do them without your consent. Well, I’m gonna help you today a little bit because before I introduce my co-host, we’re gonna talk about what really is essentialism. You know, too often, we fail about the tasks we agree to, and then the meetings we agree to attend.

JW:
And once we start that project or join that meeting, we exhibit buyer’s remorse. Yeah, you guessed at that time, like you’re sitting there going, why am I even here? How many times has this happened to you? Well, to me, it’s happened many times, way too many times. So I started utilizing this approach today. We’re gonna talk about the three ease of essentialism and to share some of our best strategies on increasing your productivity and happiness in life. I have to bring on the person that makes the world spin in my world of podcast. My co-host with the most Lori, you, how are we doing Lori?

LF:
Good morning. Oh, good. We’re so good. But you know, honestly, Jimmy, I’m kinda concerned about this topic. I feel like I might need to lean on the master. I essentialism interesting topic this morning.

JW:
So let me help you in a way that I think may come to light to you, Lori, on essentialism. There’s only really two things of great value in your life right now, but now all these other things have value, but a great value. And that would be your son, Noah. And of course me. And so that is the only,

LF:
Just very, this morning. I give you that.

JW:
You know, coffee comes in big-time, almost there at the top, but it’s a

LF:
I and I, with that love it is now that statement on its face, you’re automatically throwing up a red flag this morning, going well, hang on a second. Like what, what do you mean less coming from the lady that can’t say no, but this doesn’t mean that you can’t say no. It just means that you gotta everything in perspective. And then rather we focus on, we focus on our passions that we enjoy or the activities that provide the greatest value and return on effort. Jimmy talks a lot about this one. You’ve got to have an investment and a return on your effort. Everything changes when we give ourselves permission to be more selective in what we choose to do at once we hold the key to unlock the next level of achievement in our life and in his book essentialism, you’re gonna hear that word a lot this morning.

LF:
The book is by Greg McAllen illustrates the use of this technique with his three E which Jimmy’s gonna have to really help me elaborate on this morning, explore, eliminate, and execute. So step one, explore your options means to differentiate the trivial from the vital in your life. Is that really possible? We’re gonna find out it’s important to explore many options in a specific solution are tasked before committing to any of them. And if you’re like me, the minute someone walks in and asks me to do something, no matter if I’m buried up to my eyeballs, I’m the type of person that will drop everything to say, yes, I will help.

JW:
She even does that for podcast recordings.

LF:
Well, that’s because, you know, we, we talk about passions and, and, you know, believe it or not, I am now starting to develop a passion for podcasting I’m by no means as good as the, the master Jimmy Williams. But I feel like I’m getting there, but however, you must finally commit to the task and go big. And if anybody knows go big or go home, that’s Jimmy. So I can’t wait to hear his take on this. So when you go big on one or two ideas or one or two activities, then you’ll use your mental and physical energy in a manner that increases your success. Now, this is the idea, ask yourself questions. Like what inspires me, what meets a significant need in the world. These are great topics and great starting points. And think of this approach as doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

LF:
So to give a little backstory, an example on this, you talk about having kids. Honestly, it took my husband five years to Ben me that it was time to have a baby. And most of the time it’s different women are the ones that wanna have kids and men are a little bit less motivated sometimes for lack of a better word. And they talk about how it’s never the right time. But I, in my mind, as a woman, as a business professional, as a community member, as a family member, I struggled with the idea of being ready. So I think this explore topic this first step this morning, I love that that the approach is the right thing at the right time for the right reason. Well, I can tell you that I sued and had scenarios and checklists and pros and cons, and it all went out the window because if I learned anything, having a kid does not meet those three criteria, you just have to go for it. Yeah.

JW:
You can have all the list you wish on this childbearing thing. You can study all the books, you can do anything you want. And I will tell you, after that first contraction hit my wife, it’s all out the door. I mean it’s survival time, baby. It’s survival time. My wife did the Bill Cosby. You know what that is? And I know Mr. Cosby’s in some trouble right now, but I gotta tell you, it was really funny at the time. He said, if you men want to know what pregnancy is like and giving childbirth, take your bottom lip, stretch it up over your head to the back of your neck. that’s what it’s like.

LF:
I, you know, it’s, it’s an interesting example, but I really think that it applies. And I think a lot of times, you know, women, especially young women, men now that are getting out of college and going into their careers, it’s, it’s a definite conversation starter in concession. I mean, we statistics show that women are starting families later in life, or some couples are choosing not to have kids at all. So I, I just thinking along those lines, that’s the first thing that hit me this morning. I don’t know why maybe I’m notated enough.

JW:
get that. I IV started earlier. you know, no, that’s a great topic. A great way to look at this too, but also think about in your daily life at work. So for many of us that go to the office, a lot of times you look in that inbox and there’s 18 different items that need to get done. Well, do you just take the first one off the top and take it and you go, okay, let’s start on it. What if it’s the most trivial of the 18, your supervisors needing number eight, that’s in the middle and you didn’t even look through them to see which was, or if you will explore those that were the options of what you should have chosen. And so to me, this first E means that I need to explore. I need to look at all the options, lay them out and then do what you said.

JW:
So you looked at that and you said, Hey, the first thing is, we gotta look at when we have the right time. So that means we’ll win something due. Right. And then you said the next one was that you would look at the right, the right item or right thing. Is it the right one to do? And then your last one of course was the one that the most important is, is what the what’d you say? It was the right reason, the right reason. Yeah. So, so those are what, where in and what, when and why. And those are so critical in life. If you think about it, cuz we have all kinds of things to do. So let’s prioritize something. So in my career I had a lot of things going on. We were growing the company big time and I had smaller children.

JW:
So we had our children the little later in life Dina was like 21. I was 50. And so , I felt like it some days getting up, changing diapers in the middle of the night. And let me tell you guys, when they sit there at those little baby showers and they have that little fake poop and the little napkin and say, oh, it’s cute. It’s all, there’s nothing cute about human Fe at two in the morning, especially if the child’s got milk all over it. And it’s just like, you gotta bathe them at two 30 in the morning. That’s just not anyway, I digress what my point, but my point to this is, is prioritize things. So what I told my assistant that took care of my calendar at the time, and I’m gonna get to that in a minute about delegation. But what I asked her to do, I said, let me explain something to you.

JW:
Here’s my daughter’s school activities, dance schedule. If they had a soccer game, whatever they were in and we did all kinds of activities with them, I said, that’s your priority? I said, if the clients will, you know, not allow me to spend time with my children, then it’s probably not the right client for us. You know what I mean? And, and we appreciate all of our clients, but I mean, we wanted to know that family comes first. And so we are a family first company. We still to this day, 25 years later are a family first company. And the one thing that I gained from that is started doing spring breaks because my older daughter is five years older than their sister. And she said, how come you know, dad, we don’t ever get to go snow skiing or we don’t get to go on a spring break when all the other kids do.

JW:
And I said, well, it’s not because of resources, except for time. You know, dad’s got a busy season here. You know, CPAs were always busy in the spring and it just came to me and I said, you know what the why? Let me answer that. Why? So we had the win. Well, spring break is pretty well fine out the school tells you when they’re gonna be out for the week. That’s usually in March. Okay. And then, you know, we wanted to look at well, what is it? Well, it’s time off with the kids. That to me was vital. That was important. We’re gonna get to that in a minute on Eisenhower’s matrix. So I, I said to myself, the why is much more powerful than anything I could come up with for that week at the office. It really was. And so we just explained to clients a month ahead of time, Hey, I’m gonna be gone this week. Here’s the team. They can help solve any problems you have. I’m gonna take my kids and my wife and we’re gonna go somewhere and spend time with them. And we’ve done that now, like I said, for about the last 20 year, it just worked out, you know, so that, that’s the point of exploring, look at your options. See what’s most vital. So is there anything other than childbirth that maybe gives you options to explore on a daily basis, say at your office,

LF:
You, now that we’re living in the world, zoom meetings. Definitely. We do a lot of meetings, I mean, hour after hour. And, and, and it’s about prioritizing it’s like you said, do I really need to do this meeting at this time? What is the topic and what, in terms of time management? I, I think the, the three things in this explore topic go right along hand in hand with time management, it helps you focus on the things that, you know, you prioritize the time management of deadline, date, location and how much time it’s gonna take. So definitely definitely time management in terms of, you know, meeting back to back to back in a pack schedule.

JW:
You know, let’s explore one other thing. Let’s assume you have to go to all these meetings. Well, to be very Frank with you when I go to meetings and I do this on any of my charitable boards that I sit and I love to be passionate about them, but it doesn’t mean I wanna spend two hours at this meeting. If there’s nothing I can contribute to the productivity of the meeting or, or to the depth of the meeting. So what I often do will ask the check air, who’s setting the agenda to say, would you mind moving me up earlier in the agenda so that I may go ahead and present what I need to present? And then I will ease myself out and, and move to other things. Cause that to me is just taking good control of your mental energy, your, your time as well as again, going to that, why, you know, I wanna be there.

JW:
I just don’t wanna be there for two hours now. I’m not saying some people do, but I have some clients that just love a good two to three hour meeting, cuz they’ve got nothing else to do. They’re retired. Right, right, right. And that’s, that’s cool for them though. And that’s great for them and that’s their wine. We need those people very badly. But sometimes Jimmy has other things more pressing. So that leads us to second step for the most difficult of step, because I’m gonna explain something to you. I have a very difficult time saying words that are profane to people. Yes. You heard me, right. There’s a two letter word that’s profane to people and that word is no. So that’s a very hard, ugly word. It is. It is. Cuz I’m the kinda guy I want everybody to go. Hey, you know, he is so nice.

JW:
And so giving and you know, we can be, but let’s talk a little bit about this second step of eliminate. So if we’re gonna explore all of our options, we gotta eliminate some of those, you know, and this, as I said, the most difficult steps for many of us were programmed that those around us often ourselves just saying yes to quickly. And we should have said no saying no takes courage and compassion. A lot of people think it’s rude. It is not rude to say no, if it’s not something that you can prioritize at that time, it goes against social conventions. And to be honest expectations of people, no one gets told no matter of I love this. So I’m the kind of guy that no one tells me no. Who wit Lori’s here early this morning. She came boy, I may have to double her pay three coffees, three coffees.

JW:
Okay. Start the IV like at 4:00 AM, get her really going. But you know, I’m, I might say this to you though. If in fact as employees, good team members, coaches, even leaders, whatever we may be, it basically says if I say yes to everything, I’ll be unable to say yes to the big thing that really adds the greatest value because I only have a finite amount of time. So the opposite is typically true. If I say not to more things and I have that time to really move the needle on project. So, you know, if you’ve been a loyal listener, this podcast, and many of you have, and we’re in 57 countries, Lori, you really knocking at the, when Lori’s on the podcast. We’re probably in like a thousand countries. I don’t know, but I know of 57, but you know, I’m a big fan.

JW:
Lori of Warren buffet, the man from Omaha, he is just the, a smart gentleman. The billionaire investor has many wonderful quotes that have been very helpful to me in my career in life. He said the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. Buffet has learned his creative freedom and ability to keep himself happy in life. Depends on his control of time, energy and mental cap of build by saying no more than yes, he controls his day and performs only those vital tasks that bring great bay to him and his investors. So he’s not just raising the tide for himself. He’s raising all boats in the Harbor by helping everyone through his ability to say no to trivial matters. Let me talk to you real quick though. Lord, I gotta share you with something it’s called 100 tasks to delegate and I know you’re gonna laugh. There’s not a hundred things you can delegate in a day. I’ve got proof of that. I’ve got this.

LF:
You’re gonna have to prove it to me.

JW:
Yeah, I’ve got this list lady. You’re gonna love this. I have taken every aspect at our office. I mean literally every aspect from opening the door early the morning, when it’s time to open the office to setting up an appointment to whatever, I’ve got a hundred tasks that you can delegate to someone that I promise you will do them much better than yourself. And I have as a goal to always have at least 95 of those delegated that I’m not spending valuable time on something that someone else could do and do better in me. So that’s my goal for you today. Lori, I’m gonna give you my list. I’m gonna send it to you tomorrow and it’s gonna be the 100 task to eliminate and you’re gonna laugh. You’re gonna share ’em with your your CEO of the school system. And you’re gonna say now, from now, and if I’m not doing that, it doesn’t mean it’s not important. It’s just, I’m gonna let someone else do it.

LF:
I, and I think that’s know absolutely vital, honestly, as I get older in my professional career and, and in my, in my personal life, we find that saying no is such a negative thing, but it’s absolutely necessary. And I find that when I don’t say no, my plate gets so overwhelmed because I’m too busy trying to make sure that I say yes, because I want to be home. I want to be a team player. I want to be part of a team and I want to have success. But by the time I say yes to everything and I don’t say no to anyone, I find myself angry, stressed, bitter resentful. So really I’m very curious to know about this delegation list because I think that kind of you’re absolutely right hand in hand. If we find things that we can delegate and I know as women, and that is really hard to do because we just are of the mindset. I’ll just do it real quick. I don’t wanna, you know, inconvenience someone I can handle it. It’s just small. I will take care of it. I don’t wanna ask them because I know their plates full too. And so we just take on and take on and take on. And then we find ourselves just stressed and frazzled. And at the end of the day, ready to just lose our minds. Right? Because we’re so busy, caught up in the trying to get done.

JW:
So I’ve gotta tell you, I got one of the strangest yet most wonderful compliments. One day been months ago, back in the fall, we get asked. There’s so many worthy causes and we get asked by a lot of ’em. Hey, would you serve on this board? Would you help us with this project? You know, I’m just saying, Hey, you know, I think that’s a wonderful project. Know I can at this time. And I just like that. And I just told this young lady that came in and she needed some help on her board. And she had a very worthwhile project, but that wasn’t my priority. And for me to take my eye off that top priority means that I delay the satisfaction of completing something. That’s really big in my goals for something that’s not even on my goals, you with me. I mean, they somebody’s distracted. So to speak. Yeah. That shiny object syndrome, you know, you ladies have, walk through the mall. Hey honey, where are you? Oh, she’s at the counter over there.

LF:
All it takes is one. Look, I’m just telling you just to get off, you know, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I was just, it’s so true. Oh, that shiny object. And you spend so much time committing to it at the, you know, we talk about the beginning of the year, how we set goals and like what our big goal and you find yourself, so you’ve got your blinders on. You’re ready, you’re rocking your rolling. And all of a sudden there comes a distraction and you can just try your best to just ignore it. And it’s like, so tantalizing. So, you know, just come and get me. I’m this big distraction and I’m here and I’m in your way. And I’m going to derail you for, you know, hours, weeks, sometimes, months. It’s, it’s just so frustrating.

JW:
It is. And I’m gonna help you now. And all of our listeners for, with a pool, I use literally all the time. I have this in my planner. I keep copies of it in my journals. You’re gonna laugh. When I tell you about this, this thing’s a two by two matrix. That’s it? Two by two, two boxes on top of two boxes. Okay. This is called the Eisenhower matrix because president Eisenhower used it to run this country. Believe it or not. It was one of the simplest. Yes. The simplest thing. It’s a matrix on a piece of paper. Let me explain what it does. So this is a two by two matrix. As I said, the top left box of this matrix says important and urgent. And in that he means whatever task you put to that box means two. It now it’s gotta be done as vital. It’s urgent. It’s important, right? The box to the right of that on the upper right hand side is the not urgent. Here is the urgent not important box. Now what that means basically. Oh, scratch that. Where are we at? We’re at 26 32. Remind me 26 32. sorry. I’ll have him take that out. I screwed that one right up.

JW:
That’s why Dakota gets paid the big bucks. Thanks. Sorry, Dakota. Roll it back. We’re gonna start over on this comment. So roll it back for us if you would. So the Eisen matrix, isn’t two by two matrix that basically is this upper left hand box says important and urgent, which means to Eisenhower do it. Now it is vital. It’s critical. We gotta do it. Now. Then he had the box to the upper, right? That said it was important, but not urgent. And that simply meant to him to decide when to do it when it needed to be done. Then the lower left hand box was urgent, not important. So you can see the urgency there, but not important, which meant you delegate that task. Now that’s your hundred items to delegate where it’s urgent.

LF:
It goes back

JW:
To left important right now here’s the thing in life. Life is filled with this next box. And too often, it’s the one that screams the loudest. The squeaky will gets the greet, whatever analogy you want to use. The kid that’s crying, right? Did you know it’s good for a baby to cry, but why is it? As soon as that first whimper comes out that baby’s got us trained, just like a cat, right? Our daughter has a cat will look at you until you feed it or it’ll come up and wrap its tail around your face until you get up and feed, you know, that kind of stuff. This last box, the lower right hand box is the not urgent, not important, which means you either do it later or in Jimmy’s way of thinking you dump the whole thing out in the trash. Just throw it away. if it’s not urgent and important, why even take up the time? Right? So you can go to our website at www.livealifeby.design and obtain a copy of this matrix and put it to you today. Lori, this thing has changed my way of thinking years ago, simply by giving me the frame of mind, I need to make good decisions.

LF:
Well, I think it’s interesting because it sounds so simple. I mean, it doesn’t have to be a complicated when you said the word matrix. I thought, oh boy, here we go. This is gonna be like a brain teaser. I’m gonna need a flow chart for a flow chart. But you know, it, it sounds really simple. I mean, it sounds like something that I can even utilize, but the last box, I think I need to rename the last, the last box to me, equates to what I affectionately refer to sometimes as the dumpster fire.

The Eisenhower Matrix

JW:
Yes. I love that. I love that. Now you do have to admit one thing when you heard me say matrix, you immediately thought Jimmy’s gonna do his impersonation of Keanu Reaves, no?

LF:
Yes. And I hope the listeners can get that reference because that, that definitely, mm, the matrix, if you haven’t look it up, it’s good. That’s good stuff. But so in saying all this, like I’m, I’m definitely, so we’ve got some tools here. We’ve already talked about how in the first E if we’ll go back to the beginning in the E of essentialism, I mean, we’re using all kinds of E words, Eisenhower, essentialism, you got that. We talked about explore. We talked about eliminate, but lastly, we need to talk about execute. If you become an essentialist, you will find that execution is the most efficient and forceful process to realize a project or a goal. You will invest the time you saved in the first two steps in creating a system for removing obstacles and making execution as easy as possible. Our world is filled with distractions.

LF:
We’ve talked a lot about those. Sometimes they’re big. Sometimes they’re small, but they’re still there. There are distractions that are worthless and energy staffing binging on TV shows that add nothing to your knowledge of history or biographical capabilities is one example. But we do love our shows. Let’s be honest. We’ve recently discovered this show, nailed it, Netflix. That’s not a plug, but check it out. Cause it’s, it’s funny because it’s about my level of baking capabilities. It’s about people who ethically fail at baking. And that is totally me, but I digress. So you’re going to eliminate those time in your life. You, I’m not saying you can watch TV, just don’t it for 12 hours. It’s just not healthy. So you truly realize your potential in life. When you focus on escaping the focus, that sounds like a circular statement. But think about it. Think about the time you choose to give yourself freedom, to concentrate and devote significant energy to creating your bigger, better and bold future. For many of us, this is infrequent activity from on a Monday morning, your brain just can’t get there. But if you need to re-listen to this podcast, it’s fully absorbed at 125% it’s available to you. So we suggest you invert this way of thinking. Spend a few moments in mind, numbing activities and allow yourself to focus on the important and vital activities that empower you to create the greater value in the marketplace. The results you yourself become more valuable.

JW:
So you said something, I love what you said. You said it doesn’t mean we can’t spend some time in the trivial. It’s just that we shouldn’t spend a majority of our time in the trivial. See that’s where the rest of the world is, but not Live a Life By Design listeners. They are there to make a difference, not to be a difference to productivity if you’ll pardon my pun. But the key is is that we all have a space and position to play in this world that someone else is depending on us to show up our biggest, best, you know, the most powerful person that we can be ourselves and really bring it that day. And that’s why you must learn to execute to me. That’s the most important, it’s kinda like you can have the best game plan for any football game, but if your team doesn’t go out there and execute that plan, you’ve got defeat. You’re never gonna win the golden ball. Right.

LF:
I, I think you’re absolutely right. And what a better euphoric, exhilarating feeling to have a weight lifted off your shoulders almost when you execute something, it’s the finality, it’s the it’s surprise at the end, you’ve accomplished, you’ve finished. You’ve wrapped something up with a pretty little bow and you’ve passed it off and you’ve done what you needed to do so that you can go on to the next task and give that your full time and attention and all of your energy.

JW:
Oh, that’s a great, great way to close out the segment on execution. Each of the three E’s are simply by vital to the success that you’ll experience in life. And these are not three separate considerations, Lori, but a cyclical process. So think of a circle first, we’ve got to explore, and then we move the circle up to eliminate. What’s not important or vital. And then we come down and execute on that, that we decided was the final, most important and most vital. And then we go explore some more and it just continues to circle and it keeps evolving. So we improve in our skills and we gain and retain control of us, which is the most important person control. You know, this is our 150th episode. Lori, can you believe

LF:
This? No. Woo yay.

JW:
So what I, what I want you to know, we did Lori and I every week for 150 consecutive weeks have explored. eliminated a lot. Have we explored? And we execute a little, but we get there

LF:
Yes. It’s not about how it takes just long as you get there.

JW:
It’s a whole strategy for running five Ks don’t laugh. Right? Everybody gets a ribbon people. I want my ribbon.

LF:
OK. Listen. My favorite meme of all time is when I, during COVID, when COVID first started, I decided I was gonna take up not running but jogging. And it was so funny. I just happened to go down to the track here in our local community and saw me. And they were like, oh, go. So of you you’re and then later they shared this meme that says, don’t worry. I realize I look like a turtle running through peanut butter and

JW:
In, I love turtles for one and man who could not love peanut butter. I mean,

LF:
Peanut butter is amazing. It is that’s your Monday morning. So here’s the challenge this week, this week, we want you to gain more control of your energy, your day, and your ambition use the Eisenhower matrix to help you prioritize your task or your project. And don’t be afraid to call that last box and dumpster fire. Sometimes we gotta put things there, but focus on the three E’s explore, eliminate and execute your bigger, better, and bold life. And until next week live your life by design.

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