It drives my boss crazy. Always has, always will. To that end, I offered him an annotated excerpt from a section of book written in 1994 by a favorite author encouraging him to take what he wanted and leave the rest. I was not asking absolution or forgiveness.

Following some of Tom Peter's passages are my personal notations presented like this.

Excerpted from The Pursuit of WOW!: Every Person’s Guide to Topsy-Turvy Times – 1994
By Tom Peters, the best selling business author of all time

A student in New Zealand recently wrote, asking me to reveal my
time-management secrets. My first instinct was to ignore the request — the
topic irks me. I get irritated when people pull out fat “organizer” kits.
Time-management “consultants” really bug me. My reaction is doubtless
defensive. I have no time-management secrets. In fact, I consider myself a
crappy time manager. Still, I like to respond to student requests. Besides, I
figured I must have an implicit time-management model.

I’m a terrible time manager. I devote so much of my time to my work I am a source of great disappointment to many people, especially family members.

I came up with five strategies:

1. Focus and reject.
Over the years, when something gets really serious, I “switch on” the issue at
hand and “switch off” everything else. To switch off is more important than to
switch on. Mail, phone calls, dinner parties, the leaky barn roof — later,
ace. Such intensity of focus involves risk — alienating superiors and
subordinates alike, maybe even quitting a job. It means that “available
you/good ole Joe” ain’t available for the next month, the next year.

It is what it is. Unless I am alerted by others to critical needs that require immediate attention, working remotely allows me to implicitly switch off outside distractions. When alerted, I reorganize my priorities and get where I need to be when I need to be there, or do what new things need to be done. Otherwise, my own agenda is carried out to the best of my then current capabilities (see #2-5 below).

2. Use your day “right.”
Understanding your metabolism is critical. I can work creatively from about 4
A.M. to 11 A.M. and work reasonably intelligently for another three hours.
After that, forget it. It took me decades to figure that out. But now I’m
religious about paying attention to my inner clock.

My most creative time begins whenever I wake from a restful sleep – note, duration of sleep and restfulness of sleep are not synonymous. To sleep, I must be exhausted, or at peace.

My best time for analytical work is late evening and into the night. It is my most productive time inasmuch as productivity has tangible results. It is then that I explain my analysis, do accounting, communicate personally, etc. I’m not being creative during this period, I am really just formalizing and documenting the results of my early morning work, which through interaction with others, was tested and destroyed or confirmed and tweaked and thus is either ultimately abandoned or published.

3. Rest and/or frolic.
Winston Churchill invariably took a long afternoon nap — even while he was
England’s prime minister during World War II. I like that idea, and practice a
variant while working on books. I write from about 4 A.M. to 7:30 A.M., nap
until about 8:30, then go at it again. I’m always surprised at how refreshed I
feel after an hour’s pillow time. Everyone goes through daily doldrums. Knock
off — nap, isometrics, meditation — and recharge. Beyond that, a couple of
weeks (or months) of rest and frolic in the midst of a daunting task is
enormously stimulating. (I try to take at least a few weeks off between drafts
of a book.) Woe betide the “pluggers” who pride themselves on never taking
breaks: Dullness is their just dessert.

I sleep best when I’m tired of thinking, am distressed or depressed or when I am at peace, whenever and whichever it is.

4. Pursue “mindless” interruptions.
Studies suggest the most effective bosses thrive on unscheduled interruptions;
the least effective chiefs program their days down to the minute. Practical
translation: Allow for (plan for!) productive diversions. Take occasional
off-the-wall calls that just might provide a highly profitable insight: “I
thought you ought to know that your top-of-the-line product has a fatal flaw,
though I’m sure your engineers must have told you.” Ho. Ho. Ho. No, they had
not. I worry when the infotech gurus promise we’ll soon be able to get our
news (papers, magazines, etc.) tailored to “detailed informational needs.”
Yuck! I often find more useful information about “life” in Section D of USA
Today than in the Wall Street Journal. Most bursts of inspiration come from
the quirky juxtaposition of information. The weekly TV ratings may suggest
more about consumer trends than the $200,000 market research you just
commissioned. A night at the opera may be more help with a personnel problem
than three hours with a human resources staffer — or reading some damn
bestseller on e-m-p-o-w-e-r-m-e-n-t.

I welcome and encourage people to call me anytime, answer emails throughout the day if I am working on my computer, and invite others to offer their insights or seek my advice. I play chess and scrabble online. It keeps my mind occupied when I just need to step away from “bigger” problems that I can’t seem to focus on. Otherwise, unless I have something in particular to talk about, I’d rather not intrude.

I can be unobtrusive from anywhere.

5. Be true to yourself.
While I hope this brief recitation helps stretch your imagination, it is not a
to-do list. We all have different rhythms. Your “time-management strategy”
must fit you.

Amen.

But can you get away with strategies like mine? I can tell you I’ve been
practicing these sometimes antisocial habits since I was a young Navy ensign
in Vietnam (my first real job). When faced with a challenge, like designing a
bridge to be built out of the scraps at hand, I’d sometimes disappear for
several days. In subsequent jobs, I’d evaporate for weeks and, in one case,
months. In the latter instance, I was subsequently fired. It was the biggest
career boost ever. (It gave me the space to focus on what was important.)


Working as I work also cost me this job, a job I loved, and did exceptionally well at, from 1995 through 2005. I resumed that position in 2009 and am still there. I haven't changed a bit.

Who would have guessed I’d get a call four years later, and be writing this tonight?