All Posts by Austin Collins

The Real Value of a Mission Statement

By Austin Collins

Our journey to parenthood was anything but normal. The international adoption process took nearly 5 years. Short version: We filled out countless forms, took a few classes and underwent various medical evaluations. After years of waiting, we got on a plane, flew to the Philippines and came home with three siblings, who at the time were 8, 9 and 11. To say that I felt unqualified would be a severe understatement.

I had no parenting experience. Was I doing it correctly? How was I supposed to know what “correct” was? Self judgment was creating constant stress. Trying to be a perfect parent was preventing me from being a good one.

Thankfully there’s no such thing as “perfect.” There is no single “right” way to raise kids. Thus, there is no such thing as “unqualified.”

Forget perfect. Just keep getting better.

Raising 3 active, bright, curious kids requires rapid real time decisions. Better decisions = better parenting. To improve decision quality, I needed a method to evaluate situations, in real time, through the lens of our values as parents. I needed to define my mission.

The real value of a mission statement is that it shifts thinking from reactive to proactive.

A mission changes the decision making process. When the destination is always clear, “what should I do?” becomes “how do I do it?” This is a critical shift from reactive to proactive. Even while reacting to an unfolding situation, you are proactively moving toward your ideal outcome.

Mission: Course of action taken to achieve an ideal outcome. 

A mission statement provides guide rails for how to think and act in real time. It aligns thoughts, decisions and actions with your ideal outcome.

An effective mission statement has the following components:

• An ideal outcome
• One or more action verbs that move you toward that ideal outcome

Constructing your own mission statement is a straightforward 2 step process.

1. Define your ideal outcome

• Your ideal outcome is usually the answer to this question: “If I did my job perfectly here, what would the results look like?”
• My answer: “My kids would become the best possible versions of themselves.”

2. Select your action verbs

• What types of actions will be most effective in attaining that ideal outcome?
• My answer: “Appreciate. Support. Challenge.”

Not all verbs are created equal.

Initially my action verbs included “love.” Love is at the core of my relationship with my kids. But “love” is too broad for a mission statement. Improve clarity by narrowing focus. How do I express love in a way that honors and benefits them? Appreciation and support. But appreciation and support alone are insufficient. In order to become the best versions of themselves, they will need to grow. The best catalyst for growth? Challenge.

My mission as a parent: To appreciate, support & challenge our kids to become the best versions of themselves.

So how exactly does a mission statement guide actions? Follow the verbs – in order.

Step 1: Appreciate. Connection shows appreciation. When people feel heard they feel appreciated. That means asking questions without trying to fix anything. What did they experience? How are they feeling about it?

Step 2: Support. This often takes the form of sharing a relevant personal experience, usually a story. Then I ask questions to help them extract the lessons and principles from the story, and apply them to their situation. The next action step becomes clear at this point.

Step 3: Challenge. I avoid solving problems for my kids. Instead, I challenge them to take the next action step on their own, then share with me how it went. These challenges build self confidence and lay the foundation for future growth.

Writing a mission statement has an immediate impact. Take a few minutes to write one and find out for yourself. Then share the experience with someone else.

Resources:

• Consider finding an existing mission statement you resonate with and model yours on it. My favorite is the mission of the United States Army Infantry: “To close with and destroy the enemy.”
• Excellent post on Mission written by David Redding, former Army Infantry, Green Beret, and co-founder of F3: https://f3nation.com/2018/09/16/sua-sponte-leader-q4-1/

Quartz (Resource)

By Austin Collins

Quartz is the only news source I allow into my inbox. High quality writing. Diverse subject matter. No partisan tilt.

2 different newsletter styles:

• Daily Brief – Once daily news email. Various genres. Wide variety of sources.
• Obsessions – Weekly deep dive on a single topic. Sometimes obscure. Always interesting.

How To Think (Book Notes)

By Austin Collins

• Introduction: Thinking should be thought of as part art and part science:
  • Science: The mechanics of how the brain itself works, including things like cognitive biases and other evolutionary shortcuts that may not serve us well in today’s world.
  • Art: How we use our conscious cognitive processes to navigate our connections with, and perceptions of, the world around us.
• Chapter 1: Always question the foundation of assumptions upon which you build your house of logic.
• Chapter 2: To improve the quality of your thinking, be willing to change your position if someone presents you with a superior one.
• Chapter 3: Instead of assuming someone is wrong and trying to explain why, try finding the answer to this question: “How is it I know for sure they are wrong?”
• Chapter 4: We self-sabotage with a false, zero sum reality when we frame an argument with militarized metaphors, such as: “I think they will destroy my argument if I use that strategy.”
• Chapter 5: Thinking of people as individuals instead of lumping them together in classes will minimize assumptions, which are usually inaccurate and potentially harmful.
• Chapter 6: If you can’t imagine a situation in which you would change your mind about a certain position, there is a good chance you have lost touch with logic.
• Chapter 7: Our positions become easier to examine if we look at them through the eyes of an honest, rational person who holds an opposing view.
• Conclusion: Improving your thinking requires a fundamental character shift to support improvements in thinking technique.

Tim Ferriss (Quote)

By Austin Collins

“What would this look like if it were easy?” – Tim Ferriss

The more often I ask myself this question the easier life seems to get. It is brilliant for 2 reasons. First, it does not trigger defensiveness because it’s hypothetical. Second, it takes advantage of the fact we see what we look for. Even if there is no truly “easy” solution, if I take a step back and look, I’ll find an easier one than if I jump in without reflecting. Check out other interesting questions, and equally interesting answers, from Tim.

Kevin Rose (Resource)

By Austin Collins

Kevin Rose is one of my favorite curators. Intelligent, discerning, well connected and well traveled. He tests, evaluates & shares the best ideas and objects he finds. Rose has given me leads on lifestyle staples in areas as wide ranging as stress relief (Kava tea), meditation, and cryptocurrency.

Here are the 3 methods (all free) to tap into Kevin’s insight:

• Block Zero – Cryptocurrency focused podcast. Interview format. Kevin talks with crypto leaders in surprisingly understandable language.
• The Journal – Monthly email newsletter. Various gadgets and lifestyle ideas.
• Kevin Rose Show – Interview format podcast. General personal development / lifehacks.

Peak (Book Notes)

By Austin Collins

Peak – Secrets from the new science of expertise by Anders Ericsson, Robert Pool (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 5, 2016)

If you want to get better at getting better, this book is for you. It is empowering to watch science disprove many of our commonly held limiting beliefs about things like “potential” and “natural talent.” Expertise in nearly anything is attainable through disciplined, long term application of a systematic framework for improvement. I have applied lessons from Peak to improve the quality of my practice. As a result, both the rate and the quality of my learning have impoved. Our entire family will continue to benefit from these lessons.

• Introduction: As humans, we create our own potential by training our brains, and are not limited to a predetermined amount of “potential.”
• Chapter 1: “Purposeful Practice” is a specific practice methodology optimized for continued progress, and includes:
  • Concrete, measurable goals of incremental improvement
  • Rapid, honest feedback loop
  • Continually pushing through current limits
• Chapter 2: “Purposeful practice” increases your physical ability to perform what you are practicing (including measurable changes to your brain), which disproves the theory that ability is predetermined by genetics.
• Chapter 3: Sidestep the limits of short term memory and increase performance by building and upgrading “mental representations,” which include:
  • Pieces of new data
  • Meaning (which turns pieces of new data into “chunks” stored in long term memory)
  • Retrieval structure
• Chapter 4: The fastest and most certain path to expert performance is “Deliberate Practice,” in which “purposeful practice” is guided by an expert coach.
• Chapter 5: Focus on developing skills, not increasing your knowledge.
• Chapter 6: Increase motivation by maximizing reasons to persist and minimizing reasons to quit.
• Chapter 7: Huge progress is possible at any age through either “purposeful practice” or “deliberate practice.”
• Chapter 8: Natural intelligence can provide an edge at the most basic levels of skill acquisition, but the quantity of “deliberate practice” is the only clear predictor of future mastery.
• Chapter 9: Teaching is most effective when skills (not just information) are taught with a combination of deliberate practice and expert mental representations.

The Financial Argument For Jaywalking

By Austin Collins

I jaywalk as often as I can safely do so. Not because I’m late or impatient, but because small things become big things. In other words, jaywalking creates leverage. Want more money? How about a few more vacation days every year? These are big things. But you can get them with small changes. What if you didn’t need a promotion to earn more, or a signature from your boss to take an extra vacation? What if all you had to do was jaywalk?

Deceptively small daily changes can change everything. This is important. It is high impact. And it is easy. Adjust small patterns to free up 1-4 minutes per day. A huge shift in your life is within reach… Right now.

This leverage hack illustrates the potential of small changes: Go to bed at the same time, but wake up 4 minutes earlier every day. If you sleep 8 hours per night, 4 minutes is 0.83% of your sleep. You will barely notice it the 1st day. By the 2nd day it should be no big deal.

4 minutes per day = 24.3 hours per year. If you work 8 hours per day, that’s equivalent to 3 extra vacation days. No signature from your boss required.

Time is non-renewable. We never know for sure how much of it we have left. These qualities make it our most critical resource. More time = more control. But how do you create more time?

You could make big changes. Big changes are a big deal. They usually involve huge amounts of discipline and factors outside your direct control. Or you can make small changes. Small changes are 100% within your control. They involve tiny amounts of time you will never miss. Don’t underestimate their power. These small changes compound and offer huge leverage.

As is so often the case, we must use assumptions to evaluate our options. As a financial advisor, I believe the right assumptions are the foundation for realistic expectations, evaluating risk, and determining the best course of action. Once determined, they must be continually reassessed to confirm they remain accurate. Let’s examine each one to decide whether we should honor that red hand on the sign across the street.

• Times per week jaywalking can safely be done: 15. I normally drive when in the city, and don’t do a ton of walking in areas with traffic lights. But a single short walk in downtown Seattle easily offers 5-10 opportunities to jaywalk.
• Number of weeks per year the “jaywalking per week” number applies: 48. I am usually out of downtown for around 4 work weeks per year. During these weeks I’m not in locations with lots of crosswalks.
• Average wait time for crosswalk: 30 seconds. When I can’t jaywalk safely, I count how many seconds it takes the light to change. Sometimes the wait is a minute or more. Other times it is only a few seconds. Different lights have different durations, but this is a consistent average.

Total time saved per year = 6 hours: (30 seconds) x (15 times per week) x (48 weeks per year)

What should you do with this extra time? One option is to trade it for money. Money is a measurement that everyone can understand. Therefore, it is the yardstick with which we will measure jaywalking’s compound, long term value.

• Value of your time: $50/hour. What rate per hour do you receive for working? If you are not working, what could you earn if you did? Make sure to add in all types of compensation (bonus, stock, etc.) to get a total annual compensation number. Then divide that by hours worked per year. If you get an overtime rate for extra hours worked, use that figure. We will use $50 / hour for our example.

• Cost of a traffic ticket: $47.
• Number of tickets received per year: 0.2. In nearly 30 years of constant jaywalking I have never received a ticket. But, in the interest of using assumptions that are both realistic and cautious, let’s assume one ticket every 5 years.

Annual value of jaywalking = $290.60: (6 hours) x ($50 per hour) – ($9.40 estimated ticket cost)

Lifetime value of jaywalking = $63,000: ($290.60 invested per year) x (40 years) x (7% annual investment growth)

I’m not recommending a maniacal focus on optimizing your life so you can load up on more work. A quantitative analysis using money illustrates the scale of leverage available from small changes. You could also trade this extra time for something qualitative. Use your leverage to improve any important genre of life (health, knowledge, humor, excitement, relationships, etc).

How do I use the time freed up by applying this concept? Margin. Margin is scheduled time that has no predetermined purpose. A shock absorber to ensure I don’t over commit. It is sanity in calendar form. Depending on the week I might use margin for work, spend more with my wife or kids, go for a long run, or have lunch with friends. Margin ensures I can honor my commitments and still have fun improvising life. Currently, 7.5% of my waking hours (9 hours per week) are margin.

For a closer look at margin, check out this post on the Ideal Week.

A few other personal applications of this concept:

• Use pouches to organize gym bag so I never have to dig around for things. (Est. daily time saved = 30 seconds) 
• Optimize driving routes for traffic light & traffic flow patterns. (Est. daily time saved = 3 minutes)
• The speed and quality of my decision making are poor in the first 30-60 minutes after waking. I design my mornings to be decision free. All choices about clothes and food are made the evening before. (Est. daily time saved = 2 minutes)
• These 3 examples save me an estimated total of 33 hours per year.

A couple final thoughts on adaptation and execution:

• Don’t be an idiot. If saving time means being dangerous, don’t do it. This certainly applies to jaywalking, but could apply to other areas as well. Trading safety for time is a fool’s bargain. Sacrificing health is a downside that no upside can compensate you for.
• Balance is key. Continue shifting your mindset, making efficiency gains until you notice a tiny bit of stress popping up. Then take a step back. Stress is an inevitable side effect of efficiency obsession. Be mindful and eliminate it before it becomes a pattern.
• You can find the best opportunities to apply this strategy at the intersection of high frequency and high time consumption. Saving 1.5 minutes per day may be easier than trying to save 10 minutes once per week.
• More time does not provide much leverage if the quality of your time is poor. Another post will address how to amplify the value of your time.
• Remember: 80 seconds per day = 8 hours per year (aka 1 extra day of vacation!)

Design Your Ideal Week

By Austin Collins

It was May 2015. During the previous 3 months, we completed construction and moved into a new home, my wife left her job to start her own company, and we finalized adoption paperwork for our 3 children. In August we would travel to the Philippines to bring the kids home. Panic. I had no idea how I was going to manage my time with all of these changes.  The sloppy, reactive time management strategies I’d used in the past required an overhaul. I needed a system. A system that would allow me to step back and work ON my life as well as IN my life.

As a financial advisor, I often recommend my clients use systematic savings from their paycheck to simulate a planned increase to expenses. They “test drive” the elevated future expense load before deciding to commit. Can the same concept be applied to time? Yes. It turns out there is a perfect tool for that job. It’s called the Ideal Week.

What would your Ideal Week look like? How would you spend your time if you had complete control over all 168 hours? A week like this will never happen. Yet the process of designing this Ideal Week offers surprising and compelling benefits.

Here’s why you should design your own Ideal Week:

• Clearly define all Areas of Responsibility (AORs) and determine current level of commitment to each.
• Awareness of conflicts between time demands.
• Real time visual comparison of real calendar vs. ideal calendar.
• Understand how to best paint values and intentions on the canvas of time.
• Use “margin” to minimize overcommitment and stress.
• Identify opportunities to take proactive & productive action.

I used the exact process outlined below to create my Ideal Week. Then I lived on that schedule for the next 3 months. The time management equivalent of simulating higher expenses with systematic savings. 

The most significant change was an immediate 15 hour reduction in my workweek. Every weekday, I forced myself to stop working and sit in the sun at 3:30 pm (the same time I would soon be picking our kids up from school).

Instead of stress I felt empowered. Suddenly I was inspired with focused creativity to get more high quality output from fewer hours. This is what happened: 

• Began to delegate consistently and effectively.
• Stopped wasting time.
• Eliminated redundant and irrelevant processes.
• Stress was absent because I had plenty of time to figure things out before adding kids into the mix. This translated into less self judgment and greater creativity.

But there are a seemingly infinite number of time management systems and philosophies. How do you find the right one? My approach was to synthesize ideas from thought leaders with proven track records. A list of the sources I used personally is included at the end of this post. 

Without further ado, here is the step by step process for creating your own Ideal Week.

Step 1: Gather materials

1. Existing calendar (previous 4 weeks): Seeing how your time is currently spent is a helpful reference as you build your Ideal Week. Compare your completed Ideal Week with your actual calendar and brainstorm possible changes in how you allocate time.
2. Blank calendar: Use a calendar format that will be easy to reference quickly in real time when you are using your actual calendar. You can quickly check how your actual time commitments compare to your ideal time commitments. My consolidated personal and professional calendars are on Google Calendar. A separate Google Calendar calendar called “Ideal Week” works perfectly. With one click I can toggle the Ideal Week on and view it side by side with my actual week.
3. Areas of Responsibility: Make a list of each of the genres of life in which you have responsibility at this moment. Some of these may have sub categories, while others may not. Here is an example from part of my list:
   • Human
   • Husband
   • Father
   • Personal (Intellectual, Physical, Spiritual)
   • Professional
   • “Margin”
4. Personal values: A current values list is a helpful reference when evaluating trade offs of how to allocate your time.

Step 2: Prioritize AORs

This is one of the main benefits of the ideal week. Your values list can be of help here. Make a list starting with your most important AOR at the top. Rank the others below in descending order of priority. When you fill your ideal week, you will start at the top of this list and work down. This step can be trickier than it looks. A personal example: In order to be of service to others, I believe I must be centered and present. Therefore, I prioritize “human” and “personal” above all other AORs.

Step 3: Schedule your Ideal Week

Start by blocking out the hours (for the entire week) required for your first priority AOR. Work your way down the list until you either get to the bottom, or run out of space in your week. Color code time blocks by AOR. Then you can visually check your relative level of commitment to each AOR (how much time do you have for work vs. family, etc…). Keep these in mind as you schedule your week:

• Clarity allows you to embrace the trade offs.
• Expect to make a few hard choices.
• Walk the line between ideal & realistic. Your Ideal Week should not neglect important commitments or financial responsibilities.

As a reference, here is a snapshot of my current Ideal Week:

Step 4: Set a “change buffer” for your real world calendar.

The world wants to control your time. Meetings pop up or change with little notice. Carpools and social commitments are always shifting. A “change buffer” creates the space necessary to align your actual calendar with your Ideal Week.

In general, the earliest a commitment is added to my calendar is one week in the future. This applies whether the engagement is new or being rescheduled. I call this a “calendar buffer.” Naturally, I’m always free to make necessary short notice changes. But implementing this buffer for externally driven change allows me to allocate my time with greater perspective.

Step 5: Optimize

You have completed your Ideal Week! This tool is most valuable when used and optimized consistently. I use a running list in Evernote to keep track of what’s working well, and any opportunities to improve. 

These questions have been useful in the ongoing optimizing process:

What is the best time of day for each block of time? All hours do NOT have equal value. I used to sleep from 11 pm to 6 am. Now I sleep from 9:30 pm to 4:30 am. Same 7 hours of sleep, but I traded 1.5 hours of evening time for 1.5 hours of morning time. Morning time is more productive, especially with the force multiplier of intense early morning exercise. I hate waking up early, but the benefits are too great to ignore. Give this a shot. Discipline equals freedom.

In which AORs do I feel off balance for more than a few days in a row? Most single days feel off balance in one way or another. Expect that. That feeling should fade over several days. If not, the Ideal Week should be adjusted to more accurately reflect the ideal execution of current priorities.

How is my “calendar buffer” working? It is critical to identify the different external forces that shape your time. Start a running list of all the external events that cause your calendar to change. Each time you change your calendar, write down the cause (kids, spouse, clients, etc…). Once you understand the source of the changes, you can craft a strategy to manage the changes from each source.

Ideal Week Resources

The concept of both Ideal Week and “margin” came from this podcast by Michael Hyatt. I loved the concepts, but needed a toolkit to adapt them to my life. So I read (or re-read) the following relevant books:

• Making it All Work by David Allen (Execution philosophy)
• Essentialism by Greg McKeown (Determining personal “essentials”)
• The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (Negotiating the “non-essentials”)
• The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber (Working “on” your business vs. working “in” your business)

I have iterated my Ideal Week several times over the last couple years. These are distilled bullets from my “Aha!” moments which fueled these iterations.

• Brainstorm. Be creative. Ask “what if…?”
• Give yourself permission to try things for a week without judgment.
• Look for patterns. Build on positive ones, replace negative ones.
• Where can you spend time simultaneously on multiple AORs? Here are a few of my favorites:
  • Do push ups while watching TV.
  • Get a customized education while commuting (podcasts and audiobooks).
  • Learn to think and communicate more concisely by becoming a better writer.
• Where can you save time? What time is spent needlessly?
• Apply the 80/20 law whenever possible.
  • What are the 20% of the things in your schedule (look backwards) that give you 80% of your enjoyment? Make sure they are in your ideal week.
  • What are the 20% of the things that give you 80% of your frustration? How can you negotiate, reduce or eliminate those?

Remember: It’s easy to live reactively when your priorities are not clear. It’s easy to feel like a victim when you don’t believe you have any agency.

Living Forward (Book Notes)

By Austin Collins

I always thought the term “Life Planning” sounded ridiculous. Life is way too dynamic to indulge in the delusion that we can plan out the distant future. I’m grateful that I read Living Forward and gave Hyatt & Harkavy the opportunity to prove me wrong. The book explains why and how to create a living document called a “Life Plan.” A Life Plan helps you live directionally correct. The ongoing process behind the Life Plan holds you accountable, while simultaneously growing and changing with you. This unique blend of flexibility and accountability aligns well with the Personal Leverage™ model.

• Chapter 1: Our default way of navigating life, “the drift,” can be counteracted by a flexible, action oriented system of intentionality called a Life Plan.
• Chapter 2: A Life Plan is like a GPS: If you clarify your current position and intended destination, your “GPS” helps you make better real time decisions to keep you on track.
• Chapter 3: There are 6 main benefits of a life plan, including clarity, alignment, balance and accountability.
• Chapter 4: Hindsight is 20/20: Writing your own eulogy provides the perspective of hindsight to help you shape a more meaningful future.
• Chapter 5: Prioritize each area of responsibility in your life, and then imagine each one as a bank account with its own unique balance.
• Chapter 6: In order to move in the right direction on purpose you must first define what “on track” looks like.
• Chapter 7: Maintain momentum when writing your life plan by scheduling a full 8 hour block of uninterrupted, technology free time.
• Chapter 8: Create space in your life to execute your Plan by doing the following:
  • Schedule your time in advance
  • Protect your time by using the “positive no” method to set boundaries
• Chapter 9: Make your Life Plan a part of your active subconscious by scheduling frequent reviews that include reading the entire document.
• Chapter 10: An effective Life Plan is contagious, because others will naturally be drawn to the changes they see in you and in your life.

For other book notes in the same 1 sentence per chapter style, click here.