give your kids attention and they will listen to you

Here’s a suggestion I heard that I’ve also experienced. If you spend an hour playing checkers with your kid, the next time you tell them to stop doing something they will listen to you. If you don't spend time with your kids they will wonder who the stranger is giving them orders. This same concept is generally applicable to all relationships. If you cultivate the relationship, it makes the person more receptive to you.

check you have the right template before applying it

I was trying to use a spreadsheet template for a process and kept failing. Finally I started the process from scratch and succeeded. Templates are great. But before you use a template, make sure it fits the intended task. Sometimes you will spend more time in total by applying the wrong template first instead of creating something from scratch. Do a quick check first to ensure your template fits your task. This reminds me of the saying - think before you act.

you're more efficient when the time is precious

I was working on the weekend when I had a realization. I was more efficient in my work when it was eating up my precious weekend. Think of 9-5 Monday - Friday as weekend time to preserve your personal time by working more effectively and efficiently.

time constraints focus your efforts

My training team was 40 minutes late returning from lunch. We discovered that we were supposed to be prepping for a presentation and only had 15 minutes left. We pinned down the key points of our message, recycled some content held between us, and established the responsibilities of each person. Based on our presentation we were selected as the winner out of five teams. Other teams spent about an hour prepping. Some clearly over-thought their message. Because we were constrained on time we got to the heart of the message and left out the low value fluff. With 25% of the time invested versus the competition we obtained 100% of the win.

Fail fast, learn and accomplish more

When faced with an unfamiliar or ambiguous situation it is helpful to put a strategy in place and take exploratory action. Much time can be wasted on low value theorizing. This is particularly true as the risks or costs of failure fall. In comparing the time investment of researching and theorizing a solution for an hour versus experimenting on a solution in that same time, the latter approach usually yields better and more specific insights.  Thus, better solutions are obtained faster. Particularly with internal work assignments I’ve benefited from the fast to failure approach. An additional benefit to testing ideas with action is that you will know why an alternative is not viable. This is a strong point from which to champion your final solution.

Sometimes avoidance costs more than acceptance

I was put in a group of more experienced people with the assignment of delivering a 20 minute presentation. All the experienced people in the group began some serious navel-gazing. I tried to steer the conversation toward the content of our presentation, but a couple of people were focused on pinning presenting assignments on others than themselves. After 30 minutes had passed I realized the stupidity and futility of the room. I volunteered for a five minute assignment and the meeting ended almost immediately thereafter. Putting the extreme stubbornness of several individuals aside, we saw that one question provided all of the friction that wasted everyone’s time.

Divide and Conquer

I needed to learn a presentation. I took the sample provided and divided it into coherent sections. Now I had manageable, related chunks of information I could analyze and digest. These sections more readily fit in my calendar in the blocks of time available prior to my deadline. Thus time spent deconstructing the subject yielded most of the conceptual and structural understanding I needed.

It's also what you choose not to do

I received a request that at first glance appeared to be a lot of work with something I'm not familiar. I knew I had bigger priorities so I reached out to someone familiar with my situation. This person gave me several key insights and prevented me from spending any time on a very low value task. In fact, the requester completely forgot and hasn’t brought the task up in more than a month. This is one of the great benefits of Pareto analysis applied to life. Unimportant tasks can fall to the wayside leaving more, valuable time for critical tasks.