The Minimums System: Preserving What’s Precious
Most of you reading this article have signed up for demanding roles. By that I mean that you are willing to make certain tradeoffs and sacrifices to meet the challenges of your job. However, if you ask people flat out are you willing to trade off your health or sacrifice your relationships with the people you love for your job, almost everyone says no.
Yet every day many of us, unintentionally, develop patterns and habits that put these precious priorities at risk. Even worse, giving up too much of your personal life can undermine the very career goals you are striving for (see How to Avoid 8 Serious Career Risks).
The Minimums System is designed to do 2 key things:
- Ensure that you are maintaining your most important personal and career priorities.
- Alert you immediately when you are putting something precious to you at risk. That means this week versus months or years drifting by.
Before I explain how to set up and maintain a Minimums System, I want to describe the reasons almost everyone needs one.
- Crazy Busy
Initially the lines between our personal life and work life got blurry. Now, for many roles, the boundaries have been eliminated. Most of us are being asked to “do more with less. And for many this is piled onto existing commitments to house care, child care, and elder care.
- Urgent vs Important
You probably first came across this concept in Time Management 101. “Urgent” items (a phone call/text/email, someone walking into your office, a notification on your device, someone offering the latest gossip) get our attention and often our time. More “important” priorities that don’t seem urgent in the moment (health, relationship, networking, strategic thinking, developing a financial plan) may not receive the focus they deserve.
- “Taking Things for Granted”
When we “take something for granted” we essentially assume that it will continue to be there. This could include our health, our relationships, clean drinking water, democracy, etc. One downside of this is we often aren’t as grateful as warranted but the other risk is that if we take something for granted we may not do what is really necessary to maintain it.
- The Law of Gradual Change
It can happen, but normally someone’s health doesn’t deteriorate overnight; the same is true for marriages coming apart, or becoming estranged from friends and family. These unfortunate events happen so gradually that we don’t notice the damage until “late in the game.” Sometimes too late.
As I will write about in the next article we often have had positive routines in all areas of our lives that we gradually and unintentionally drift away from.
The Minimums System
- Identify Your “Gaps”
- Create Minimums
- Put it on the Calendar
- Set up Accountability
- Identify Your “Gaps”: “Does Your Video Match Your Audio?”
Let’s say that I asked you to list your top 5 priorities in life and “Maintaining My Health” was on your list (that’s your “audio” i.e. what you say is important to you). Then I get your permission to follow you around for a week. I get to observe how you actually spend your time; what you prioritize and what you neglect (this is your “Video”, what we would see). If, after a week, the video would NOT indicate someone who is making health a priority, that is a GAP. Your Video (behavior) doesn’t match what you say is important. Remember this isn’t Marty’s list or your best friend’s, or a leadership guru’s priority; this is your list.
Since I have explained the Minimums to thousands of people through coaching and seminars let me make it easier for you to identify your GAPS by sharing the most common examples.
- Health:
GAPS related to:
– Sleep
– Nutrition
– Fitness
– Stress Management
– Medical/Dental Appointments
– High Risk Behavior
- Romantic Relationships:
GAPS related to:
– Communication
– Touching/Intimacy
– Fun/Enjoyment
– Time Alone
- Relationships with Your Children
GAPS related to:
– Maintaining Connection
– One-on-One Time with Each Child (Many children will not open up or share what is going on with them in front of a sibling).
– Dinner with the Family
- Relationships with Friends and Family
GAPS related to:
– Maintaining Connection
- Financial Independence
GAPS related to:
– Financial Plans
– Financial Advisors
– Tracking Expenses
– Tracking Investments
- Career Goals
GAPS related to:
– Networking
– Self-Promotion
– Reflection/Strategic Thinking
- Religious/Spiritual Goals
GAPS related to:
– Religious/Spiritual Practices
Homework: Please identify and write down any of your current GAPS. If you need more guidance in identifying your GAPS, taking the Resilience Self-Assessment will be illuminating.
(Contact merry@optimumassociates.com for more information about this).
- Create MINIMUMS
A MINIMUM is the smallest, meaningful behavior change that will start to close a GAP, i.e. begin to bring your behavior more in line with your values and priorities.
Small – We want MINIMUMS to be effective. You want to hit your minimums each week. So they need to be realistic and doable based on your situation. So if you haven’t been coming home for dinner, don’t set a minimum of being home for dinner 5 nights a week. If you haven’t been moving much lately, don’t set a minimum of running 3 miles a day.
Meaningful – The MINIMUM needs to be big enough so that it not only starts to move you towards your goals, but it also meets the “optics” test. It looks like a significant step to you and to anyone else impacted. It is designed to maintain a priority and prevent putting something precious at risk. Again, to help you get started here are some sample MINIMUMS. It is not an exact science but we believe in “progress not perfection.” If you get started setting minimums you can always adjust them as you move forward.
Sample Minimums
Health
– Nutrition – eating 2 salads/week
– Fitness – three 30-minute walking meetings/week; Pilates class once a week
– Stress Management –
– Slow, focused breathing 5-minutes a day
– A massage every two weeks
Romantic Relationships
– 15-minute check-ins four times a week
– “Date night” every two weeks
– Going away for a weekend twice a year
Relationships with Your Children
– Scheduling 20-30 minutes of one-on-one time with each child twice a week
– Dinner with family twice a week
Financial Independence
– Get the names of recommended financial advisors from 2 friends
– Track your expenses for one month
Career Goals
– Make contact with key people in your network every 4 months
– Have a lunch once a month with someone you want to add to your network
– Set aside 90 minutes a week for reflection/strategic thinking
Most people find that once they consistently meet their minimums they often are motivated to make them larger (but still realistic).
Homework: What are some possible MINIMUMS that would start to close your GAPS?
- Put it on the Calendar
It is not a MINIMUM until you schedule it. This is an essential part of the system, to dramatically increase the chances of meeting your commitment and as I will explain later, it even helps when you miss a MINIMUM. Of course if your minimum involves other people (relationship minimums) the scheduling is a collaborative process (but still in the calendar; sorry to nag).
- Set up Accountability
The best leadership advice I ever got was, “Inspect What You Expect” and it definitely applies to Minimums.
Two Options:
– Review your minimums every week or every two weeks to see if you are staying on track.
– Arrange for an “accountability buddy” who will review your minimums with you biweekly.
What happens if you miss some of your minimums? Of course we don’t want this to happen but when it does it reveals a simple but priceless benefit of the system: an early, early warning. I’ve had people tell me that they haven’t exercised for years; young couples with kids who haven’t been alone for years, etc. With the MINIMUM system, you get an alert within weeks. “Marty, you are putting something precious to you at risk. This is your stated priority. This is the minimum that you set to maintain it. You are not hitting your own minimum.”
If you miss a minimum consider the following:
– Was your minimum too big and unrealistic? If so, try a smaller minimum.
– Are you over-committed? Most of us are. Sometimes just trying to set minimums is the wake-up call. If so, even though it may take a while, you may be in a phase of life where you need to roll back or cancel some of your current commitments. Maybe right now, until you can meet your minimums, you might need to leave a community or school board or a church committee, and/or learn to say no and set boundaries at work.
– Not really a priority? This would be a tough conversation with yourself but if you consistently miss your MINIMUMS can you admit that this is not really a priority? Most of us don’t want to admit that but focusing on the implications of missing minimums can re-motivate us.
– Do you need stronger accountability? This is often the solution. So get a stronger accountability buddy. He or she doesn’t have to be a drill sergeant or Zen master (who both carry sticks) but they do have to be comfortable with “tough love.”
Hopefully you have enough information to set up your MINIMUMS. As you can tell this is a program that is dear to me so feel free to contact me if you have MINIMUM questions. Martyseldman7@gmail.com