There’s a Hole in Your Bucket!

Originally shared in A Daily Dose Of Leadership on January 17, 2017.

On the way to the office this morning, John Maxwell taught me something that I’m still trying to completely process. (I’ll bet you didn’t realize that John and I carpool almost every morning and every evening!) It’s a really simple concept, but I don’t think I’ve quite digested how much impact it really has…

Before I go into anything else, John doesn’t really ride with me. I do listen to some sort of lesson from him almost every day though. This one was from 1996; about four years before I had even heard of him.

I’ve heard John teach several lessons over the last few years where he talks about how time can’t really be managed. The one I’ve been through most recently has been chapter 13 of Leadership Gold, Don’t Manage Your Time, Manage Your Life.

Hopefully we’re all growing wiser with time, not just simply growing older. (That’s something he hits on a lot too but I’ll save that for another time.) John is no exception. The topic of this lesson from 20 years ago was Time Management. While he certainly takes a different approach to this today, that lesson has been incredible.

So here it is: “Most time is wasted not in hours, but in minutes. A bucket with a small hole in the bottom gets just as empty as a bucket with a big hole…”

Like I said, fairly simple concept. But don’t miss the impact I’m sure it has somewhere in your life. As I shared this idea with a dear friend this morning just minutes after hearing it, our conversation went directly to Facebook. I would like to think that neither of us are necessarily Facebook junkies, but I know I’ve wasted HOURS there – just a few MINUTES at a time… This is also a concept that was applied (although never explained quite this simply) when applying LEAN manufacturing principles to focus on improving productivity; looking at ways to make small improvements to highly repetitive processes often led to a huge time savings.

Is there any chance this applies to you? If you tell me it doesn’t, I’d guess you lie about other things too! I’m certainly not making a case for all work and no play. Quite honestly, I hope to be sitting on the couch with Cindy this evening to see if Bob Lee Swagger was able to rescue his daughter from the Russian Embassy on a previous episode of Shooter… That will be a one hour investment into our friendship (me & Cindy. I doubt Bob Lee will know if we watch or not…)

My challenge for you is to consider those minutes that neither of us usually pay much attention to. How could they be used for good?