Like almost everybody, I have to make constant corrections to how I manage my time. There always seem to be more opportunities than time available, more inbox than there are hours, and more people wanting ‘just ten minutes’ than there are ten minute segments. Time is a fixed commodity; you can always make more money, but you can’t make more time.

Today I want to share with you one of the biggest shifts I’ve made over the last ten years that has helped me manage time. It has less to do with a technique and far more to do with an attitude. I love reading great time management blogs and I pick up tips wherever I can. But you can do all of that and still be ineffective until you change this one thing.

What’s the one thing? It’s how you value your time. The realization I came to years ago was simple but life-changing:

Other people value your time exactly as you value it.

I know leaders who don’t seem to value their time at all. They spend a lot of time in casual conversation when they could be moving the ball down the field. They lack discipline when it comes to finishing tasks on time. They show up late to meetings. (Please hear me, we’ve all done these things occasionally. I’m talking about habitual patterns here, not occasional exceptions.)

Interestingly, these same leaders end up in meetings where the person they’re meeting with shows up late or cancels last minute. Or have trouble getting other people to hit deadlines or do what the team needs them to do. While there are a myriad of issues underneath that, one of the key ones is simply this: if you don’t value your time, why would others? Others value your time exactly as you do.

Contrast that with the habits of other people I know who really value their time. They’ve prioritized who they meet with, and while you might get some time at the water cooler with them to catch up, not everybody gets meaningful slices of their time. And that’s intentional.

If you have a conference call or skype set up with them for 3:00, the meeting begins at 3:00…and often they’re online a minute before. In addition, they’ve spent some time prior to that prepping for the call. They hit deadlines. They organize almost every hour of the day to get the most out of it, including down time and time with family. They might struggle from time to time with keeping all their tasks on schedule, but when you look at their capacity and output it is staggering compared to others. People don’t want to be late for meetings with them because they realize how valuable their time is valuable. When you get an hour with them, you value it. Because they value their time, others do.

So what are some signs you don’t value your time? Here are seven:

• You don’t have a plan for the week before it begins.
• You have no regular rhythm to your day or work week.
• You haven’t decided the kinds of people you are going to spend most of your meetings with and therefore try to squeeze in almost every request.
• You haven’t figured out a graceful, polite way to say no to the meeting/project requests that don’t fit your criteria.
• You habitually show up late or miss appointments.
• You enter into conversations/meetings without a goal or clear purpose in mind.
• You spend two hours at your desk but have accomplished nothing (except twitter, and Facebook and google searches).

People who value their time simply do the opposite.

• They have a plan for the week every week (I shared how I developed one here). Often it’s a standing plan.
• They have figured out that most of their work is predictable and built their priorities and calendar around it.
• They have pre-decided who they will and won’t spend their time with.
• They know how to say no gracefully.
• They show up on time, prepared.
• They have a clear goal for every conversation or meeting they have.
• Even social media has a purpose (beyond just endless recreation).

I haven’t nailed every behaviour yet, but I am convinced that no one else will value my time if I don’t. What are you learning on this? What are some best practices you’ve seen? What’s helped you value your time more.

If you’re like me, you like to track with people who are ahead of you in age and stage, and probably ahead of you in their level of ‘success’.  It’s a great way of learning and growing.  I’ve definitely got a group of people I’m tracking with personally and I’m so grateful for that.

Our capacity to learn from others has expanded exponentially over the last 15 years with the explosion of the internet.  In particular, the last five years have seen an even bigger spike as broadband has gone mobile. We are saturated with learning opportunities everywhere everyday.  I love that.

But one of the shadow sides of having more information is that it can lead to more imitation. Because you have constant access to people and organizations you admire, it’s easier than ever to imitate.

Imitation isn’t all bad.  There are instances when imitation is just wise and expedient.  Here are a few:

• When someone else has done something better than you could and
  • You are free to use their material;
  • There is no compelling reason to create local variations.
• When someone has figured out a smarter, faster way to get things done.
• No one on your team has the creativity to create a better mouse trap.

But imitation as a habit can be a big mistake, not to mention soul-killing.

In fact, over a sustained period of time, imitation kills innovation.

Imitate long enough, and imitate hard enough, and there won’t be much innovation left in you or your organization.  And for those of us who are Christians, there may not be much of God’s voice left in you either.  If you only listen to others, you can easily stop listening to God.

So what does constant imitation kill?  Plenty. But let’s look specifically at three ways innovation suffers at the hands of imitation.

Constant imitation kills:

• Your unique voice. If you are always trying to be someone else, you will never be yourself. And that’s a shame, because God actually created you.  It’s not that you shouldn’t learn from others (you really can’t learn all by yourself anyway), it’s just that you should stop trying to be someone else.  So just stop that.  Develop your own voice.   Learn from others, but be yourself.

• Your creativity. Some of the best ideas you’ll ever have seem dumb when you first have them. And sometimes they stay dumb.  But often they don’t…what’s crazy to begin with can become powerfully effective.  Five years ago a group of us left an almost paid for building to start a new non-denominational church that was 100% portable.  A year after I sat down with a colleague I really respected and he told me he thought we were crazy when he first heard of the idea.  Why leave what’s safe to move into the unknown?  Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about it that way until he mentioned it.  Glad I didn’t. We weren’t imitating anyone at the time…we were just doing what we believed we were called to do.  And five years later, I’m so glad we did it.

• Your true potential. Imitators are always one or two steps behind.  They have to wait for the next product, approach or strategy to be revealed.  Then they madly copy.  Your trajectory will never be greater than theirs. Ever.  It will always be a shadow of theirs.  Remember too, that the last thing the innovator you’re copying thought about when creating what you’re looking at was “Now what should I imitate next?”

Innovation is messy, uncertain, scary and frought with failure.  Which is why it’s so much easier to imitate.  And so less rewarding.

What are you imitating?  How much time do you spend working on something brand new and untried?

One of the chief enemies of your organization’s future is the status quo. Keep doing what you’re doing the way you’re doing it and eventually whatever you’re doing will run out of steam. There’s a reason they’re not still making the ’79 Pinto or that Pentium 1 computer you had when you were in school. Everything has a shelf life.

Change is what bridges the gap between what was and what needs to be.  The problem is that people resist change. As a result, most of us are content to milk the shelf life of a product or approach for as long as we can.  As we saw earlier this week, people usually only change when the pain associated with the status quo is greater than the pain associated with the status quo.

The best way to broker change when people are content with the status quo is this:

Raise the level of discontent with the status quo.

If you make people discontent enough with the way things are, they will begin to long for the way things could be.  And you will have ushered in a climate for change.

So how do you do that?  How do you raise the level of discontent with the status quo?  Here are three ways I’ve found helpful:

1. Get passionate. I love the quote attributed to John Wesley: “Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn.”  It’s true.  We want to live passionately – we just need someone to show us the way.  As a leader, why don’t you get so bothered by the need to complete your mission that it keeps you up at night? Why don’t you get so discontent with the unmet need around you that you come in to work each day committed to making significant progress toward meeting it?  Engage the need around you until it bothers you that it’s not being met. If you can’t get passionate about the cause your organization is designed to address, maybe you’re in the wrong job.
2. Focus on the cause. The more you focus your organization on the cause, the more innovative you will become. When everything becomes about efficiency, effectiveness and small tweaks, innovation (and change) dies. If you relentlessly focus on the cause, you will not rest until you have bridged the gap between what is and what needs to be.
3. Talk about why, not just what and how.  What and how are necessary, but not that inspiring.  Sure, you might need a building, a new organizational structure, a new program, or better cash reserves.  But who cares – really? Almost nobody. What people care about is why. If you focus on why you need to the next steps (and do so passionately in a way that focuses everyone on the cause), people will rally around the changes you need to make.

There are other ways to break our love affair with the status quo, but those are three approaches that have helped us navigate change.

What’s helped you?