Buffer Your Life and Business

10/13/22 • 26 min

I have been habitually late my whole life. This is not new news to long-time Smart Cleaning School Podcast listeners. In fact, I blamed it on my mom in a past episode. Let me first right a wrong. My mom declares that it was not her that was always late when I was a kid. Yes, our family was always late for events (all of them). But my mom has edited my blame from her to her husband, my step-father Paul. Sorry Dad. You're the culprit of lateness. I was influenced by this as a kid and carried lateness into adulthood. It wasn't until a few pivotal times that I learned some things that would change me. One is from the Royal Rangers Ministry that I am very invested. I've been to leadership training camps with the Rangers and hear this from the beginning to the end. "5 minutes early is on time and on time is late." The other is from my Pop-Pop. I shared in "He Built You a Clock" how my Pop-Pop showed me all throughout his life that being on time was important. It showed others that you value their time. I learned this on the weekends growing up and learned lateness during the week. At the age of 45, I can say that I finally get it. I don't want to be late anymore. I want to show people that I value them by being there on time. In fact, I want to be early. Does this relate?

How do you change? It seems so silly to ask, but let's break this down. You and I have been so programmed to leave the house at the exact time you need to get there on time. In many cases, we leave a few minutes later and believe we can make it up with going faster. We leave no margin for traffic, for forgetting something important at the house, for anything that could go wrong. In fact, we try a sort of inverse margin by leaving late and trying to miraculously make up the time. This margin is called a buffer. I want you to hear some notes from one of my favorite books called "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown. This comes from an article from mentalpivot.com.

Chapter 15: BUFFER: The Unfair Advantage

“A buffer can be defined literally as something that prevents two things from coming into contact and harming each other.”
Buffers are effective strategies for dealing with the unknown and circumstances beyond our control.
“The essentialist looks ahead. She plans. She prepares for different contingencies. She expects the unexpected. She creates a buffer to prepare for the unforeseen, thus giving herself some wiggle room when things come up, as they inevitably do.”
Extreme preparation vs. ideal circumstances as illustrated in the story of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott in the race to the South Pole. Amundsen build slack and buffers into his plan with food/supply caches, redundant supplies and frequent trail markers. Scott’s planned for the best-case scenario and once external circumstances upended Scott’s plan, his team paid the ultimate price.
As a rule-of-thumb: Double your time estimates.
Planning Fallacy: Human tendency to underestimate how long a task will take (even if they’re familiar with the task and have done it before).
Questions to ask when building buffers for personal projects:
1. What risks do you face on this project?
2. What is the worst-case scenario?
3. What would the social effects of this be?
4. What would the financial impact of this be?
5. How can you invest to reduce risks or strengthen financial or social resilience?

Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

Chapter 15: BUFFER: The Unfair Advantage

“A buffer can be defined literally as something that prevents two things from coming into contact and harming each other.”
Buffers are effective strategies for dealing with the unknown and circumstances beyond our control.
“The essentialist looks ahead. She plans. She prepares for different contingencies. She expects the unexpected. She creates a buffer to prepare for the unforeseen, thus giving herself some wiggle room when things come up, as they inevitably do.”
Extreme preparation vs. ideal circumstances as illustrated in the story of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott in the race to the South Pole. Amundsen build slack and buffers into his plan with food/supply caches, redundant supplies and frequent trail markers. Scott’s planned for the best-case scenario and once external circumstances upended Scott’s plan, his team paid the ultimate price.
As a rule-of-thumb: Double your time estimates.
Planning Fallacy: Human tendency to underestimate how long a task will take (even if they’re familiar with the task and have done it before).
Questions to ask when building buffers for personal projects:
1. What risks do you face on this project?
2. What is the worst-case scenario?
3. What would the social effects of this be?
4. What would the financial impact of this be?
5. How can you invest to reduce risks or strengthen financial or social resilience?

Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

Previous Episode

The Messy Middle

This will be a fitting follow-up episode to "2 Rewards and a Consequence" I shared an elaborate goals structure for 90-day SMART goals. That's what I'm doing. I didn't want it to necessarily be what you're doing. Each of us is unique and responds to goal-setting differently. I know that I've covered these stats before, but listen to them again. 83% of people do not set goals. 14% set goals, but don't write them down. These 14% are 10x more successful than the non-goal-setters. 2% set goals and write them down. They are 30x more successful than the non-goal-setters. 1% set goals, write them down, and are held accountable to achieving them. This 1% Club is over 100x more successful than the non-goal-setters. The takeaway should be abundantly clear. Set goals, write them down, and get into accountability. If you don't, you'll wander aimlessly with the 83%. Let me also be clear. I never said the 83% were unsuccessful! Many of them do extremely well and many of them do not. These stats simply show that the average of the non-goal-setters pales in comparison to the focused few that have goals.

Now, I would like to introduce a concept to you. It's called the Messy Middle. I have referred to it in this podcast before. I'll describe it first outside of cleaning. This is my wife's project right now. You are fed up with the state of your home. It's cluttered and full of 20 years of kids stuff, trinkets, unused furniture, books and more books, papers, keepsakes. This has been mounding up for years and nothing you do ever seems to reduce the size. It just grows. [Notice that I didn't say that the kids themselves were the clutter.] You feel tight and stressed every day you walk through your home and see it. Is this a Hoarders episode? No, this is no where near that. But it's bad and stressful and an eye-soar to you. You've finally had it! You proclaim a new goal! I am going to declutter this house. I am going to get rid of all the junk. I am going to create space. I am going to have peace back in my home. There's an "I've had it" moment. This happens in way more than just your house. It's in your health or weight, your relationships, your finances or debt, your business, your job. Do you relate? Back to this decluttering project.

You've proclaimed your new goal. The thought of a decluttered and minimized home sounds like paradise. You get excited. In fact, you get really, really, really excited. You are ready to bag everything, tear down drywall, and personally lift dressers by yourself to accomplish this goal. Adrenalin is rising. It's the beginning and you have a new goal's Dopamine spike! Have you ever been there? You can see what it will look like in the end. You begin.

You're a few days into your project. The work is getting cumbersome, monotonous. You're starting to struggle with decision fatigue on what to get rid of and what to keep. Do you keep this beautiful work of art from 12 years ago that simply says "I love you, Mommy" in green crayon on red construction paper. There's no date, no name. But you know who did it and now they are driving a car. Even though the work is getting to be work, you're still excited as you can see the finish line. You keep going.
Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

Next Episode

Pay the Tolls

I have a friend that I wish to keep anonymous. However, her story is one that I think many can relate to. Let's call her Abby. Abby is a single mom with 2 teenage kids that need her a lot. She also has a full-time job that needs her even more it seems. She can't seem to balance it all to get time for herself. Add to this that Abby was in a bad car accident as a young adult and suffered severe back injury. Thankfully, the accident was not her fault and she gets a monthly payout from the law suit for life. Obviously, it's not enough and can never pay for her back. But it helps her get by. The back injury has made sleeping virtually impossibly as she suffers every night with pain and discomfort. Many nights Abby will get to bed around 8:30pm and toss in bed sleepless with pain until 4:00am. When she finally falls asleep, her brain only registers an hour and a half to 2 hours of sleep because Abby has to get out of bed to go to work to pay the bills and take car of her kids. Somehow Abby has been able to function in life with little sleep. She gets her work done. She gets home to get her kids to and from school, feed them, clothe them, help them with their homework, and keep the house. Abby is a hero to those kids. All she wants is some sleep and some time for herself. So she pays a big cable bill to have her shows to give her some peace before another long night of sleeplessness. Can you relate to this story about Abby at all. Do you know anyone like this?

In a recent call with Abby, I learned some incredible news. She found a magic pill that one of her doctors wanted her to try. It enabled her to sleep through the night! Abby also noticed that she was more focused after getting good sleep. She could get things done at work faster. She didn't go through the day depressed or anxious. She had more peace, more ability to perform, more patience for others, more of a mom to her kids. This was incredible! I was nearly shouting through the phone! Just two of these pills and she could sleep. Praise God, right? Yes. But... it isn't free or part of a prescription plan. Abby has to pay close to $200 per month of money she doesn't have to afford the magic pills. She wanted help figuring this out.

Abby has no money left over at the end of the month, so where was she going to find an extra $200? Since I'm a total numbers nerd, we dug into her budget and I saw the problem right away. The answer glared back at me. She was paying $275 per month for her cable bill, which included her internet. She also drove a luxury car which has average maintenance costs at $500 per visit to the shop. Everything else on her budget looked reasonable to me. I looked up her car compared to a similar Toyota model and found it to cost $13,000 more from purchase to maintaining for 5 years. This was an additional $220 per month in luxury car expenses. So I explained to Abby that she is also spending an extra $150 per month minimum for her high-end cable and internet service. Thus, I saw a potential of $370 per month in budget cuts. I compared that to the $200 per month expense that is changing her life with better sleep and productivity. I explained further that since she was asking my advice, that I would say it plainly.

Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website