Accomplish Great Things with the Jigsaw Puzzle Visual

 

Whenever I came cross biographies or anecdotes about people who achieved great things, I was left with burning questions like, How did this person accomplish so much? And, How did he or she find the time?

Well…I think I’ve figured it out. 

That’s not to say I’ve discovered something totally new, but rather that I’ve woken up to a simple truth that I should have recognized long ago. Today I’m able to make it work for me, with great results. (Namely, I get more done and I experience far less stress.) 

I’ve put some visual imagery to this truth, so that it continues to serve me well. I call it my Jigsaw Puzzle Visual™ approach to time management. And it’s pretty simple.

To illustrate it, picture a completed jigsaw puzzle. The number of pieces does not matter, for now. 

Let’s say this jigsaw puzzle represents your work life. Each piece of the puzzle represents one of the “projects” you currently have on your plate. By “projects” I mean the major categories into which your individual tasks or “to dos” are grouped. 

For simplicity, say there are five projects in total, labeled as follows:

1. Direct mail campaign for new clients

2. Blog: Launch it this month

3. Ongoing client copywriting jobs

4. Book proposal: Write and submit to publishers

5. Commercial real estate business opportunity with John

So, five projects on your plate equals five pieces in your jigsaw puzzle.

Now, here’s how my discovery came to be…

The list above is fictional, but items #4 and #5 were real puzzle pieces in my own jigsaw puzzle a couple months ago. 

Then one day, about a month back, I actually landed a book deal with a publisher! 

Suddenly, my puzzle piece #4 swelled in size because I instantly found myself committed to co-authoring a book (with Steve Slaunwhite and Ed Gandia as it happens.) 

Pre-book deal, my puzzle piece #4 required no more than a few hours of my time each week. But actually writing the book will now require several hours of focused work every day.  

This means puzzle piece #4 must now take up more space on my jigsaw puzzle.

Prior to using this jigsaw puzzle visual, I would have just updated item #4 on my list to read “Write the book!” and left it at that. I would have tried to “work smarter” or “dig deep” believing (naively) that I could somehow manage to write the book with no impact to the other commitments (“projects”) on the list. 

Using the Jigsaw Puzzle Visual, however, it’s clear to see that in order for item #4 to expand in size, another puzzle piece must shrink, or disappear altogether. 

That realization has made all the difference for me. 

As a result of getting the book deal, I’ve bumped the commercial real estate opportunity off of list of commitments. Is my colleague in this project disappointed? Perhaps.

But he’s a good friend and he understands how important this book deal is. And, even if he didn’t understand, it would not be fair to him, nor to me, to move forward with that puzzle piece still holding a spot in my jigsaw puzzle. 

Now he’s free to go it alone, or find another interested party and I’m free of the anxiety over when and how I would be able to fit that project item into my schedule.

By keeping the Jigsaw Puzzle Visual in mind, now I no longer need to ask how high achievers accomplish so many impressive feats. They find the time to do worthwhile and exciting things not by constantly adding to their list of commitments, but by constantly examining their own personal jigsaw puzzles, and re-sizing or re-structuring the puzzle pieces according to the changing circumstances and opportunities that show up in their lives. 

~~~

Pete Savage is co-editor of this blog and grew up, he just now realizes, with a mild phobia of 1000+ piece  jigsaw puzzles, which he regularly saw in various states of incomplete upon the kitchen table in his childhood home. Also, he has a free newsletter just for freelancers at http://www.savagemarketing.com/