What Can We Grab From A Schedule This Strict?

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and I recently became aware of a book
that’s just fascinating it’s called the
rise of Theodore Roosevelt by edmund
morris and there’s all kinds of really
amazing things in this book there are a
couple of books out now about Teddy
Roosevelt Teddy Roosevelt including one
where he had to defend himself in a
libel suit that’s and that’s for another
video but this particular book talks
specifically about just how dedicated
and focused and disciplined Teddy
Roosevelt was it was stunning as I’m as
I’m reading through this I want to share
with you what he said was a sample
schedule of Teddy Roosevelt’s day first
of all he go to bed every night at
midnight so he’d get up at 7:00 in the
morning breakfast 8 o’clock a speech
somehow he was speaking at 8 o’clock in
the mornin 30 serene at 8 o’clock 7:30 a
speech very tight schedule 8 o’clock to
9 o’clock he would read write 9 o’clock
another speech 10 o’clock dictating
letters so he would accumulate all of
his work and then dictate the letters 11
o’clock meetings and I want you to pay
attention we’re gonna come back to the
meetings then 11:30 in the morning
another speech at 12 o’clock reading
until 12:30 so a half an hour of reading
then at 12:30 a luncheon speech did a
lot of speaking then at 1 o’clock you
have that lunch right 1:30 another
speech 2:00 2:30 reading again reading
he used to read a lot
3 o’clock he would answer telegrams
because that was one of the prevalent
ways that people communicated back then
is 10 of telegrams 3:45 a speech 4
o’clock he would meet the press every
day and speak with the press for 30 more
reading 5 o’clock another speech 6
o’clock
reading 7 o’clock supper and then at
night he you
Julie had oddly enough a speech to give
and then more than one in some cases at
eleven o’clock he made sure he was on
his way home he would read in the car on
the way home and then would be asleep by
midnight
that was his typical day and he repeated
this on a regular basis but remember
when I said he would take meetings and I
wanted to come back to those he used to
hold the kind of meetings that today are
being rediscovered as the great way to
do meetings right we tend to look at
meetings as hour-long half-hour long
some multiple of half-hour long elements
in our day and most meetings
oddly enough don’t require that much
time they just don’t there’s a lot of
you know welcome to the meeting let’s
how’s everything going little small talk
and then wrapping things up how are
things going with the family you know
but the truth of the matter is is that
you can get a lot more done if you
narrow the window that you have
available I think I said at another
video that I had a boss at America
Online that asked me one day how long
would it take you to build this area
because I used to build areas for AOL
and I’m like you know maybe a couple
weeks and he goes what if you only had
two hours what could you get done in two
hours and it was it was mind-blowing to
me that you know you want to give
yourself enough time to do things but if
you just narrow your focus you become
really attuned to what’s essential he
used to hold on average seven and a half
minute meetings now he was the president
and this wasn’t unusual and continues
not to be unusual for presidents to hold
these snap very short meetings but think
about it that’s a pretty important job
don’t you think you’d want to hold
meetings that allow you to dive deep
into what’s needed well in the case of
the President and maybe even in the case
of you and I going with what’s essential
as opposed to what’s complete what may
not be necessary can be really valuable
in focusing and disciplining your time
so here’s the takeaway from this yes he
had a very strict schedule
yes it was very rigid yes it was very
very methodical but he did something in
his meetings that I think all of us can
learn from and that is to narrow the
window for each one of the tasks in
those meetings and we have an example
already in our lives that we can learn
from and that’s phone calls right when
we want to call somebody and get some
information those phone calls rarely
last a half hour or an hour
they are often like hey I was wondering
if I could get some information from you
thank you very much I appreciate it hope
all is well with you bye-bye right what
if we really paid attention to narrowing
the focus of those times that we spend
each day meeting with other people
talking with other people and really
getting to the heart of things and even
if we have to tell that other person
look I’m just trying to be efficient
because my day is packed I wish I could
spend more time with you but I just
can’t but you get what you need done you
give them what they need narrowing the
focus is kind of the opposite of the
whole the job will expand to fit the
time allotted it well if we narrow that
time down we’ll still get stuff done and
we’ll be able to get more things done in
a shorter amount of time what do you
think of this I mean what do you think
about this in general in terms of taking
your time and focusing it down let me
know in the comments below and by that I
mean if you’re on vo to go go calm
if you’re not on vo to go go calm please
pop over there we’d love to have you
there we have all kinds of great tips
and tricks and strategies and tactics to
help make your performance career
fantastic voiceover on camera whatever
leave us a comment there that’s where
the conversation is saying and moderated
and we love having the conversation
occur there rather than on YouTube or
anywhere else and if you’d like to be a
member a subscriber of my youtube
channel go ahead and click on my head
there if there’s no head look for a
subscribe button somewhere on the page
if you want to see the latest episode of
these videos go ahead and click on that
frame and YouTube will play it for you
I’m David H Lawrence xvii
thank you so much for watching and I’ll
talk to you tomorrow.