Your Only Limited Resource
The Opportunity Filter, part 1 [What Leadership Looks Like]
Links to The Opportunity Filter, a “What Leadership Looks Like” series by David Drury:
You have but one limited resource: time.
You can make or raise more money. You can recruit or hire more people. You can buy or gather more materials.
Time is the only thing you can’t make more of.
Nobody gets more time in a week than anyone else. The most influential, rich, and powerful person in Silicon Valley has the same amount of time in a day as a beggar in a tent city ghetto in Sudan.
This is why so many people pay such careful attention to how they spend their time.
When leaders spend their time they are using up their most valuable resource, and intentional leaders know it.
The rub comes when more opportunities come your way than you can handle. The key is filtering out which opportunities are best to seize and which are not. However, yes or no is usually an oversimplification of how to handle things that hit your desk. You need some way to filter out which things require the most of your energy and which require the least, and everything in between.
That's where The Opportunity Filter comes in. First developed in my SixQ Coaching, The Opportunity Filter is a practical way to break down what comes your way and figure out your proper response. It helps you manage your energy and time intentionally.
Below I will briefly describe how each part of the filter works. Then, in subsequent writings, I'll move through the filter and explain how to respond to them (including a template response for each). Each filter requires more time the farther you go down.
Opportunities
Your opportunities are all the options that come your way. You might not think of each of these as a positive "opportunity" (as we will see soon they are not). What's more, some might be internal ideas you have to decide on whether to seize. In any case, your opportunities are the things you have to make decisions about your time on.
Dodge
Here is where you filter out those things you shouldn't spend time on. This includes spending time deciding on whether to do it at all and at times even spending the time it would take to tell people you're not going to do it.
Bless
Some opportunities only need your authentic thanks for the effort someone else puts into something you already value. However, you can do this in a way that requires minimal time. These are things that should happen, just not with a significant push from you.
Warn
Your colleagues need you to warn them to not engage in "opportunities" that are a waste of time. These things could be detrimental to their reputation or that of the overall organization or movement. These options require some effort to flag others away from them.
Launch
Sometimes you need to give a season of significant energy into launching something that needs your attention, resources, and even perhaps some of your credibility to get going. However, it doesn't require your efforts in the long run. You might be able to get it launched and then go back to the bless filter for it in an ongoing way.
Own
When you decide to own an opportunity, you have decided it is not something you can dodge, bless, warn, or launch. These are the options that require your ongoing effort and commitment, even when you lack motivation and energy for them. This is the stuff you're committed to with responsibility. If you can't say that, then one of the other four should be applied.
I’d be interested to know how you have sorted out opportunities up till now. What tools do you use or what ideas do you have? Or perhaps you have ideas already about this opportunity filter. Comment with the button below and let’s discuss it.
We will take a deeper look at each of the filters in subsequent writings, so be sure to subscribe below or share this with a friend who may be interested.
If you have interest in my SixQ coaching, you can look into the course by clicking here. My next cohort starts in early September. The deadline to sign up rapidly approaches.
I appreciate these distinctions, David. All too often we treat that funnel as the Plinko board. An opportunity drops in and we just passively see where it lands.
Eisenhower box/matrix. I'm excel-sheeted up on some custom-mashed stuff (all sortable). From left to right: Decide by date; Category; 1-to-10 (an intuitive feeling of the importance/urgency of a task relative to my other tasks); Task (a note on the task itself); Resources (available or not); Easy (yes or no); Urgent; Important; Zone (relates to the Eisenhower box, 4 being not urgent not important, 1 being important and urgent); Time management (a guess at how long it'll take me to complete the task; I've gotten within 15 minutes of most tasks consistently, estimating the amount of content and how long it takes me to do a portion of that content); and last, Related (are there other tasks this is related to; sorting by the related column allows me to set a to-do list for a project/task).
I keep a legend of these for my own information (otherwise how would I remember that 13 is soft skill learning/professional development).
Additionally, I've got a master list of skill metrics/competencies to consider my learning objectives.
All in all, this excel sheet is wonderfully helpful when I'm using it actively, takes very little time to use, and helps me prioritize my time (and decreases procrastination because I can block my day out based on my time estimations, flexibly).
When I'm dysfunctional, this list serves as an anchor. A guilt/shame icon to remind me of what I've yet failed to complete.
There was a tool I heard someone recommend one time which involved putting balls or rocks in a jar, and every time I complete something to put it in as a visual representation of my activity. Struggle is that same issue with the guilt/shame cycle.
Additionally, there's several "rules of thumb" I've got posted on my walls to remind me occasionally about things that make my life easier.
One touch rule: do it (or schedule it), delete it, delegate it.
2-minute rule: if it can be completed in 2 minutes or less, just do it.
Lastly, there's a Trigger List from Get Things Done that has a whole list of responsibilities, activities, etc., that can "trigger" a memory of "Oh that's right" - or in my case, serve as a list from which to draw further stuff to get done.