The Christmas Panic

I don’t know how many times I’ve been physically ejected from stores late on Christmas Eve, not to mention the occasional crazy bargain, “Sir, how much do you have in your hand? Twenty bucks? Good enough, take the stuff. Now, GO!!!!”

Wrapping gifts into the wee hours of Christmas, getting to bed just before the kids were howling around the tree, with me desperate for some sleep being dragged down to the festivities.

Such craziness was not unique to my Christmas experience, however, but for far too long was a pattern in my professional life. Refining my opening arguments well after midnight before a trial in just a few hours. Actual experience, and insane. If I had a do-over of my career in law, “last minute” would be one of the first things to get harpooned.

Sure, I know all too well the wry saying, “If it weren’t for the last minute, a lot of things would never get done.” Some truth, but the question is not whether it gets done, but whether it gets done well.

I think it was attributed to Churchill that “nothing focuses a man’s mind more than the certainty he is to be hanged in the morning”. True enough, but most of us don’t go through life expecting the hangman’s noose at dawn. Most of us actually have the time to get things done in a timely fashion, and to get them done right.

The problem with “the Christmas panic” is that it leaves no room for margin, no allowance for second thought, and absolutely no opportunity to throw the whole thing out and start over again. The direct result of that is that we foreclose our opportunities of producing stellar work, and it is the consistent production of stellar work which creates the kind of reputation that puts you at the forefront of your profession.

Each of us has their own reason for procrastination. Don’t know your excuse, but mine was simple: trying to jam too much into too little time. And that happens for the very simple reason that things were not properly triaged and prioritized. When we tackle tasks on the basis of first come, first served, we waste so much time on the unimportant that the really critical stuff gets short shrift, and that means we produce mediocre work. And mediocre work also gives us a reputation, just not the kind we want.

There are a thousand ways of getting our lives more organized around what’s important, not what’s urgent. I’ve written before about the Eisenhower Matrix (https://mailchi.mp/735eccef9310/resolution-for-17980742?e=[UNIQID]) as an excellent example of what really works. What matters is not which tool we use, but that we clearly get our “important” ahead of our “urgent” so that our energy goes into what matters.

Oh, yeah, and I’m glad to say my Christmas gifts were all wrapped almost a month ago!