How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
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How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
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Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#2I hate articles that start out with lies. The average tech CEO does not work 11.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. There might be a few tech CEOs who work that long, but I am guessing for most of them it isn't a sustainable workload.
I actually think the tips here are fine, but the premise that all successful people in silicon valley work ungodly amounts per week are inaccurate. I know many very successful people who work 40-50 very efficient hours a week.
Also, one last comment...
> Demonstrate the 80/20 rule in everything you do. This means spending 80% of your time on the work that moves the needle, and only 20% on the smaller stuff.
Generally in this context, the 80/20 rule is used to mean that you get 80% of the benefit with 20% of the effort, it isn't a rule about how to divide up your time. IE in the time management context, it would mean you get 80% of the progress you create in 20% of your time spent working. The key is figuring out what you are doing in that 20%.
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#3Warning, if you have cookies blocked, this will hang the page, at least Firefox. That's a new one.
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#4[deleted]
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#5I hate articles that start out with lies. The average tech CEO does not work 11.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. There might be a few tech CEOs who work that long, but I am guessing for most of them it isn't a sustainable workload. I actually think the tips here are fine, but the premise that all successful people in silicon valley work ungodly amounts per week are inaccurate. I know many very successfu…
>> The average tech CEO does not work 11.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. There might be a few tech CEOs who work that long, but I am guessing for most of them it isn't a sustainable workload.
Articles often get to this by counting stuff that you and I would consider not-work time. I read an article about a banking CEO who claimed to work 65+ hours per week. His daily schedule went from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm each weekday. That included taking calls as he commutes for an hour, a breakfast meeting, an hour at the gym with a couple VP's, and an hour networking at lunch. His actual desk-and-meeting time was about 9 hours.
It's still a large time commitment, but it's not that different from what the rest of us do.
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#6I think the best CEOs generally get the most out of their time by spending the first 8 hours or so of each day reading about what other CEOs do.
Or, maybe each has his/her own style that works for him/her.
I viscerally hate these articles.
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#7I think the best CEOs generally get the most out of their time by spending the first 8 hours or so of each day reading about what other CEOs do. Or, maybe each has his/her own style that works for him/her. I viscerally hate these articles.
Bill is incredibly smart. And provides interesting advice.
It's amazing to me that you can learn nothing from the article. Or that you think CEOs shouldn't take the time to learn from other CEOs.
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#8As an aside - can anyone comment on the 7 minute workout [1] linked to in the article?
[1] http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-mi...
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#9I hate articles that start out with lies. The average tech CEO does not work 11.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. There might be a few tech CEOs who work that long, but I am guessing for most of them it isn't a sustainable workload. I actually think the tips here are fine, but the premise that all successful people in silicon valley work ungodly amounts per week are inaccurate. I know many very successfu…
>> The average tech CEO does not work 11.5 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. There might be a few tech CEOs who work that long, but I am guessing for most of them it isn't a sustainable workload. Articles often get to this by counting stuff that you and I would consider not-work time. I read an article about a banking CEO who claimed to work 65+ hours per week. His daily schedule went from 6:00 am to 7:00…
Similarly, very hard to measure the amount of time that we spend actively thinking about our work outside of the office. My first job was in investment banking, where I was physically in the office or meetings far more than my bosses; when I was outside of the office (what little time that was), I was rarely thinking about my job. It was clear, however, that the best mid-level and senior men/women were thinking about their clients and brainstorming even while they might not technically be working.
Re: How the Best CEOs Get the Most Out of Every Day
#10I think the best CEOs generally get the most out of their time by spending the first 8 hours or so of each day reading about what other CEOs do. Or, maybe each has his/her own style that works for him/her. I viscerally hate these articles.
Bill is incredibly smart. And provides interesting advice. It's amazing to me that you can learn nothing from the article. Or that you think CEOs shouldn't take the time to learn from other CEOs.
I didn't even read Bill's article. My comment is not a commentary on the person, but the "feel" of articles like these.
There are certainly CEOs that I admire and I'm not advocating that we stick our heads in the sand. But, good grief, how many articles, books, blog posts, talks, etc. about "what successful people do" do we really need?
I hate the fallacies they promote: a.) you are too stupid to figure out how to succeed, and b.) you should therefore worship others to the point that you mimic them as a path to success, and c.) that (by implication) if you are not succeeding, then it's because you haven't studied and imitated others enough.
BTW, it's another fallacy that if we just all go out and do X, then we can succeed too. It's ridiculous, really. A little advice is fine, but there is this culture that we all need to swim in the same direction, following the anointed few who have figured it all out when we could not. Go to the mountaintop to confer with Tim Ferriss or Jason Fried, and all will be well. Well, maybe they got lucky. Maybe if they'd studied what the reader did every day, they'd be 12 times more successful.
It's so stifling, condescending, and flat-out unworkable. It is also potentially demoralizing to founders who are working hard to gain traction. Insidiously enough, this, even while it appears to be inspirational.
If you were thinking and working hard every day at the incredibly complex and difficult task of lifting a startup off the ground, and you read one of these types of articles a day, you would run in circles and fall into a deep depression. Meanwhile, the actual extent to which the cacaphony of such advice will move the needle for such a founder is miniscule.
How about this? Think and work as hard and as smart as you find you need to. Listen to your own instinct and use your judgment, even in taking advice from others (including mine). You have what you need to succeed. Screw the people who keep trying to "help" you by implying that you are deficient; whether in books they are selling, facile articles with linkbait titles, or otherwise.