Prolific trainer Chris Croft helps to figure out what you should do really well and what you should do well enough to get the most out of your work and life.
Youâll Learn:
- How to identify squeezable tasks
- A 4-step process to saying no and negotiating
- Optimal systems for organizing the stuff of work and life
About Chris
Chris Croft has an Engineering Degree from Cambridge and an MBA, worked as a senior manager in manufacturing for 10 years and then as a university lecturer for five years before starting his own training company in 1995. Since then he has trained over 80,000 people, and his free email tips are sent to 20,000 people (www.free-management-tips.co.uk). Chris runs training courses in Project Management, Time Management and similar subjects almost every day, mostly in the UK, and has also produced a range of books which are available on amazon kindle, a project management rap which can be found on youtube, and phone apps called JobsToDo, Management Cards, and âDaily Happiness Tipsâ. Â He is featured on www.lynda.com and https://www.linkedin.com/learning where he presents courses on project management, assertiveness, negotiation, problem solving, and happiness. His Lynda.com Project Management course has had over a million views.
Items Mentioned in this Show:
- Website: chriscroft.co.uk
- Website: Lynda.com
- Website: Chris’s Free Email Tips
- Book: The Big Book of Happiness by Chris Croft
- YouTube: chriscroft87
- Book: Feel the Fear… and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers
- Book: The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
Chris Croft Interview Transcript
Pete Mockaitis
Chris, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.
Chris Croft
Itâs great to be here. Itâs an honor and fun to be here. Itâs great.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, Iâm delighted to have you. And your voice really does sound excellent. Can you share with the wider audience what you told me about one of your favorite YouTube comments?
Chris Croft
Yes. Iâm using this⌠Itâs quite an expensive microphone. Itâs $200 I invested to make myself sound as smooth as possible. And somebody at one of my YouTube videos sent me a comment saying, âYour voice is like butter.â So I didnât really know what to say about that. I was just talking about project management or something. So I actually replied and said, âDo you mean cold and greasy?â and he or she never replied to that.
But Iâm kind of glad about that. Iâm not looking for a second wife right now. Yeah, exactly. But if your videos get viewed by thousands of people, youâre always going to get some pretty weird comments. And I have. But yeah, just have a look at the YouTube clips themselves and youâll see some of the comments are quite strange, but so are the videos.
Pete Mockaitis
Whatâs fun is that you have such an array of videos and courses on Lynda. Thereâs about 14 of them. And so they span project management, time management, stress, happiness, productivity. So could you maybe orient us to whatâs kind of your overall philosophy or perspective on that stuff that you know about and cover?
Chris Croft
Thatâs a big question. Yeah. I think two answers there. Firstly, Iâm fascinated by project management because I donât think anyone has really nailed it. Itâs one of those subjects that everybody really makes complicated, and I think it can be made simple. So Iâm fascinated by project management. Iâve even made a project management rap which is on YouTube. Itâs five minutes. It does the whole subject.
But Iâm also fascinated by happiness because I think thatâs a really neglected area. Itâs the most important thing. Why do anything if itâs not going to make you happy? So money, work, time. The only point really is to get as much happiness. And Iâve been trying to get my head around happiness. And the more you look at it, the more slippery it is, but the more important you realize it is. And again, I think there are some really deep philosophical books which donât really nail it, and then there are some quite shallow things which just say, âHave a positive attitude.â
And so Iâve been looking into project management and happiness, which are two quite different things. But if I had to give you a life philosophy, I think itâs to enjoy and achieve at home and at work. If you had to have a sentence⌠And I think a lot of people are obsessed by achieving and they forget to enjoy themselves and be happy. And some people are really into happiness, but they donât achieve enough. And then in the end, that makes them unhappy.
So I think youâve got to enjoy the present and achieve in the future, both at home and at work. And I think some peopleâs plan is to enjoy themselves at home and then achieve at work. Thatâs probably most peopleâs plan. But I think youâve got to enjoy your work as well somehow. Thereâs probably a podcast in that.
Pete Mockaitis
That sounds rich. Yeah.
Chris Croft
And then achieving outside. Yeah. So I think enjoying yourself at home and at work is really important. Five days a week at work. Youâve got to enjoy your work. And then achieving as much as you can, both at home and at work. And I think if you can do all four of those combinations, then youâve cracked life. Thatâs a big thing. Weâre on big stuff already. Weâve only just started.
Pete Mockaitis
So Iâm thinking a little bit. Achieve at home, in that quadrant, because I already see the two by two consulting instincts.
Chris Croft
The two by two. Yeah.
Pete Mockaitis
What would be some examples of achieving at home? Like âI installed a dishwasher,â or what do you mean there?
Chris Croft
Yeah. Well, I think itâs whatever you want to do. You might have a hundred varieties of fuchsia in your greenhouse, or you might want to stand on top of all the mountains in Scotland with your pants on your head. Iâm thinking English pants rather than American, by the way, there. Or you might want to write a childrenâs book or write a novel and publish it to Amazon.
I think itâs whatever you want to do, whatever gives you a sense of achievement. So for me, for example, itâs playing in a band and playing gigs and recording albums. I love playing live, but I also love recording. That gives me a feeling of achievement, to have those songs and thereâs me playing on that. So I think whatever it is you like, but as well as just enjoying it is to have some feeling that youâve achieved something, youâve come out of your comfort zone a bit or done something that was a little bit difficult, took a bit of pain to get there, but was worth it.
Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Well, so now, talking a little bit about achieving, Iâd love to hear your take on talking time management, productivity. I want to start by talking about prioritization, first and foremost, deciding, determining whatâs worth doing and whatâs not. How do you think about that?
Chris Croft
Well, we all know the thing about important and urgent. Thatâs another two by two there. And urgency is when you have to do things. And urgency is a fact. So buying Christmas presents, for example, gets more urgent as the year goes through. And itâs the same for all of us. Itâs a fact, itâs the same for all of us, and it increases, whereas importance is a matter of opinion.
So to me, music might be important and you might not care about music. And to me, my mum is important and you may not care about your mum. I mean, I canât believe you donât, but you probably donât. I donât care about yours. So importance is much more of an opinion on how important is football and golf or something. So importance is completely different to urgency in that itâs a matter of opinion and it doesnât change either. So as the Christmas presents get more and more urgent, they still remain either important or not, depending on how you feel about it.
So the first thing about importance is that itâs completely a matter of opinion. So then, where does it come from? And I think it comes from your goals. I think it comes from what you enjoy doing and what you want to achieve. If youâve got clear goals of what you want to spend your time doing because you enjoy it, or youâve got clear goals of what you want to achieve, then those are the things that are important.
And finally, the outcome of importance. Weâve already said the outcome of urgency is when you do something. The outcome of importance is not whether you should do it or not. Itâs how long you spend on it. So the game is to maximize the time you spend on important things, and that means minimizing the time on everything else, everything thatâs not important, everything that doesnât contribute to your goals.
So letâs say hypothetically that visiting my in-laws is not one of my goals in life. Iâd rather say hypothetically because my wife will be listening to this podcast. Letâs suppose that I didnât enjoy going to see my in-laws and I didnât really get any achievement either from it. That means itâs not one of my goals, so therefore, my objective is to minimize the time I spend on that because then I can get more time for one of my goals, which is, letâs say, recording an album of music or making videos for Lynda.com or something like that, or talking to you on this podcast.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Thank you for making this time. Thatâs interesting. And I suppose in the in-law example, you are already taking into account, when you talk about achieving, it does not contribute to the goal of delighting your wife and making her feel loved and precious and important.
Chris Croft
Yeah, well, she is loved, precious, and important. And yes, I suppose⌠Iâve got to be careful what I say on air, havenât I?
Pete Mockaitis
Well, this is all hypothetical. Itâs like the hypothetical in-laws and the hypothetical son-in-law.
Chris Croft
Yeah, an example I quite often use is⌠because I have what I call an NCP, which is my no crap policy, which is I wonât do things I donât want to do because my life is too precious. But it is negotiable. So for example, I mowed my lawn today and I didnât really want to, but I wanted a mowed lawn. So sometimes you have to do some things you donât want to get the result.
And in fact, I didnât really want to have a mowed lawn, but my wife did, and I want to have a happy wife because overall thatâs a plus.
But I think we go through life doing things that donât make us happy, and we donât say no to them. We donât think, âWhy am I doing this?â And even right up to big things like husbands and wives. But I think friends are probably a better example. Sometimes you move away from some friends or grow out of them or they donât make you happy anymore. And really you should get rid of them. I donât mean murder them, by the way. Just spend less time seeing them.
But I do think time management is all about working out whatâs really important to you. And then the things that arenât, youâve got a way to squeeze them down and spend less time on them, like, say, the in-laws, or get rid of them completely, like maybe some friends who donât make you happy anymore. And I think time management has these three things: things you want to spend more time on, things you want to spend less time on, and things youâre going to get rid of completely. And I think people miss that middle section, donât they? It tends to be either do it or donât do it. But thereâs a whole load of squeezable stuff in the middle. Thatâs where the real game is.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that makes a lot of sense, that squeezable stuff. And so maybe could you share with us? Indeed, it is a bit of subjective opinion what matters to you, whatâs important to you versus whatâs not. But could you share with us, in your work with folks, some areas that often arise that can and should be squeezed out because they are frequently occurring and squeezable?
Chris Croft
That is actually a really good question and a really difficult question to answer because I think itâs personal. I mean, an example I use on training courses sometimes is buying food because everyone goes, âWell, thatâs important. You have to do that.â And Iâm saying, âWell, yeah, itâs important. But I think importance is do you want to spend as much time as you can doing it?â And the answer is no. If you could press a magic button and food would just appear, then you would press it.
Well, some people probably love browsing supermarkets and squidging samosas or whatever. But I think most of us, itâs not all we want to spend our life on. So therefore, buying food is not important and itâs something you could squeeze down. And I think most things actually are squeezable when you start thinking about them. Travel. If you could find a more efficient way to do it, to visit all three customers at the same time, you could do it. Thereâs loads of things you have to do that you could squeeze down.
Iâve got a couple of friends who I talk to every now and then. Theyâre very, very chatty on the phone. And I used to have a Bluetooth earpiece in my car to use the phone while driving. But now Iâve got speakers inside my car, so I donât use that. And Iâve been using the Bluetooth earpiece in the house, so I can walk around and do other stuff while talking to my friends on the phone and Iâve got both hands free to sort of type things or play with the dog or whatever while Iâm chatting. So I can have a half-hour conversation and it doesnât waste time. It doesnât stop me doing anything else.
So I think even a conversation with your friends could be squeezable if you think about how. And certainly, a lot of television watching. The hours can just slip by watching some rubbish film, and afterwards, you think, âWhy did I get hooked on that?â So I think most of our lives is squeezable because very little of our life actually fits my definition of enjoy and achieve.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thatâs great. Thank you. So now, squeezing is one way to respond to a request or thing. You have a number of strategies associated with how to get more stuff done. You said thereâs really, in fact, only five responses.
Chris Croft
Yes.
Pete Mockaitis
And that is collectively exhaustive. Can you overview that for us?
Chris Croft
Oh, yeah. Iâd like to overview it and then spend a bit of time on some of these. Iâve been thinking about this for ages because the number five worries me. As a two by two box person, Iâm just thinking, âWhy is it five? Shouldnât it be eight or something? Is one a subset of another?â But anyway, I think if you think of your life as a box with stuff coming in, and it comes in by email, phone, face to face people, all these demands come in, and then you get a whole load done, which is great. And youâre probably just about keeping up with the rate itâs arriving. In fact, sometimes more comes in than we can deal with, and then it just gets longer, doesnât it?
So I think there are five things. First of all, donât let it in the box. Thatâs saying no. Thatâs the first option youâve got is donât let it in. And we talked briefly there about âCan I say no to the garden? No, I canât really. Could I say no to seeing some friends? Maybe yes.â So weâve got saying no. The other option is like a partial no, to let some of it in. And so my second option is negotiating. So you could say, âIâll do some of it,â or âIâll do it next week,â or âIâll do it, but Iâve only got half an hour.â
A quick example of this is if somebody wants a meeting, you could say, âWell, I could do it, but could you come to me?â And maybe that would save you half an hour driving each way. It would save you an hour. And you may say, âTaking an hour is a bit petty.â But if you could save one hour a week by negotiating over a way you have your meetings, one hour a week would be 50 hours a year. Letâs call that a whole working week per year. Itâs more than a working week, isnât it?
Pete Mockaitis
Right.
Chris Croft
So a whole week per year. Imagine if you had a week where the phone didnât ring, there were no emails, nothing. You didnât see anybody. You just sat at your desk. I mean, thatâs a long time, isnât it?
Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.
Chris Croft
I mean, I donât know what youâd do. The first day, youâd probably sort out a few jobs and youâd tidy up your computer desktop or whatever. But I think after a couple of days, youâd be bored. So one hour a week is a lot. So you could say no to an hour a week and you could negotiate over another hour a week. You could say, âCould we do the meeting in one hour rather than two hours? Iâve only got an hour,â or whatever. So those are my two first things. And that would get you two weeks a year, letâs say.
My third option is if you have to say yes to something, you could say yes and let it in, but then you could delegate it out to someone else. So the third option is delegating. We could come back to this if you like, but I think delegating is huge. Itâs my biggest regret from when I was a manager. Imagine if youâve got 20 people and you gave them each one more hour a week. You could save 20 hours a week. You could save 20 weeks a year. I mean, itâs massive. And that is my biggest regret. When I was a manager, I should have delegated more. For various reasons, Iâm a bit of a control freak. I always believe I can do it better than the other person. But I should have delegated more. So thatâs the third option. Let it in and then give it to somebody else.
The fourth option and the fifth one actually are about just getting more out. So youâve let these things in. You could get more done if you had more efficient systems. My fourth one is to have better systems. And I think we probably all lose an hour a week just by not being able to find things or doing things twice or not realizing that somebody else had done it or whatever. And most people think time management is about systems, and some of it is about systems. A fifth of it is about systems, and I think thatâs one of the options.
And then the final one, the fifth one, is you could get more done by being a bit less fussy, not doing everything perfectly. You could probably save one hour a week by not being fussy about some unimportant things. So if buying Christmas presents is not important to you, just do it in the quickest way. Just get everyone a head torch because thatâs what men want.
Pete Mockaitis
I really do like them.
Chris Croft
I love a good head torch. But yeah, I donât know what women want, by the way. Theyâre too difficult toâŚ
Pete Mockaitis
They donât want head torches?
Chris Croft
Well, some women can be persuaded to enjoy a head torch, but mostly no.
Pete Mockaitis
When you say head torch, itâs so funny because UK. I mean, know you talk about like a head lamp, things you use for camping.
Chris Croft
Yeah.
Pete Mockaitis
But in my mindâs eye, I see someoneâs head just ablaze. Itâs on fire.
Chris Croft
Oh, I see.
Pete Mockaitis
Itâs a silly picture.
Chris Croft
Yeah. Iâm thinking of those things people use to go underground with caves and, yeah, camping. But anyway, to do things less well is the final option. To be less fussy about stuff. And some people are really fussy about everything they do. They say, âIf a job is worth doing, itâs worth doing well.â And it is worth doing well enough, but itâs not worth doing perfectly because if you do everything perfectly, then youâll end up doing very few things and youâll end up doing lots of things not at all. So if I do my PowerPoint presentations really perfectly prepared, everything is centered and lovely, then I wonât have time to play with my kids or I wonât have time to talk to my wife or whatever. So you pay a price if you do everything perfectly.
So to sum up my five then, youâve got saying no and negotiating to stop it coming in, you could let it in and delegate it to somebody else, or you could do it yourself faster and better by either having better systems or by doing some things less well. And I think itâs a combination of those five. You need all five. There isnât one magic answer, and I donât think thereâs a sixth one. But if there is, please, could the viewers write in?
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. I like this overview. And so then, if we could maybe step into each of them for a bit, could you share any of your favorite tips or tactics or scripts associated with each of them?
Chris Croft
Yeah.
Pete Mockaitis
So when it comes to saying no, one of the hang-ups people have is like âOh, I feel guilty. I donât want to disappoint. I donât want to make them angry. Donât I sort of owe that to them after all theyâve done for me?â Thereâs that internal psychological resistance.
Chris Croft
Yeah.
Pete Mockaitis
So can you maybe share a psychological antidote as well as maybe some choice words and phrases that are great for saying no?
Chris Croft
I love that question. If I was going to feed you some questions to ask me, that would have been one of them, but I havenât.
Pete Mockaitis
No, you didnât.
Chris Croft
No. Itâs good youâve asked that because Iâm fascinated about the thing about saying no. Iâm quite bad at saying no at work. If a customer wants a training course, Iâll do it, even if itâs too far away and the price is low. And Iâm a fool. Itâs like a sales thing. I canât resist chasing after it. But in my private life, Iâve got better as Iâve got older at saying no because Iâve started to realize that itâs my life and other people areâŚthey all want a little piece of it and they all steal away little bits for good reasons. And in the end, you think, âHang on a minute. Where has my life gone? I want to do what I want to do.â
And I saw a graph of happiness against age. And itâs quite a well-known graph, actually, and itâs U-shaped, which is, in a way, quite surprising. So when youâre a child, youâre happy. Your low point is about 40-45. And then you get happier again after that. And why would that be? And itâs because you start saying no more. You start thinking, âHang on a minute. Iâm 55 and I havenât got that many more years, and I want to do what I want to do.â
And you start to become perhaps a little bit selfish, if you define selfish as looking after yourself. And so you start to say no to things you donât want to do, and it makes you happier. And I think a lot of people do things because they feel that other people want them to, and maybe the other person isnât even that bothered. Iâm going to give a couple of really quick examples.
One was I was invited to a wedding in Scotland. And Scotland is beautiful and romantic, but itâs a long way from where I live, at the bottom of England. And I just thought, âItâs going to take me seven hours of driving to get there. I wonât know most of the people. Do I really want to go?â And in the end, I said no to it. And part of me was thinking, âAm I doing a bad thing? Am I going to ruin their wedding?â But of course, they donât care whether I go to their wedding. Theyâre only inviting me because Iâm this distant relative, to be polite. Theyâre probably glad Iâm not going because they can invite their friends or whatever instead.
And so itâs probably absolutely fine. All the sort of guilt and battle thatâs going on in my head, and theyâre probably not even bothered. But I do think if me not going to the wedding was going to make it significantly less successful, then I should go. And thereâs a thing called utility theory of happiness, which is you should maximize the happiness of the system. So if Iâm really unhappy about going, but they are going to not be bothered, be marginally happier, but Iâm really unhappy, then I shouldnât go because it makes the whole system unhappy, whereas if for me itâs a small hassle, but itâs a big fantastic deal for them, then I should do it.
Pete Mockaitis
Yes.
Chris Croft
So selfishness, I think, is when you put yourself ahead of them and you say, âWell, even though itâs only a small price to pay, but it would make them very happy, Iâm still not doing it,â that would be selfish. But I think just looking after, number one, when most people arenât too bothered, I donât think that is selfish. I think thatâs sensible.
And the other example, itâs a really quick one I had, is a guy who, I was doing a training course and I said, âWhat do you want to get from this time management course?â and this bloke said, âIâm hoping you could help me to get out of darts.â He said, âIâm a really good darts player. I play for three teams. We play twice a week. I play six times a week, and Iâve got bored with it. I went really bored with darts. How could that happen?â I donât really get darts myself.
And he said, âWhat should I do?â and I said, âWell, pick on one of the teams and just tell them you canât play anymore. Maybe give them a notice period and quit.â And he said, âOh, no.â He said, âThey need me. Without me⌠I do the accounts. I look after the diary. Iâm the best player.â And I just said to him, âWell, tough. Theyâll have to cope without you. Theyâll be fine without you.â
And I was thinking most of the battle is in his own head. They probably wouldnât be too bothered if he quit. But even if they are saying to him, âNo, no, no. Donât quit. We need you,â is he being selfish saying no to the darts team? And I think, in a way, they are being selfish making him play when he doesnât want to. It will be like the Scottish wedding guy making me go to the wedding when I didnât want to. Not that he was.
So I think selfishness is⌠I donât think selfish is a very useful word. In the end, I think itâs all about whatâs the benefit to you and whatâs the benefit to them, and will they be that bothered? And Iâm sure the darts team wouldnât have been too bothered. But even if they were, itâs his life. He should use it for what he wants to spend his life on, shouldnât he? And theyâre being selfish, making him play if he doesnât want to.
Pete Mockaitis
You know what I love about the darts example is I think maybe partially because darts is more prevalent in the UK than the USâŚ
Chris Croft
Itâs so funny because itâs played by usually very fat guys because they drink a lot while they play, but yet they could still throw the dart really accurately. I mean, how do they do that? It is awesome if you think about it.
Pete Mockaitis
I heard a legendary tale. Is there a famous darts player called Jocky Jones?
Chris Croft
Yes, yes.
Pete Mockaitis
And so there was a sports announcer who said⌠He was kind of relaying what was happening in the darts game. He said, âTriple 20. Triple 20. Triple 20. Jocky Jones, what an athlete!â And Iâm like, âAthlete?â Theyâre like fat folks, slugging a beer in one hand and a dart in the other. It cracks me up.
Chris Croft
But golf, you could argue that golf is skill rather than fitness and strength, couldnât you? Well, I mean, I think Tiger Woods is pretty strong. But yeah, a lot of it is in the skill. But anyway, Iâm not going to advertise darts. I donât really get it, mainly because Iâm bad at it. I tried it once or twice, and I just thought, âThis is much harder than it looks.â
Pete Mockaitis
But what I love about the darts example is itâs easy for me to say, âOh, darts, thatâs silly. Just get out of there. Itâs easy.â Right? But to the person enmeshed in the dart teams, it doesnât feel so
simple and easy.
Chris Croft
No.
Pete Mockaitis
So itâs almost like if you take an outside looking in approach, like âOkay, do I have some darts team commitments going on in my life that is not actually important to me?â
Chris Croft
Yeah. Well, maybe a couple of tools, actually. One is looking back, when you look back in 20 yearsâ time, will you think, âI spent too much time on darts,â or will you think, âActually, Iâm really glad I did that darts.â? And if youâre pretty sure youâre going to look back and think, âWhat was I doing?â then you should quit now.
But the other way is you can look forward and you can think, âIâm being invited to a wedding in Scotland in November,â or whatever. And itâs easy to say yes because itâs not until November, but if it was this weekend, how would you feel about going? Would you be thinking, âOh, God, this weekend Iâve got to drive all the way down to Scotland.â? And if thatâs how you feel, donât go.
So imagine bringing it forward to now, and that would give you the strength because, of course, that time will come and you will get to the point where you think, âI should never have said yes to this.â Itâs really easy to say yes to stuff thatâs a long way in the future. So imagine bringing it forward, and that might give you the strength to say no.
Pete Mockaitis
Perfect. And when it comes to the strength to say no, any tips on how to actually deliver the messaging?
Chris Croft
Well, yeah, Iâve got for both saying no and negotiating, actually. Thereâs a four-step process which I love, which I stole from somewhere years ago. And the four steps are âI understand. I feel. I want. Is that okay?â So youâd say, âLook, I totally understand that you want me to come to your wedding, and weâve known each other for years, and your wife is much happier when Iâm in the room, or whatever. But I feel really under pressure at work at the moment, and Iâm pretty tired, and itâs difficult for me to come.â
And so what I want to do⌠So step three, in this case, is I want to say no. And if itâs a saying no situation, youâve got to actually use the word âno.â So you would say, âIâm afraid the answer has to be no. Iâm afraid I canât make it to your wedding.â And then âIs that okay? Is that all right? Can you see it from my point of view?â
And you can use this for anything. So letâs say youâve got somebody who is not doing their share of the work in your team. You can say, âI totally understand youâve got all these other pressures on you, and youâre involved in three other projects or whatever. But I feel Iâm getting anxious about the progress on this job and I feel that you havenât done your share, and itâs kind of upsetting me a bit, Iâve got to say. So what I want is for you to commit to definitely doing this part of it by Friday, or to tell me how much you can do and then definitely do it. Could you do that for me?â which is step four.
So itâs quite a clever little system because the tough bit is two and three. âIâm not happy and I want you to change,â or âIâm too busy and I donât want to come to your wedding,â or whatever. But itâs got a soft exterior of âI do understand.â And then you say, âBut Iâm not happy. I donât want to come.â And then you say, âIs that all right?â So that four-step process, you can fall back on that for almost any difficult situation.
Pete Mockaitis
And that question at the end, âIs that all right?â itâs interesting. Iâm thinking about it on the receiving end of that, and part of me is thinking, âIs it all right? Well, I donât like it. What youâve told me, Iâm not a fan of. But is it all right?â I mean, itâs like âWho am I to say âItâs not all rightâ? Itâs your life.â
Chris Croft
I know.
Pete Mockaitis
And it kind of puts it into perspective.
Chris Croft
Thatâs right. I mean, you can word it. You can say, âCan you see it from my point of view?â And if you sort of say âWell, no,â then youâre sounding really unreasonable. And because Iâve said in step two how I feel, if when I say âWhat do you think? Is that okay?â if you say âWell, no. Iâm not happy with that,â youâre saying effectively, âI donât care how you feel,â which is quite an aggressive thing to say and youâre unlikely to say it.
But what can only happen, if you think about whatâs clever about that last thing, is itâs the way you get the person to commit. So if you say, âCould you do that for me? I want you to do more work in the team or whatever. Could you do that for me?â they either say yes, in which case theyâve got to, because then if they donât, you can say, âDo you remember weâve talked about it and you said youâd do it? And you havenât, so whatâs going on?â If they say, âWell, no. I just canât. Iâm just too busy,â you can go around again and say, âWell, I totally understand how busy you are, but Iâm really worried about this job.â So you can go around again and jack the words up a bit if you need to.
So that fourth step is actuallyâŚyouâre right. Itâs quite clever. And actually, the first step is clever than you realize as well. When it says, âI do understand,â what it does is it makes you look reasonable, but it also takes away their excuses. If you say, âI know youâre busy, but I need this,â they canât say, âBut Iâm busy.â
Pete Mockaitis
Youâve already covered that. Right.
Chris Croft
Yeah. And if I have to, for example, complain about something, I always start with âI know itâs not your fault,â because usually Iâm at the airport, Iâm at the desk, theyâve lost my luggage or whatever it is. Itâs not their fault, is it? So if you start by saying âLook, I know itâs not your fault, and youâve probably had 20 people already going on about this, but Iâm really upset because Iâve lost my luggage. Can you help me?â itâs just a great start because then youâre reasonable and theyâre really pleased that you understand. So youâre more likely to get what you want if you start with âI understandâ as your first step.
Pete Mockaitis
And essentially, Iâm thinking again on the receiving end of âIs that okay?â I think like 90+% of the time, Iâm like, âYes, yes, of course, thatâs okay,â and then the remaining 10%, that could really be instructive. Iâd say, âWell, Chris, I hear where youâre coming from, but I think this is one of those times where itâs going to kind of be necessary for you to make this sacrifice for the higher purpose, the team, our friendship, the team that needs you to train them so desperately.â
Chris Croft
Yeah. âWe really do need you.â Well, just sticking with the rather bizarre wedding example weâve got, if you said, âWell, actually, Chris, I really do want you to come to this wedding. I mean, you donât realize, but Iâm depending on you. Youâre the life and soul of this thing, and Iâve got to have you.â And I then go, âOh, well, okay. I didnât realize that.â
So in a way, itâs just a model for communication because Iâm saying how I feel and what I want, but Iâm also trying to understand you and Iâm also asking you, âWhat do you think? Do you think thatâs a reasonable position for me to have?â and I am giving you the chance to say, âWell, I kind of see your position, but actually, I feel really strongly about it. You may not realize, but I do.â And then I could say, âOh, well, okay then.â
So all it is really is a model for good communication. I wouldnât say all. I mean, weâre so bad at communicating, arenât we, people generally? A friend of mine, I probably shouldnât tell you about this on air, but his wife left him. She ran off with his best friend.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, dear.
Chris Croft
Because he never cooked her a meal. He actually rang her up and said, âWhy have you left?â and she said, âWell, you never cooked for me. If you loved me, you would have cooked for me.â I think there may have been more to it than that, but that was one of the things. And he said, âBut you never told me.â And she said, âWell, you should have known.â And I think, quite often, when people get divorced, it all comes out of âAnd another thing, I hate the way you cut your toenails in bed,â and you say, âWell, you never told me that.â And so it all comes out.
And I think if people were better at saying, âI know you donât like cooking, but I feel a bit neglected. It would make me happy if you could cook for me every now and then. Could you do that for me?â Just that little process could have saved his marriage. Who knows? Although heâs got somebody much better now, by the way, so donât feel⌠Heâs okay. Thatâs a true story, by the way. That is totally true.
Pete Mockaitis
And itâs powerful, itâs emotional, and itâs illustrative, so thank you. All right, so we talked about a couple of strategies here on saying no and negotiating. When it comes to delegating, I think that there are a couple of hang-ups. One is you just donât trust your teammates to do the job as well as you. And another is you donât have the authority to ask anyone else to do that. So how do you maybe navigate those two issues there?
Chris Croft
So many hang-ups, yeah. I think to do with the second one first. If youâve got no one to delegate to, then you could just say this is not an option. There are actually only four options rather than five. But if a boss says to me, âIâm too busy. Iâm not coping,â I would definitely look at delegation first. I think itâs the biggest if youâre a manager. Some people are not managers, and for them, delegating is difficult, although you can delegate sideways sometimes or even upwards to your boss if you can get away with it. But itâs a difficult option, I think.
In your personal life, you can delegate. Iâve started paying a guy $50 to cut my hedge. Thereâs a hedge in front of my house. It takes me all day to cut it if I do it. And $50 is quite a lot and Iâm quite mean, but Iâve started paying this guy to do it. And I think itâs really good use of $50 because do you think a day of my life is worth $50? I mean, I think it is. So paying people to do stuff in your personal life, I think that counts as delegating.
But I would totally accept that if youâre not a manager, I think itâs a smaller one. Well, thereâs a number of barriers, arenât there? Thereâs feeling guilty about asking people to do stuff. I think the biggest one actually is quality. Itâs fear that they wonât do it well enough or that theyâll completely mess it up. And I think thereâs two things I would say about that, two kind of little ideas I use.
And one of them is, to get around the fear of them messing it up, remember you can monitor. You can say to them, âHave a go at this job, and letâs meet every day, see how youâre getting on,â or âDo this job, but I just want to see it before you send it.â So actually, if you monitor correctly, delegating is not risky at all. And I think people have this belief that thereâs a risk involved, but thereâs not if you monitor. So thatâs the first thing: monitoring.
But the other thing is something I heard. In fact, itâs one of my favorite little tips, I think, is if they can do it 80% as well as you, then give it to them because if you wait for them to do it 100% as well as you, youâll wait forever. Youâll never find somebody who can do it as well as you in your mind. And that last 20% is probably in your mind. You give them the job and youâre watching them, thinking, âWell, I wouldnât do it like that. Itâs pretty good, but itâs just not as well as I will do.â
And I think thatâs really liberating. Clearly, if theyâre down at 20%, theyâre not ready yet. They need training and coaching before you can delegate.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Okay, so now letâs talk a little bit about the systems. And I think this is where a lot of productivity enthusiasts will say, âOh, yeah, I use my OmniFocus and my TextExpander,â which is great. Thank you, TextExpander, for sponsoring this show. And so those tools are great. So I donât know if you have any favorite tips, tools, or how you think about systems?
Chris Croft
Funny enough, I think systems are the most difficult thing to generalize on because everybodyâs lives are different. But I think the starting point is everything that repeats should have a system. Everything that repeats is a waste of you really. So if every day something happens⌠I mean, for example, most days, my wife canât find her car keys and sheâs going, âWhere are my keys? They might have been in the bag.â  And she spends maybe five minutes a day looking for her keys.
If you spend an hour a week looking for your keys, thatâs a week of your life gone just looking for your keys. So you need a system. You need to have a hook where you always hang them or have two sets, one by the front door and the back door, so you can always find them, or whatever. So anything that repeats, you need a system.
So an example of a system Iâve got, I travel around a lot doing training courses and I used to go around my house thinking, âRight. I need an iPhone charger and I need another pair of socks. I need a comb. I might have a headache. Headache pills.â And I would go around the whole house gathering stuff up. And then I thought, âWhy donât I justâŚâ Well, first of all, I had a checklist. I used to have a little laminated⌠Iâve got a laminator. I write a checklist. And systems are interesting because theyâre both sensible and sad, arenât they, at the same time?
Pete Mockaitis
The laminator is what Iâm fixated on right now.
Chris Croft
Yeah. I mean, the best $30 I ever spent. But anyway, I moved on from my laminated checklist to a travel bag, and I just bought a second one of everything. And I probably spent $100 actually on another iPhone charger, another comb, another toothbrush, and all these things that I might need. And Iâve just got this bag that I take. And that has probably saved me 20 minutes a week packing, which adds up.
But it also saves me a certain amount of stress because I know Iâve got everything. I just take the bag and I go. Iâve actually got it divided into little compartments as well, so I can get straight to what I want, which is possible going too far. But itâs just nice to have everything. I can turn up at a hotel, open my bag. There is everything just laid out.
So that was a repeating task that I thought, âI donât want to keep spending time every week on this.â But I think everyone has got different repeating tasks in their lives. And the key is to think, âWhat is it that Iâm doing the same every time?â either a repeating problem or a repeating routine task, and find a better way to do it.
Pete Mockaitis
And on the packing thing, just as Iâm imagining this, what happens with the dress shirt, the undershirt, the underwear, the socks? They canât just stay there. How does this work in this system?
Chris Croft
Well, I just wear the same ones every day.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay.
Chris Croft
No. The bag, if Iâm going away for three days, I just put in three pairs of socks and three pairs of underpants. I just bung them in the end thing before I go. So that is something I do have to remember. But actually, I do have a spare pair of each just in the boot of my car because very occasionally, you go away and you think, âOh, I didnât pack any.â And Iâve kind of learned.
So another of my systems is, in the back of my car, Iâve got a little box of just total emergency things that just lives there. So in there, Iâve got things like a can of Coke if Iâm just stuck somewhere and really thirsty. Iâve got some marker pens because every training course I bring pens, but occasionally, I forget my pens or whatever. And on my key ring, Iâve got a little memory stick with all of the notes that I give out on every subject.
So occasionally, I turn up to a customer and I go, âRight. Time management,â and they all go, âNo. Weâre doing project management today,â and I go, âAre we?â And I find some email that never reached me. They changed the subject. But I can just put the memory stick into anybodyâs computer and just print out all the notes. So I got caught once on that and I thought, âRight. I need a system so that will never repeat.â So Iâve got it on my memory stick. Itâs on my car keys so that I always have it with me. And by the way, have you ever left a memory stick in somebodyâs computer, when you leave the building and the stick is still in there?
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I used to. But now itâs on my keys, so Iâm right with you.
Chris Croft
Yeah, exactly. Same here. Iâve got it on my keys. I canât drive away. Iâm thinking, âWhere are my keys? Oh, yeah. Theyâre still in that guyâs computer.â So Iâve tried to foolproof everything so that the mistakes wonât happen twice. And itâs all about, every time it happens, just take a bit of time to think, âHow can I make that so it will never happen again?â
Running out of colored toner for your printer. It just always happens when you really need it. So Iâve got a spare cartridge of each one bought in advance and theyâre on a shelf. And then when I fit that, I order a new one. And Iâve got the URL of the place where I order them just stuck on the shelf there on a Post-it note. So I donât even have to think when I reorder. I just go, âOh, yeah. Thereâs the website for reordering.â
So Iâve tried to streamline everything so that I spend a minimum time on anything thatâs boring, anything that repeats. But systems are unique to the person. So you might spend ages washing your hair or something, in which case, you need a better system for that, or cleaning out the rabbit hutch in the garden. Whatever it is, you need a good system for it.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, now, letâs talk about being less fussy. I think that achievers who like being awesome at their jobs enjoy excellence, and youâre saying, âNo. Go ahead and lower your standard.â Is that blasphemy?
Chris Croft
Yeah. Thatâs a difficult one. I donât know if youâve heard of there are things called personality drivers. There are three main ones that affect your time, which are: Please others, which weâve talked about a bit already, actually. Youâre trying to make everybody else in the world happy, which means you donât say no. Thereâs hurry up, where you just try to fit in as much as you can. And then thereâs be perfect, which is the one weâre going to look at now.
And all three of these drivers, theyâll get bigger the more you feed them. Itâs like if you feed a stray dog in the hope that it will then go away, it wonât, will it? It will think, âWell, Iâll have more of that,â and it will follow you around everywhere. So the more you try to make things perfect, the more obsessed you get by spotting tiny little things that arenât quite right. And similarly, the faster you try to go, the more obsessed you get by going faster and faster, and youâll never finish everything. Somebody told me once, âWhen you die, you will still have a jobs-to-do list.â
Pete Mockaitis
Right.
Chris Croft
How crazy is that? And similarly, with please others, the more you try to please other people, the more it becomes a mental monster. The more you worry about it. Youâll never get to the point where you go, âYep, everybody is happy.â So it will start to control you, and these so-called personality drivers will take you over.
And by the way, Iâve got two out of three, which is pretty bad because Iâve got the hurry up and the be perfect, so Iâm always trying to do everything⌠Even this podcast, I want to get everything into this podcast. And quite possibly, it would be better if I did less but did it more thoroughly. But my hurry up is going like, âCram everything in,â and my be perfect is like, âBut tell him every detail.â
But what Iâve discovered is that feeding them will not make them go away. They will get worse. So what you need to do is push back against them and to say, âIâm not going to hurry up. Iâm going to chill. Iâm going to walk instead of taking the car. Iâm going to sit and look at that view. Iâm going to sit for 10 minutes and just look at the sunset,â instead of thinking, âIâll check my emails while the sun is going down. Take a photo for Instagram and hurry on to the next thing.â
So I think the first point about trying to do things perfectly is it will drive you mad because youâll never finish everything. The key is to do everything well enough. So if the customer has paid for a Rolls-Royce or a Ferrari, then great. The most customers who probably paid for, letâs say, a perfectly good car like a Ford or something, theyâre probably hoping for a BMW. But if you give them Ferrari, theyâre just going to think, âWell, I wasnât expecting that.â
Now, sometimes, I think you should delight your customers. And I think some things have to be perfect, like for example, spelling peopleâs names right. I was looking at your name, Pete. I bet you get every spelling of that. But it should be right, shouldnât it? Youâve got to really be careful. If someone has got a name thatâs a little bit unusual, youâve got to spell it right.
But I think there are other things like centering the text in a document, or if your document goes on to a second page and you spend ages fiddling with the margins and the font just to fit it onto the one page, does that matter? Is that the best use of your time? Because there isnât enough time in life to do everything perfectly. So I think the things that matter have to be spot on, but everything else has to be good enough.
Iâve got one great example actually I could quickly give you, which is I know a company. They make ponds and lakes. So what they do is they dig the hole, waterproof it, put a wall at one end or whatever, and theyâve got a guy who does the estimating. And so when you ring up and say, âHow much will it cost for this?â he will work it out. But heâs really fussy. He will work out exactly what itâs going to cost. And because heâs a bit slow, thereâs a queue thatâs built up, and the queue is currently six weeks long. So if you want a quote from him, if you email him for a quote, you wonât get an answer for six weeks. And do you think theyâre losing business because of that?
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.
Chris Croft
Yeah. I mean, I donât know what proportion. I think they might be losing 50% of their possible business. This one guy is strangling the company because heâs so fussy. And itâs only a quote. I mean, just give them a rough price, or you could have a spreadsheet that will approximately work it out. So this one guy, because heâs fussy, heâs just strangling the company. It drives me mad to even think about it. And I was talking to the boss. âCanât you put some pressure on him?â âNo, thatâs just how he is,â the boss was saying.
So even something that you might think is important, like quoting people prices, maybe an approximate price would be fine. And theyâll probably win some and lose some if the price is only just a rough estimate, but it will be near enough and theyâll get twice as much work. So they could put the price up a little bit to cover the uncertainty, couldnât they, and theyâd beâŚ? So I think even something like estimating, the key is to do it well enough, but that doesnât mean excessively fussy.
Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Chris, tell me, is there any final piece you want to make sure that you mention before we talk about some of your favorite things?
Chris Croft
Yeah. There is a sixth option, which is one that I wouldnât recommend, which is saying yes and not doing it, because if you donât say no or negotiate and you let it in, and if you then donât delegate it or have good systems or do it less well, then it will just sit there. It has come in and you havenât done it. So the default choice if you donât do my five is number six, which is saying yes and not doing it. And I just think that is a really bad idea.
Sometimes, you get bullied into saying yes by a scary customer and you think, âWell, he probably wonât notice.â You say to him, âYeah, Iâll have a look at that.â But he will notice, or at least maybe one time in ten, he will notice. And thatâs enough for him to think, âWell, I donât trust that guy anymore.â So I think youâve got to have a rule which says if you say youâll do something, you must do it. And that rule forces you to say no more.
So I live in a simple black and world where I do everything I say Iâll do, but that means I do have to say no. If I say Iâm going to go to the wedding in Scotland, Iâve got to go. I canât cancel the day before or something, which would be awful. Iâve got to go. And that rule makes me think, âWell, in that case, Iâm going to say no.â So I think you should absolutely have a rule that says, âIf I say yes, Iâll do it.â And you should enforce that rule on everybody else. If somebody says theyâll do something and doesnât, you should be right on them saying, âLook, you said youâd do it. Why havenât you done it? I canât live with it.â
And if they work for you, you should say, âThis is totally unacceptable. From now on, you must do what you say,â because if you have to spend, say, an hour a week checking on somebody because they kind of say theyâll do things and then they donât, youâre wasting an hour a week. Youâre wasting a week per year on that person. Theyâve stolen a week of your life from you every year. So I think you should say to them, âLook, I canât live with that. If youâre going to work for me, youâve got to keep your promises. Thatâs all I ask.â Itâs always the only rule. So I wanted to have a little bit of a rant about that. Thatâs the sixth one which you mustnât do.
Pete Mockaitis
Thatâs great. Thank you. Well, so now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
Chris Croft
My favorite quote, if I had to pick something, I think will be âNo battle plan withstands contact with the enemy.â
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.
Chris Croft
It was a German general, quite obscure guy, came up with that. And I really like that because a lot of people say thereâs no point in project management because something will change, or thereâs no point in trying to plan my day in terms of time management because it will change. But the point is you still have to have a battle plan and you put bits of contingency in because you donât know what the enemy will do. The enemy is everyone in the world in a way, in terms of time management trying to mess your day up. But you still must have a plan which you then modify as you go along. So I think that. I love that.
The other quote that I think is fascinating is it says that âThe reasonable person adapts themselves to the world.â Have you heard this quote?
âAnd the unreasonable person tries to adapt the world to them. But therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable person.â So thatâs the other quote that I love.
Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. How about a favorite book?
Chris Croft
Yeah. Itâs been so hard to narrow it down. I love âThe Road Less Traveled.â I love âFeel the Fear and Do It Anyway.â I love a strange book called âThe Goalâ by Eli Goldratt.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.
Chris Croft
Isnât that awesome, that book? But my number one book, I think, is âThe Fifth Disciplineâ by Peter Senge. And bits of it are a bit hard to read, but bits of it are fascinating. And he basically says in there that itâs all about the systems that underpin things. And you think in a job that youâre making decisions, but actually youâre just doing what everybody else would do in that situation if they were any good. So youâre just a victim of the system.
And the only way you can really change anything is not by making decisions and doing stuff, but itâs to work out what the underlying structure⌠He calls them system archetypes. If you can work out whatâs going on, you can then break the loop.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And would you say thereâs a particular nugget or piece that you share in your trainings or your offerings that really seems to resonate, getting people nodding their heads and taking notes?
Chris Croft
Yeah. Some people donât thank me for telling them this one, but Iâm going to do it, which is that when you reach the age of 55, youâve only got 800 weekends left. And people always say, âOh my god.â And by the way, if youâre 20 and youâre thinking, âYeah, well, Iâm going to live forever. Iâm not bothered,â youâve only got 800 months left approximately on average. People will go away now and do the sums and they go, âI think Iâve got 803.â But of course, we donât know, do we?
But on average, youâve only got 800 months when youâre 20, and youâve only got 800 weekends with your kids from the age of 0 to 15 or so. It works out roughly. So 800 is just that number. But 55, 800 weekends left. Iâm going to really make sure that I have fun every weekend and I use them to the maximum. Just donât waste a weekend. Just donât do anything you donât want to do because youâve only got 800. So I think that message really, the more you think about it, the more it haunts you. But Iâve done you a favor by telling you that.
Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.
Chris Croft
Get more out of this. Suck the juice out of every weekend is what I would say.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Chris Croft
Well, my website really, which is chriscroft.co.uk. has just got loads of stuff. Iâve got a crazy blog where I put things all the time. I have got a load of books on Amazon. My âBig Book of Happinessâ is very cheap, and thatâs on Amazon Kindle.
But thereâs somewhere else I wanted to point people, which is why not get my free email tips? I send out a little email tip every month free forever, and it never repeats, and it could cover anything. All the stuff weâve talked about today, all that kind of thing is always on them. And if you just go to free-management-tips.co.uk and put in your email address, they will arrive free forever. So I think the management tips are fun. You can look at videos on YouTube. Iâve got a hundred videos on YouTube. And if youâre a Lynda subscriber, then definitely have a look at my stuff on Lynda.com.
And finally, Iâve got some apps which are free. Thereâs a jobs to do app, which is just called Jobs To Do. I couldnât believe nobody had already got that title. So Jobs To Do List app, which is quite a clever little thing which is free. But Iâve also got Daily Happiness Tips. Thatâs another app Iâve had made. So every day, you can find out what you can do, something practical you can do every day to get a bit more happiness into your life. So Daily Happiness Tips. Why wouldnât you download that to your iPhone or your Android?
And Iâve got a third app called Management Cards. When I do a training course, I give out a little white card thatâs got sort of the best of that subject on it, and Iâve put all of my cards as a free app for iPhone and Android. Itâs just called Management Cards. So download that and then youâll know everything about everything just by flicking on your phone.
Pete Mockaitis
A big promise. Thank you.
Chris Croft
Yeah, absolutely.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, Chris, do you have a final challenge or a call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?
Chris Croft
Yeah. I think the thing thatâs changed my life most and I would urge everyone to do is write down your goals for your life. What do you want your life to be like in 5, 10, 15 years? And it should be enjoy and achieve at home and at work. So write down that little two by two box. âWhat do I like doing at home that I want to do more of? What do I like doing at work that I want to do more of? What do I want to achieve at work, and what do I want to achieve outside work?â
And write some things in all four of those boxes, and youâll find itâs amazing because it will happen, because it will influence your thinking. It sets kind of a mental GPS to take you in that direction. It will make you more assertive, more focused. Thereâs all sorts of reasons why it works. But thatâs what I would do. Write your goals down right now, and that will change your life.
Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. Oh, Chris, this has been so much fun. Please keep on rocking and go to the wedding that you want to.
Chris Croft
Yeah. Absolutely. Itâs been really great talking to you, Pete. I canât wait to see which bits you edit out and which bits you keep in. Itâs been really fun. Itâs great. Letâs do another one.