The power of Focusing your time

A few days ago a Sequoia VC Partner published the following tweet directed at Jack Dorsey:

To do two things at once is to do neither. – Publilius Syrus

Because Jack is running Square and Twitter at the same time. Read all about it here: http://read.bi/gFxF6f

This reminds me of when I was younger. I wanted to run 10 companies. One that made cars, one that made airplanes, one that made fire engines, and one that printed money for the government (amongst others).

I couldn’t understand why all these boring adults would choose to only have one company. Why doesn’t Bill Gates buy Ferrari? He could probably afford it, doesn’t everyone want to own Ferrari? He could also build the worlds tallest building too, and do all kinds of other things.

But he couldn’t even run Microsoft and a charity at the same time, the richest man in the world, and he chose to step down from Microsoft to focus on the Gates foundation. I would have thought that if anyone could have run two big organisations simultaneously Bill Gates could.

But what I have come to learn is that focus is a sign of maturity. Focusing on one business, one idea, one job is part of growing up.

You learn that time is limited, everyone is given the same amount of time, and what sets you apart from other people is how you choose to spend and invest your time. Ultimately what people think of you at the end of your life will be a judgment of how you spent your time. Contrary to popular belief, money isn’t an important criterion. Great people have accomplished much with little funding especially in the religious world, Jesus, Mother Theresa and Ghandi all had little money, but spent their time in pursuit of causes they considered great. They are considered “GREAT”. So money isn’t what people will remember you by. Time is.

What I’ve also learned recently is that focus isn’t what you say yes to, it’s what you say no to. This reminds me of a great story I heard of recently involving probably the greatest CEO of the last decade, Steve Jobs. Steve was on the phone to Mike Parker (the CEO and president of Nike) just after he had become CEO:

“Well, he didn’t call to offer me advice, but we had worked together on a Nike Apple collaboration called Nike Plus,” Parker explained. “Long story short, he said, ‘Hey, congratulations, you’re going to do a great job.’ I said, ‘Well, do you have any advice?’ And he said, ‘No, no, you’re great.’

Parker continued, “And then there was a pause and he said, ‘Well, I do have some advice. Nike makes some of the best product in the world. I mean, product you lust after, absolutely beautiful, stunning product. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.‘”

“And then I expected a little pause and a laugh,” said Nike’s CEO. “But there was a pause and no laugh at the end. And he was absolutely right. In fact … one of my major focal points in terms of my priorities as a CEO–and even as a designer when I was growing up with the company–is to edit.

Apple is the largest technology company in the world, and nearly all of their sales come from 6 products (Laptops, Computers, iPhones, iPods. iPads and iTunes). That’s Focus. Cant you imagine how many products Steve canned? probably in the thousands?…

And while we’re on the topic of what you say no to, this article hit headlines this week when Richie McCaw decline to attend prince Williams royal wedding. Richie McCaw says:

“I did get an invitation, it was a heck of an honour and I felt a bit lucky,”

He said he needed to concentrate on his recovery from foot surgery and get back to playing for the Crusaders in the Super 15.

“Had I still been injured and it had not been a World Cup year, then I’m sure things would have been different.”

Isn’t that amazing, Richie McCaw decided his focus was on winning the world cup, and declining an invitation to the wedding of the decade mortified his female friends, but he knows winning the world cup is his focus.

So why doesn’t Bill Gates continue to run Microsoft and amass an even greater fortune? This is what Bill said when announcing is resignation from Microsoft in 2006:

“I’ve decided that two years from today, I will reorganize my personal priorities,”

“I believe with great wealth comes great responsibility – the responsibility to give back to society and make sure those resources are given back in the best possible way, to those in need,” he said. Gates added, “It’s not a retirement, it’s a reordering of my priorities.”

Bill realised that at the end of the day he had achieved everything he wanted to in business, and now he wanted to use his wealth through philanthropy to benefit others. He could probably have done this while still working at Microsoft, but now he is free to give that great cause all of his undivided attention.

At the end of the day, as I say above, money isn’t all that important. Follow Bill’s example and spend your time in pursuit of a cause you consider to be great and worthwhile, and say NO to everything else!

Chris