Kicking A**, Chewing Bubble Gum

By Tim Kolacz

In recent months, there have been a number of my childhood “Heroes” that have either come down with medical ailments or have died altogether. This has led me to think about how I work on a daily basis.

When you come to work, do you get coffee, talk to your officemates, fire up the computer and then the first thing you do is check email? Or, do you get into the office, set out a game plan for the day, focus on which items are most important and then get cracking on those items.

I don’t drink coffee, but I do tend to do the other things I listed in the first sentence above. While meeting with co-workers is a great thing to do and builds camaraderie in the office, these things can be done quickly, “good morning” and then you can come back to them later in the day. However, you should always have a purpose in addition to seeing how their weekend was, or will be.

Make each conversation productive. “Hey Bob, have you had any luck with our loss control vendor? …Yeah, some…sweet, thanks. By the way, what’s up for the weekend?…Golf, excellent, ok, thanks, I gotta go.” Here you accomplished a lot. You got some info on something you needed, you built rapport with Bob and you got out of his hair in 5 minutes, versus 20 had you just asked about his weekend.

Focusing on your top items, especially the ones that suck and that you don’t want to do first, allows you to get those things out of the way so you can get on to the fun stuff that makes your day enjoyable. Take today for example, I lost my focus a little bit, skipped something that I need to do and went right to the fun stuff, which is writing this article. Once I am done with this, I will do the stuff that I skipped, and that will make my day complete as I had specific things I had to get done today.

Had I done the crummy stuff first, I would have had a better focus this afternoon and potentially gotten more done, than just what I had to get done. Also, focusing on the task at hand and not responding to each email as soon as it comes in will allow for more effective work flows.

Just now, I got an email from my account manager and it was everything I could do not to open it and respond, even though I already knew what he response was going to be to a question I asked her. Getting into a groove where you only answer email twice or three times a day is key to our ability to focus on what matters. Getting your job done, getting to the fun stuff and getting home to see your family or your favorite TV show.

When I was growing up, I always liked to watch wrestling on Saturday mornings. The Iron Sheik, Sergeant Slaughter, Rowdy Roddy Piper and all their buddies. It was great. I was 14, just finished my paper route and would watch Rowdy get up in everyone’s face and I would laugh all morning long. They were focused on my entertainment. They wanted to be there. Rowdy was “Here to kick ** and chew bubble gum. And I’m out of bubble gum.”

Are you out of bubble gum yet? I am.

Tim Kolacz is an Account Executive with HUB international Insurance Services and can be reached at (951) 779-8730 or [email protected].