By Joe Meyer, PE | Fire Protection Engineer / Founder of MeyerFire

Time.

Last week, I begged you to consider investing your time to free up more of it.

Find low-hanging fruit, and get started. Start small. Make checklists, update templates, create a quick spreadsheet or organize your prompts.

Find ways to help the future you by building tools that help free up your future time.
 
The truth is – if we want to get out of the hamster wheel of running and running and running and only being busier, then we need to intentionally fight being ‘busy’ with being ‘effective.’

Being effective goes beyond just working more. We don’t have more time. We can’t, and shouldn’t, compromise our health, sanity, or family life to work more. Time is our resource that we need to fight for.
 
  “That’s great, but I’m already busy. I don’t have time.”

  “I’m not in a position to delegate anything.”

  “Once we get through this rush, things will calm down.”

  “My days/projects/tasks are never the same, I can’t build tools for them.”

  “It’s faster if I just do it myself.”

  “I’ll do it when things slow down.”

  “I already work fast.”

  “I have to fight too many fires each day to do this.”
 
You’ve heard it. We’ve all said it.
 
At the core, it feels like we’re too busy surviving to invest in improving. The uncomfortable part about owning our situation is that it requires us to step out of reactive mode. We have to think about what it is we want – sanity, less stress, less chaos, better work, more timely work, better clients – and work towards that with discipline, knowing that the payoff doesn’t result immediately.
 
TRAP #1: URGENCY TRAP
Underlying belief: Production is always more important than systematic improvement.
Reality: Production work fills our capacity. Nothing changes without intentional investment.

Parkinson’s Law says that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” We can’t expect change – that is, our own future six months from now to be better – if we continue doing the same things on the same path as we’ve done before.

Intentional, focused effort has to come before some production work, even if it’s in a very small time increment.
 
TRAP #2: IT’S FASTER IF I DO IT
Underlying belief: Immediate progress is more valuable than future leverage.
Reality: Doing it ourselves probably is faster. Yet, I am not the only person on the planet who is capable, nor can I do all the tasks every time.

Articulating the task, the logic, the why, and systematically describing and improving the process is a better and more effective solution, especially at scale.
 
TRAP #3: CONTROL BARRIERS
Underlying belief: I bring less value if it doesn’t come from me. I have to bring the value.
Reality: High-value contributors support others’ growth. They create systems, not bottlenecks or dependencies.

If someone must be in control, or must be the ‘hero,’ then it’s difficult to be effective and improve as a team overall. Giving up control can be a very hard thing to do.
 

If we look past our natural objections and are willing to make the change, then the question becomes – how do we actually do it?

Ok, I’m here Joe.

I don’t want to live in chaos.

I don’t want to be so stressed.

I’m over the glamour of being ‘busy.’

I want to take control of my own path.
 
I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve read many books on this and have trialed many things. We have three fundamental levers to increase output. These aren’t all necessarily being more effective, but they are ways of increasing output.
 
FIX #1: HIRE MORE STAFF
  + Increases long-term capacity
  - Slow (recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training)
  - Expensive
  - High effort/high risk
  - Inefficient systems with more people create more inefficiency
 
FIX #2: HIRE OUTSIDE HELP
This could look like subcontractors, third-party reviewers, freelancers or outside firms. This is the most underutilized path, especially by small and midsize organizations.
  + Relatively fast to implement
  + Pay only for what you need
  + Generally flexible
  + Can bring in specialty or varied expertise
  - Less control
  - Often expensive
  - Availability and schedule vary
 
FIX #3: MAKE YOUR TEAM SUPERHUMAN
This is the most-controllable option. It’s not motivating, threatening, or pushing harder, it’s making each person more capable and more effective.
  + Inexpensive to implement
  + Can start today
  + Highly effective & efficient teams tend to be stronger, faster, and leaner long-term
  - Requires quality self-reflection
  - Requires discipline
  - Requires more foresight and a long-term mindset
  - Longer ROI
 
If we skip Options 1 and 2 (commonly not in our individual control), then how do we actually increase effectiveness?

Not efficiency, which is getting more tasks done in our allotted time, but being more effective overall, which considers whether a task is worth doing in the first place.

Here are the six ways, in order of priority, to improve effectiveness at the team and individual levels. Before this sounds too bloggy – these are real things I’ve implemented for the past ~8 or 9 years, and as a team, we revisit each quarter.
 
SUPERHUMAN STEP #1: ELIMINATION
Does a task really need to be done in the first place? Truly?

If it’s never done again, what’s the impact? Is there any?

If there are outdated parts of a role that don’t actually need to exist, the best and first thing we should consider is eliminating them entirely.

We regularly think that “all tasks are important,” but that isn’t always true.
 
SUPERHUMAN STEP #2: AUTOMATION
What tasks, or processes, can be automated?

One very specific way to think about this is what regular action do you do that follows a basic logic?

Copying information from one source to another? Putting data into a spreadsheet? Delivering a certain regular report? Email?

With any repeatable process, there’s a good chance that some or all of it can be automated.

Online programs like Zapier, Make, and Microsoft Power Automate are automation tools that can take information from one source (an email, a report, a spreadsheet update) and trigger actions based on that source (run a report, create a chart, send an email).

Many businesses skip this as too code-driven or requiring outside software engineers. It’s far simpler than that.
 
SUPERHUMAN STEP #3: EQUIP
If we arm our team with better tools, better resources, better templates as a starting point, better libraries – what could that do for us?

What if every project we estimated, designed, or reviewed was 80% done before we even started?

What would that look like?

Commonly, that’s having an incredibly solid starting template. Features that are pre-loaded, just ready to pounce on the new project.

Templates and libraries are really easy to improve, and have a very quick ROI.

​But beyond that, how can we surround our production team with resources that make them far more effective in what they do?

Do they need better software that’ll allow them to run faster?

This step is all about improving and equipping our team to be far more effective.

A man is walking through the woods and sees a lumberjack working hard to cut a tree. The lumberjack is exhausted, sweating, and has been sawing for hours with little progress.

The man asks, “How long have you been cutting that tree?”

Lumberjack replies, “Five hours – and I’m exhausted!”

The man looks at the saw and says, “Why don’t you take a break and sharpen your saw?”

The Lumberjack responds, “I can’t, I’m too busy cutting!”
 
There are different versions of the parable; you may have heard it before. Yet today, more than ever, our work lives are too busy to spend time helping ourselves out.

OUR CRITICAL ASSET
Our most critical asset is time. It’s a massive limitation, and yet we are all given the same amount each week.

What I’d like to beg you to consider is investing your time in your future. Not in a “work hard today so you don’t have to tomorrow,” or even “go make as much money as you possibly can,” that seemed to be an undertone in our parents’ and their parents’ generations.

I’m talking about investing time in order to get more time back.
 
THINKING LINEARLY
Our brains evolved to survive in environments where change was mostly linear and local. Survival was based on gradual change, local change, and physical outcomes. We’re wired to be extremely good at pattern recognition, cause-and-effect thinking, and short-term projections.

Not long-term exponential returns or compounding benefits.

To be fully candid, it’s a topic I can’t wrap my head around. Not in a self-deprecating way, but in a "I see it but struggle to accept it" kind of way. I can see it on paper. I can map it out. I can see investment in concept, but every projection I write or spreadsheet I drag out, my inner gut simply cannot accept that future path to be true. It’s as if once the trajectory starts to curve, I reject it as being far too sunny and optimistic.

So if you look at compounding returns as a magical theory of futurists – I can appreciate that because my inner gut agrees with you.

That said, it’s time to think of your most precious resource as a very important investment.

If you’re busy – overloaded – more stressed than you want to be – or working with smaller margins than you want to be – then you need to invest in getting back your own time.

Metaphorically, it’s time to stop sawing the tree and time to spend even just a fraction of your time sharpening your own blade.

The funny thing is that I actually just came from the future with the future you, and the one thing you kept saying was “PLEASE TELL ME TO FREE UP MY TIME! IT’S CRAZYLAND OUT HERE.”

So I’m doing the only responsible thing I can think to do and tell you now – it’s time to sharpen your blade.

How can we invest time in our own methods when we don’t have any time? How can we invest time when we don’t have any of it? I’m already working 50 hours a week!

A few tips that have worked for me.

TIP #1: JUST START
First, start. Start with just 15 minutes a week. You have to start a snowball by rolling just a little bit of snow. You can’t eat an elephant without taking the first bite. Any progress is better than no progress.

TIP #2: START SMALL
Second, start small. Don’t shoot for that report template that will take a week and has been on your to-do list for three years. Don’t. Start small, exceptionally small. That one detail that you have to change, and it irks you on every project. That one paragraph you have to hunt down and paste into emails every few weeks. That one prompt you can’t easily find and have to go look up. Start small with easy wins.

TIP #3: DO IT FIRST
Third, do it first. Your week will have fires you’ll have to put out. You’ll have meetings. You’ll have your workload. If you save this “sharpen the tool” effort until Friday afternoon, it will never happen. You know that to be true. If you want it done, do it first. Before anything else. Remember, we’re only starting with 15 minutes a week. Do it before you even open up your email in the morning.

TIP #4: GRAB THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT
Attack the lowest-hanging fruit. The analogy is obvious – the lowest-hanging fruit is the easiest fruit to grab. Start there. Start with small, quick and easy wins to regain even small chunks of time.

TIP #5: REINVEST YOUR TIME SAVINGS
Then finally, reinvest your time. At first, your time savings are extremely small. That’s how compounding works. Your 15-minute time investment that first week should only save you a minute of work in your next. Maybe, maybe you earn a minute back… fine. Add that minute to your 15 from week 1, and now you’ve got 16 minutes to reinvest into sharpening your saw. Update your templates. Update your library. Save down your process. Make a checklist. Save down a good prompt. Organize.

I’ll talk more about methods next week, but these investments are all about you building your own tools that help you work more smoothly and smartly going forward.

After Week 2?

Same thing, maybe you earn a minute more of your time back. In fact, weeks into recharging your life, we’re still talking about very, very small time returns.

​If you gain back just 10% of your invested time as future time savings… it actually accrues exceptionally slowly. Here’s what investing 15 minutes at the start of your week looks like, represented at scale:​Nothing amazing happens, even weeks in. That’s very commonly the frustration I think we’ve all experienced at one time or another. What little time we spend improving our own workflows, we get so little time back, and then we get busy and give up.

If we’re going to break through to what the other side can look like, it’s a longer-play. Prioritize earning your time back first, work with small wins, and roll that time savings forward.
​

It’s easy to project – run the numbers and make the assumptions you’d find realistic. My feedback here is that early on, we’ll hardly see the results. It’s only down the road, as each of these little changes compounds, that we’ll start to see the results.
 
When I first went into business for myself, I found that working hard on improving any one thing never showed up with quick results. It was always about six months later when I’d think, “Oh, that’s a lot easier now,” or “That’s not a problem anymore.” The returns were never immediate.
​
And I think that’s generally a healthier mindset looking forward. If we want to change any one thing six months from now, we have to push hard at that thing now.

We work our way into getting 1-hour a week back. Then, it’s 2. Then it’s more, and more, and more. All the while having just as good (if not better) output than we’d had before, yet having more time. Better, more consistent processes. Better quality work. Less stress.

I’m talking in concept. It very well sounds more philosophical and theoretical than real-world boots on the ground realism. But anyone who knows me well or has worked with me in the past ten years knows this is very much a real thing – a real way to operate. Have a worklife and workflow that’s more predictable, lower stress, with more consistent and higher quality work than before.

I’m not asking for your time for something I need. I’m asking for your time for something you need, and we all need. Get your time back, where you’re more in control, doing the best work you’ve ever done, and living a healthier, less-stressful life through that process.

Next we’ll talk on the objections that we get when trying to live in fantasy-land, but more realistically address how we can best invest our time to earn more of it and our sanity back. Check it out here.
 
​
- Joe

We're excited to share updates on the second-most popular tool in the MeyerFire arsenal - the Water Supply Analysis. They've been a long time coming.

WHAT'S NEW 
CLEAN PDF REPORTING
Tired of snippets and half-hazard reports? We are, too. One-click print can export into a clean PDF report. Adjust your margins to 'minimal' if you have extra pages.

EXPORT THE GRAPH TO CAD & IMAGES
How many times has someone asked to just get a simple log chart result for a report? Now you can do so instantly. Print the entire report to PDF, or simply export just the log N^1.85 graph and use as you'd need with one click.

These tools have long been one of the ways we hope to positively contribute to the industry by providing meaningful resources that are relevant to you. I hope you find them helpful.

​- Joe