Ep#46 Time Saving Lesson From A Greedy King

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How often do you revise, tweak, update, or attempt to make something better (even get it perfect) before you put it out in the world?

Tune in to this episode to learn what the biggest time waster is in your business and how to make sure that you don’t continue making this mistake.

A King’s Vague Vision:

About 400 years ago, Gustav the second, king of Sweden, wanted to upgrade his ships in an attempt to protect his people from the enemy.

The king tasked a master shipbuilder, called Henry, to build a giant military warship. It would be the biggest, meanest ship on the sea and the king made it the main object of focus.

As the ship was being constructed, the king kept changing his mind. At first, the ship would be 108 feet long with 32 canons on deck, then that changed to 120 feet. Even though the lumbar was already cut for the initial specifications, the king didn’t care and ordered the change.

Obviously, you don’t say no to a king right? The team made the changes, just to be interrupted again because the king now decided that the ship needed to be 135 feet long and that the number of canons would again also need to increase from 23 to 36 large cannons, 12 small cannons, 48 mortars, and 10 smaller caliber weapons! (Can you imagine the frustration of the workers???)

Guess what…the goal post changed again later when the King ordered that there be 64 large cannons instead.

Although the purpose of this ship was to go to war, the king even wanted elaborate ornate sculptures that took the team more than two years to complete.

So, after all this work was done and the ship finally left Stockholm port (unfinished not properly tested)...the king invited everyone that was important, organized fireworks, and this huge party to celebrate.

A gust of wind caught the sails, tilting the vessel, flooding the open gun ports, and sinking the ship.

It took about 55 minutes to sink, killing 53 crew members less than ¾ of a mile (approximately 1,3km) from shore.

Perhaps a big portion of this disaster can be attributed to the greed of the King, but I am sure we call all agree that an even bigger part of it can be attributed to the fact that the king didn’t have a clear vision for what done looked like. The goal was vague and undefined.

Now, you might be wondering why am telling you a story about something that happened over 400 years ago?

When I read about this story in Greg McKeown's book Essentialism, it resonated deeply with me because I recognized myself in it.

One of the biggest time wasters that I see my clients make and that I sometimes make is that we spend a ton of time tweaking, updating, revising, and changing stuff to get it better…heck even perfect.

During a recent coaching session with one of my private clients, I asked my client how the past week went, checking in on the goals she set for herself the week prior.

She set a goal to create a report for her customers.

As we dig deeper as to why it was taking so much time to get it done, we realized she was spending time revising and trying to make it better, add more value, make it prettier…

The truth is, it was actually past the point where any additional stuff added would make any real difference. In fact, she was now reaching a point where adding more would actually be taking away from this report. Because it was clouding the important message, the essential information that the client really wanted and needed to see.

Ask yourself, where are you spending extra time on things because you haven’t clearly defined where the finish line is?

Are your goals clear in the sense that you will know exactly when you created the result?

So, here are some examples of what a vague outcome might look like and how to turn it into a clear, this is done vision.

Vague Outcome or Goal: I want to launch my online course.

Better, clear outcome: 10 beta users have tested my program and given feedback

Vague Goal (Promote my next event)

Done (batch create 10 social media posts and schedule them to go out on Facebook 10 days ahead of the event)

Vague goal (be more active)

Done (walk 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week)

You can not take it a step further and supercharge that outcome by adding a deadline to it!

As soon as you get clear on what the finish line looks like, things get clear in terms of the action you need to take too.

So, for the projects and tasks you set out to complete, take a moment to ask yourself, what does DONE look like?

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