Know what you do best

Aim to spend more time on things you do uncommonly well

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to figure out your core competencies. That is,
the things you do best that other people cannot do

(00:24):
nearly as well. To spend your time well and to
be effective, you want to focus as much time as
you can on these things and spend as little time
as possible on everything else. Today's tip, like some others
this week, comes from my book One hundred and sixty

(00:45):
eight Hours. That book was first published in late May
of twenty ten, which means that it is fifteen years
old this month. A lot has changed in the world
since then, but we do, in fact still have one
hundred and sixty eight hours in a week, and so
I am revisiting some of the tips in that book

(01:06):
that I think can still be helpful. Today's tip is
to know what you do best. There are lots of
ways people can spend their time. There are also limited
hours in the day. It is often more efficient to
focus on the handful of areas where you can really shine,

(01:28):
and then figure out ways to not spend your time
on other things. This makes sense in a corporate context.
If you make widgets, you generally don't also own a
fleet of trucks that will deliver your widgets to customers.
Depending on the size of the widgets, you use the
post office or a commercial delivery service to do that

(01:50):
for you. But we tend to be a bit less
focused in our own lives. Sometimes people have figured out
ways to delegate things at work, but in our home lives,
people spend all kinds of time on things that it
might be better not to do. I think part of
this is that we don't always know what our core

(02:11):
competencies are. We don't know what we do best and
that other people cannot do nearly as well. So it
might be worth spending some time thinking this through. What
do people keep asking you about, When do people seek
out your advice? What seems easy for you that other

(02:31):
people find challenging. Sometimes there are things that we are
good at across multiple dimensions and fields. For instance, in
one hundred sixty eight Hours, I tell the story of
Rold Hoffmann, the Nobel Prize win in Chemist. He spent
his childhood hiding from the Nazis, watching the world through

(02:52):
a hole in the wall. He became a very keen
and patient observer, watching the changing light and the changing
seasons this way. Eventually, this helped him become a very
good scientist, as he would patiently observe experiments and see
small changes. His powers of observation led him to making

(03:16):
some real breakthroughs in the field. Now, a Nobel prize
is kind of the culmination of a life. But when
I interviewed Hoffmann, he was actually at a writing retreat
working on his poetry. As a second career, he had
started writing poetry that was also based on his patient
observations seeing small changes in the world. This man's core

(03:40):
competency was being a watcher, a skill that helped him
survive as a child and then brought him fame later.
Now we are not all chemical and poetical geniuses, of course,
but we do all have certain skills. We also have
certain zones of genius. So what are yours? What makes

(04:03):
you feel alive? What makes you feel like you are
making progress? I love writing. I love talking about counterintuitive
and exciting ideas. I like performing. What do you like?
Look at how you are spending your time? How much

(04:27):
time do you spend on these matters? How much time
do you spend on everything else. I believe over time,
we can find ways to spend more time on the
things we do best and less time on other things.
These days, I really try not to do things like

(04:49):
run errands when I could be writing. Sometimes people ask
me about doing things like coaching, but it's not really
something I do best or better than others would. I'd
much rather be writing or speaking to a big group.
What about you find your core competencies and you are

(05:10):
well on your way to spending time well. It is
worth the time it takes to figure this out, because
knowing what you do best will help you spend your
one hundred and sixty eight hours well. In the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making

(05:33):
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

(05:58):
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.