#049 How the Successful Move Faster than You

Hurley is slowing everyone down.

You're a scout leader who must take your group from A to B. But Hurley is at the back of the pack and the rest of the group is wandering ahead.

It's not Hurley's fault. He's a bit chunky and can't handle summer's heat. But as their leader, it's your job to keep them together.

You have a brainwave.

You put Hurley to the front of the group and make a rule that nobody can overtake him. Frustrated by Hurley's glacial pace, the rest of the scouts start to get frustrated and decide to act. One takes Hurley's rucksack off him. It speeds him up but they are still going too slow. Someone finds an abandoned bike on the side of the road and seats Hurley on top of it.

With Hurley perched upon his new ride free of his rucksack, he's picking up some speed. The rest of the group is marching at a brisk pace.

You'll all make it to camp by sundown in the end.

"One, people are good. Two, every conflict can be removed. Three, every situation, no matter how complex it initially looks, is exceedingly simple. Four, every situation can be substantially improved; even the sky is not the limit." - Eliyahu Goldbratt

"What in the sweet hell does Hurley have to do with successful people moving faster?" I hear you think.

Everything.

Hurley is the bottleneck to the group's progress. It doesn't make a difference how fast each member of the team moves, if they all have to arrive together, Hurley will always slow them down.

Think of a laundrette full of washing machines and tumble dryers. If the dryers are slow and ineffective then it doesn't matter how much the owner spends on top-of-the-range washing machines. The clothes won't get dried any faster, and the customers will still be pissed off.

The people who move the fastest don't do more work. They continually apply more effort to remove their bottlenecks than everyone else.

Here are 3 steps for you to do the same.

Identify

The first step is to identify your bottleneck. To identify your bottleneck you need to identify your goal. If your goal is to write a book - and you're not meeting your word count - you need to identify why.

Are you too tired to write? Don't know what to write about? Have no structure to your book?

If you struggle to pinpoint your bottleneck, write out your process from start to finish. If you can't write out your process you've found your bottleneck. You have no process - that's your bottleneck.

Once you write out your process, scrutinise each step and find what is slowing you down the most.

Once you've found your bottleneck it's time to inhale.

Inhale

Inhale the minimum amount of information needed for you to tackle your bottleneck. I say the minimum amount of information because I see time and time again people mistaking procrastination for preparation.

It's vital to learn and absorb knowledge to tackle your bottlenecks, but after a point, that learning needs to be translated into action. Here, more preparation is just procrastination in disguise.

So when inhaling, do so with surgical precision. Inhale briefly and widely then pick the most efficient way to remove the bottleneck.

Back to our book analogy - if you're too tired, learn how to get better quality sleep. If you're stuck for ideas, learn how your favourite author wrote their most successful book. If you have no structure, ask ChatGPT or Claude to create an instant chapter structure.

Once you have inhaled enough information to tackle your bottleneck, it's time to start iterating.

Iterate

Now put your inhaled knowledge into action. Test the results. There will be only one of two outcomes.

Is the bottleneck removed?

Yes - identify the next bottleneck and iterate the process.

Is the bottleneck removed?

No - try a different method of removing your bottleneck.

Identify Inhale and Iterate in Action

Dr C is a Consultant responsible for 100 rotating outpatients. Dr C's administrative work from looking after the 100 has piled up. If they continue with their current process they will never get up to speed.

Dr C isn't sure how to get back on track, so they decided to work with me. I identified the bottleneck by gathering the minimal amount of information needed to understand how they ran the clinic.

Having written a book on time management and productivity, I didn't have to inhale more information to tackle Dr C's bottleneck. It was clear to me what it was.

The clinic was split into 3 patients in the late morning and 3 in the late afternoon. After the patients had their outpatient treatment, they had a clinical review with Dr C. This means the late afternoon patients were seen at 4 pm, meaning administrative work ran into the evening or at home.

The clinic structure is the bottleneck. It creates task-switching, attention-residue and saps energy. If you're unfamiliar with these terms, check out my tweet below.

The solution is to restructure the clinic and see all the patients in the morning. The first 3 after their treatment, and the second 3 before theirs. This limits task-switching, time blocks work by skillset, and allows extra time for unplanned extended reviews to overrun.

When we next meet, if Dr C's clinic is running smoothly we will move to the next bottleneck in their workflow. If it isn't, we'll reassess and try something else.

Those blazing past you aren't smarter or harder workers.

They relentlessly keep identifying and eliminating bottlenecks.

When you ruthlessly remove constraints, every drop of effort yields maximum impact.

Here are 3 questions to help you catch up:

1 - What's the number 1 bottleneck stopping me from getting to where I want to go?

2 - How do I remove it?

3 - Why aren't I working on it?

Put these 3 questions into action.

Identify. Inhale. Iterate.

See you next week.

If you want me to help remove the bottlenecks in your work, I have an upcoming space in my coaching programme.

If you have any questions, comment below or contact me on X or LinkedIn.

Happy to help where I can.