Wilson Ng started helping the family business since 9 years old. Since then, he had dreamt to be a successful entrepreneur, one who starts great businesses  ( he has started 7) from scratch with insight, guts and initiative. He keeps his focus on growing the business by creating value-- not on politics, or wasteful distractions. He brings the same focus to community service, teaching, life and family.

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	Monday, July 18, 2005

The Not to Do and Not to Know  List  (On Life ) I was talking to a good friend who was interested in many of the things I do.  He asked me how much I bought my shoes for.  I said I honestly don't know.  My wife bought it for me.  He asked me how much was the tuition of my children in that particular school.  I told him I also don't know.  He also asked me how much was the plane fare I paid for the last trip I took.  I said the office got that, but also I didn't really know. He was looking at me curiously, and I knew I had to come up with an explanation.  I told him I trust my wife to make these judgments, and if it is something I don't need to know, I told her she did not have to tell me.  I said I had to remember too many things in the office that I did not want to cram to my head too much information  ( see also Offloading your brain article ). Anyway, I know where to look for the information should I need to know. This attitude was probably inculcated from me from some of the books I read, particularly Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series.  I like detective and mysteries, and read a lot of them since I was small.   Sherlock Holmes, of course, is a classic detective well known for his observation powers, great memory, and clear logic.  I remember there was a passage where they were talking about the planets of the solar system, and the stars, and after making the inquiries, Sherlock Holmes announced that now he knew, he would take effort to forget what he has been told. When asked by Dr. Watson why, he said that while knowing the planets were interesting, he failed to see what good it would do in his crime detection work, and therefore did not want to put his head to remembering these 'useless' facts.  Not having to remember useless facts means his head could also remember the useful facts better, he said. The reason why these make a particular impression was that while I take particular care on choosing what to know and what not to know, I was not very good in the other thing that is important in the success of business and life -- which is what we need to focus and do. Our success is not only in what we know, but in what we do, and for the last 20 years, I have lead a labyrinth of the most busy life, more often putting in 70 hour weeks.  I have always taken pride in my ability to do things, and do indeed get myself involved in a lot of things.  I have had always much more things to do than I had time to do it, and thus, for the longest time, have been a great fan of pocket and electronic organizers in how to prioritize, and organize the list.  But whether electronic or paper, no tool was ever good enough, and it seems that the mountain of tasks just keep getting more and more. Then just other week, I read an article that hit me.  This was a Business 2.0 article on The CEO Handbook, which details some compilations Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson advice on business management. This particular advice stuck me like a bolt of lightning, and although it was something I had thought of before, it was simplicity itself in the way it was presented that jolted.  Basically the advice is that if you are already upto your neck in work, the first thing you do is to come up with a list ( fair enough, I know that one).  But it was a different kind of list.  Instead of coming up with a to-do list, you come up with a Not-to-do list!  The first thing therefore you should think about is not what you want to do, but what you can delegate others to do, or not to do at all!  That was great advice.  AFter all, as i said always before, we can never find time to do all the things we want, and therefore we need to prioritize ( this has been a recurring advice you see here).  But maybe, just maybe, it is not only prioritizing, but actually making a call that many things, while seemingly urgent, may not need to be done by you personally at all! This is quite obvious, but I hope I can get a vote from my readers that the simplicity itself of the advice really struck home!  I am sure many of the readers here are entrepreneurs like, and as entrepreneurs, we take pride in our ability to do things better than the others.  But as we grow the company, we have to let go, and let others take the job -- and the credit.  I have seen many entrepreneurs who do not have time to grow, becase they don't let go.  They want to do everything themselves ( because they think they can do it better), and thus perpetually is not able to find time to grow the company. So, the tools of business and personal success -- the not to do and not to know list.  What do you think?     2:52:18 PM     comment []   trackback []

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