“What if I did the opposite?” - Tim Ferriss

Every year when we do our budgets at my company, we practice a methodology called “Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB),” the basic premise of which is to start with a completely blank budget and add in your projections for the year to come. Before we switched to zero based budgeting, we used to simply review the budget from last year, make some tweaks, and move along. It was easier, but it allowed for budgetary detritus to linger undetected (sometimes for years). Now we have to start from scratch every time, which takes longer, but largely eliminates the possibility of accidentally carrying budget items you shouldn’t. Zero based also forces you to really think through the time period to come, and helps you to be more accurate in your forecasting.

What if we were to apply Zero Based to our Execution in general? What would that look like, and what might it change?

You and I both know that time is precious. Indeed, it is your only non-renewable resource. Time is also the thing that more and more people want more and more of from you, and it can be equally as seductive to say yes as it is painful to say no. Given these twin forces, it makes only sense to walk through your commitments and your strategy from time to time to assess, and potentially refactor. If you’ve ever felt like you were suffocating in an endless stream of meetings, action items, initiatives, notes you’ve taken, and the like, you know it can be very difficult to keep pace with it all and deliver the excellence you intend to in every domain of your life that you wish to. What’s worse is that you likely tend to focus on the frustration of not having done what you failed to get to instead of being grateful and excited about what you did accomplish. Starting to sound like a Death Spiral, no?

Enter Zero Based Execution (ZBE).

Begin with declaring Project Zero, and give yourself permission to invest some energy into clearing space. Treat it like a thought experiment if that helps you to put your ego and your fears aside for a bit. Breathe into the process, and get excited – this might just be the best thing you’ve done for yourself in a while. So, now you’re looking at a blank page, an empty calendar, and a To Do list with nothing on it. PERFECT. Now, as you think about adding commitments back, let’s layer in some guidelines. 

The Seven Tenets of Zero Based Execution

1.) Ruthlessly Prioritize Replenishment

2.) Identify the 80/20 of the 80/20

3.) Start in the Middle

4.) Play the Orchestra

5.) Command the Frame

6.) Yeses Must Be Earned (Default No)

7.) Remain Vigilant

Ruthlessly prioritize replenishment is listed first for obvious reasons, but let’s be clear on what we mean by “replenishment.” Steven Covey referred to this as Sharpening the Saw, and it is meant to encompass the areas of your being that require renewal – physical, social, mental, spiritual. Literally, what I’m saying here is to schedule these items FIRST. Block off your vacation time now. Secure time slots in the morning, afternoon, and evening to ensure that your mediation, journaling, family time, and dinners with friends are booked. Also schedule a buffer day that is sacred and non-negotiable to give yourself a time slot to deal with the problems and shifts that will invariably arise.

Now that you have the first set of commitments carved in stone, it’s time to identify the 80/20 of the 80/20. Also called the Pareto Principle, the punchline here is that 80% of your results spring from 20% of your efforts. But, if you apply 80/20 to 80/20, you see that you get 64% of your results from 4% of your efforts (thank you Nick Cownie!). FOUR PERCENT of your efforts give you MOST of your results! And, for those of you who might already be skipping ahead, yes, if you apply 80/20 again you see that about 50% of your results comes from about 1% of your efforts (technically it’s 51.2% from 0.8%, but let’s keep it simple). Well, we already identified the 1% – that’s your rest and replenishment as described above. Your challenge is to figure out the remainder of the 4% (I can help you with that).

Start in the Middle is all about intentionally doing things a little differently so as to shake up your routines and automatic thinking. So, when you’re planning your year, start in July. When you’re planning your week, start with Wednesday. When you’re planning your quarter, start with Week 6, and so on.

Play the Orchestra is one of my favorites, as anyone who knows me professionally will attest. The simple concept here is this – just because something needs to be done, that does not mean that you personally have to do it. This is fairly obvious, but it’s also true that things tend to sneak into your day/week/month that you could and should delegate or outsource. Not all tasks are like that, however… if you want the benefits of exercise then you have to go lift the weights. Apart from any of the replenishment work (the 1%, as described earlier), make it very difficult to assign anything to yourself. If you aren’t allowed to do it, but it needs to get done, who or what will you task with the action item?

Psychology underpins much of life and leadership, very often in a profound way that can go entirely unnoticed. Commanding the Frame deals with this directly, and shifts your (likely) default wiring from focused on lack to focused on abundance – this is the antidote to the Death Spiral I briefly discussed earlier. It starts with changing your expectations – expect that NOTHING will get done. Yes, you read that correctly – NO.THING. will get done. Now, as you DO get things done, you’ll be happy and grateful that the “DONE” list is growing, whereas before you may have felt fatigued by the sheer size of the To Do list. Clever, yes?

So far, so good, but how do you keep your ZBE plan moving forward without reintroducing the very things that slowed you down to begin with? Make “Yes” very, very difficult. Before you think about agreeing to anything, you need to be extremely focused on why you will allow something into your schedule. I’d go as far as to say that every request that comes your way is an automatic “No” unless it earns a yes. 

To that end, here are some crafted “No” replies that should help:

• If you don’t want to do it, and won’t:

  • That’s not the sort of thing I can commit to, unfortunately. Perhaps [insert person/place/idea] would help?

  • Strategy – Redirect

• If you don’t want to do it, but will:

  • Let’s talk about that. I’m sure we can come up with a plan that makes sense, but I’m going to ask you to meet me in the middle. 

  • Strategy – Negotiate

• If you do want to do it, but can’t:

  • Honestly I’d love to, truly, but I can’t prioritize that right now over the other commitments I have. Please ping me again next time this is available!

  • Strategy – Keep Door Open

And lastly, Remain Vigilant. As I discussed in a previous post, Vigilance is one of the Seven V’s of V7 Leadership, and it’s there for a reason. The Zero Based Execution strategy is not a set it and forget it approach. Life happens, things get in the way, emergencies pop up. So, give yourself some grace, stay humble, and run through the Seven Tenets again and again. You’ll never be done, and that’s exciting, because that means that you can always improve.

To the Leader in You,

-Paul, V7