Capacity is a State of Mind

A young executive was called in to his department head’s office. “Jim, you know we’re short now that Henry left on such short notice. I’ve already spoken with the other two in your department and they feel they already swamped and just can’t take on anymore responsibility. I’m asking you to do what you can and do both jobs for now until we can hire someone new”. “Sir, I’ll do my best”.

Later that evening with the office quiet and his own work finished, Jim when to work on his idea bucket. He determined to find more time. He felt like a three legged squirrel in a nut race. He was just as busy as his colleagues who had wiggled out of the extra work, but having learned that it never pays to turn down what could be an opportunity, he had agreed to this and was determined to squeeze the time out of his already hectic workday. To his surprise, he came up with several time-saving ideas. For example, he could work out an arrangement for his assistant to route all his routine calls to a certain hour of the day. He would check his email, snail mail and voice messages at appointed times as well. He cut his usual conference periods from 15 to 10 minutes. He later discovered that his assistant was willing to take on several time consuming details for him.

Jim was shocked that he had allowed himself to become so inefficient! He was successful at not just squeezing in the extra work, but found that he was sending out twice as many letters, taking 50 percent more phone calls, attending half again the number of meetings in just a week’s time and all without added pressure.

After just a few weeks, he met with his department head again who confessed he could not find anyone satisfactory and had already gained approval to combine Jim’s job with the other and give him a substantial raise in pay.

Are you ready to give yourself a raise in pay? Or do you just want to ease your stress levels? You can do more than you realize. How much you can do is largely determined by how much you think you can do. If you take the time to really look at your situation and believe you can do more. You will unlock doors, open windows and see a beautiful vista of new ideas to improve your efficiency and add joy to your life.

“Capacity is indeed a state of mind”, David Schwartz.

Story adapted from David Schwartz’s The Magic of Thinking Big