suddenly I'll be as organized as I want to be
But I think that to a certain extent I like being
m the whirlwind and having everything up in
the air and juggling. To a certain extent I feel
most comfortable there, on the edge "
Incredibly, Gottlieb has gotten by in the
fast-paced world of record and distribution
deal-making without the traditional "in/out"
box to help control the flow of paperwork
Yes, I've survived, oddly enough," he says
7 try to deal with the mail first thing, but it's
hard. The hardest thing to do is to hit the
balance between tasks that you know have
to be done but require some effort, tasks
which you know have to be done with
dispatch but are not perhaps top priority,
and the scary tasks, the ones that require
creative thought. In other businesses where
they're more staid, businesses that are less
opportunistic, you find people with wonder
ful Rolodexes and Filo-faxes, and who write
great letters to people even when they re not
necessary."
,4 s a student, Gottlieb says he would
always put off until tomorrow what he might
do today. "I was a procrastinator and a
perfectionist when I was in school," he says,
"but that’s not a problem people should
worry about. The important thing, when
you 're finally put on the front line and when it
matters, is whether you have enough gut
and instinct to see it through. The end pro
duct is not a clean desk. There are parts of
business where presentation is everything,
and there are parts where it's meaningless.
You have to keep your eye on the ball and not
get distracted by organization, or be so con
sumed by the idea that it gets in the way of
everything else."
Gottlieb says he hasn't the time, or the in
clination, to study from the endless list of
books on organization and business
management. "I wouldn't waste a second
reading one of them," he explains. Instead,
he says people starting their own
businesses shouldiust do what works best
for them. "But not only do what works for
you," he continues, "do what works It may
be working for you, but if you're not getting
the job done it doesn’t much matter You
have to figure out what's effective In start
ing out anything, I don’t think you can cover
all the bases. It's kind of like a /uggler, you
know, if you ask him which ball he throws up
first. It's balance. It's not a system in the
sense of having a prescribed set of rules. It's
a feel."
Of course, success leaves nme time tor
anything else "My social life is complete
chaos," Gottlieb admits. "I miss having time
to run or work out. I miss having time to read
or pursue other interests. When I started this
business I realized that at least for the short
term what I needed were blinders, a single
mindedness. I have friends who are able to
shut it off, and they ’re supermen. They have
an hour a day where they play squash and
an hour a day where they do this, and they
definitely cut off work at a certain time, so
that they can have time to go out and
socialize. I can't do that I have to be com
pletely immersed in what I'm doing '
HELP WANTED!
HOW TO BEAT
THE HIGH COST
OF DO-IT
YOUR
SELFISHNESS
our walls need repainting. Your
50-page term-paper needs to be
typed by tomorrow morning And,
you've got to pack up all of your earthly
possessions and move into that swell
apartment off-campus.
How much time have you got?
Well, what little time you do have is run
ning out. You need help
Sometimes it pays to pay someone else
to do your work. It saves you time, yes, but it
first job, you'll likely come upon times when
you'll have the spare change, but not the
spare time, to see a personal job through to
its completion
A good way to figure whether a task is
worth your time and attention is to first set a
value on what your time is worth The
easiest way to do this, for most of you, will
be to use your hourly wage as a yardstick
(If you don't know your hourly wage, divide
your weekly salary by 35 hours Lunch time
and overtime don't count in this equation)
Once you've determined that you earn,
say. $11 an hour (an annual salary of
$20,000), then you can better determine
what your leisure time is worth
Let's take your moving day as an exam
ple Doing it yourself could take the entire
weekend to complete — or 16 hours, to
represent two full working days—at a time
value cost to you of approximately $176 If
you choose to hire a moving company, the
job would be completed in a fraction of the
time— The movers, after all, are
professionals—and also at a fraction of the
cost Most movers will charge anywhere
from $25 to $50 dollars an hour, but let's
assume for the sake of comparision that
can also save you money At the office,
most people don't think twice about send
ing a messenger across town to deliver an
important package. In some offices people
don’t even water their own plants. (A hired
plant service sees to the care and feeding
of the greenery.) The notion that your time
can be better spent doing something else
is common in the workplace, but it should
also be the accepted notion at school, or in
your personal life once you've begun your
first job. Your time matters as much to you
there as it does at work —there just isn’t
enough of the stuff to go around If your
apartment walls need painting, hire a
painter If your term-paper needs to be
typed, offer to pay a neighbor or a friend to
help you out, or hire a temporary secretary.
And, if you've got some heavy moving to
do, maybe you should think about hiring
some heavy movers.
But how do you determine whether to
hire-out a chore or to do it yourself? From a
student's perspective, it may seem that ex
tra cash for such part-time hires will be
hard to come by, but once you start your
you find a company to do the work in three
hours at a cost of $100
In this case, you will have theoretically
saved yourself $76 You will have bought
back your free time Of course, this line of
thinking assumes that you could be work
ing at your $11 an hour job when the movers
come to haul off your stuff, which is not
necessarily the case, but it still provides a
useful measure with which to determine
whether a given task or chore is worth your
time and attention You have to consider
time’s intrinsic value in addition to its actual
monetary value After all, if your employer
is willing to pay you that kind of money for
your time, then you should accord
something like the same value to your off
hour time. Don't sell yourself short
Every task will cost you either time or
money It's up to you to decide which you
want to spend Below, some questions to
ask yourself to help make cost-effective
decisions when it comes to personal
chores:
—Do I have the skills the lob requires?
If you don't, it will take you longer to com