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Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart and a man ahead of his time, is one of my business heroes.
One of my favourite stories about Sam involves the purchase of his second store, which was in Bentonville, Arkansas. In 1951, the drive to Bentonville from his home in Newport, Arkansas took 8 to 10 hours.
While Sam said he did much of his best thinking on those drives, they also took a lot of time, and he was always seeking ways to be more productive.
On one of those drives, Sam heard a small plane flying overhead and thought, “I wonder how long it would take me to fly.”
It turned out to be only a 90-minute flight. Once he realized the time savings of flying over driving, Sam did what only he would have done.
He got his pilot’s licence and bought a small, inexpensive prop plane.
For the rest of his career, Sam flew to most of his stores. In addition to saving him time, use of the small aircraft helped Sam scout out new store locations.
Flying his own plane was a massive productivity boost for Sam.
I share this story because I believe that, by paying attention, we too can find areas where our productivity could increase.
Oh, and most of them don’t require us to fly a plane—they are often simple adjustments we can make to our business operations.
On last week’s podcast, I share my personal best productivity hack.
PS - As a guy with ADHD, this has been a game changer for me. If you have a productivity hack that has helped you, shoot me a reply to this email. I would love to hear it.
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