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tried repeatedly to use these times for forecasting, and it just never works. We can’t get the information we need as the discussion progresses, and even though we have tried, it is confusing and a waste. Let’s stop using this meeting to do that.”
    • What is dead and just taking up space?
    For example, “Al of the reviews we go through on operations from the previous time period don’t add value to our purpose here. It is not moving anything forward. Let’s stop doing that.”

    The idea here is that it is not just an entire company or life that needs pruning; the devil is in the details as wel . If people could learn to say things like, “We only have a little time, let’s stay away from certain issues and focus on what we can do something about,” or “Let’s use our time in a good way,” the resources of time and energy would be better spent.
    In the personal realm, I have also taught this method to couples, and they see immediate changes. One couple reported back that they changed their weekly “date night” as a result:
    “We used to take the time to have a date night every week, get a babysitter to spend time together apart from the kids. But, we would go out and end up talking about the kids, running the house, and al the things that we were trying to get away from. We lost the benefit of date night and were coming back not feeling very refreshed or renewed with each other and our relationship.
    “So, we asked ourselves about the three categories and decided that there were good but not best ways to spend our time, things that we talked about that got us into conflicts that were not getting wel , and some ways of spending our evenings that added nothing.
    “Then we decided to make those off-limits. We started having real dates again, like when we were first dating, before kids and the chal enges of running a household took most of our attention. We remembered what it was like when we first met and every minute gave more life to our relationship. And we did the things we used to do. Now we are looking forward to that night . . . it kind of grounds us now through the week. I know that no matter what is going on, that night is going to bring me energy.”
    Al of your precious resources—time, energy, talent, passion, money—should only go to the buds of your life or your business that are the best, are fixable, and are indispensable. Otherwise, average sets in and a meeting or even a date night does not become the rose it was designed to be. How many times have you heard someone walk out of a meeting and ask, “Why do we have these meetings?” Pruning might help that, or it might keep a couple from going to sleep after a date night a little more discouraged about their marriage. Pruning can bring health into the smal branches of business or life as wel as the big.
    In Life as Well

    One last reminder about pruning and necessary endings. The concepts apply to al of life, business and personal. Although this is a book contextualized in business and leadership, the concepts here wil apply in every area of your life where you are spending yourself and your resources. And I say that not only as a helpful hint for you to look at al of life as a place for endings, but for another reason as wel .
    The bigger issue is that your character as a person works best when you are “integrated.” In my book Integrity , I talked about how the word integrity comes from the Latin word meaning “whole,” and how business and leadership work best when a person has an integrated or whole character. They are then running on all cylinders and are the same person on the job as they are at home . They are able to use al of their capacities in both places and accomplish their vision.
    I have seen leaders who are not facing the personal issues that they need to face, and as a result, their performance in both business and their personal lives is being held back. You are one person, and as you integrate al of what it means