Hector A. Ruiz

MBA, Project Manager, Tennis Player, Musician, and Author of "How to Destroy a Country"

Month: October 2020

Managing Priorities (WFH)

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On October 27, 2020

In General

Working from home has been an interesting transition for a lot of people over the past months, in part because it involves managing requests from internal and external clients that come in a different fashion as we were used to when we had to go to our 9 to 5 office jobs.

I consider myself a very organized person, especially when it comes to prioritizing tasks and deliverables, however I am aware that I am part of a significant minority in the work force. Most people I have worked throughout my life work on a “First come-First serve” basis, whether if it’s tasks, phone calls, emails or anything. I, on the other hand, learned two of the most important lessons in the corporate world at a very early age in my life: 1) You can’t please everyone at the same time, and 2) You can’t please everyone, period.

So what is my thought process when I get seven emails asking for something at the same time? Needless to say a three paragraph blog post is not going to be enough to provide a straight answer to that question, but I will try to give a few quick pointers:

  1. Stop FCFS now. Take a deep breath, pause and relax (I’m dead serious). Take your time to clear your head and think right. You’ll appreciate what a few minutes of peace can do for you.
  2. Calculate how much time will each task take.
  3. Estimate how much of your focus will each task take.
  4. Separate what’s urgent from what’s important, in order. Yes, you can do it.
  5. Spend between 30 and 60 minutes to get rid of “Quick, easy and fast” (less than 5 minutes tasks). No more than that.
  6. Spend the rest of your day getting rid of “Long, hard and detailed” tasks.
  7. Don’t take any more requests until you get rid of what’s on your plate. Adding up is not going to help. Put it in a second queue list you’ll look at later after you’re done with your original tasks.
  8. Be honest. If you can’t make a dead line, tell your client right away that you’ll be late. He’ll appreciate and value you for it, rather than you going on mute mode.
  9. Finally, set goals and be true to them. Finish what you promise.

Good luck!

HR

US Open and Roland Garros

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On October 15, 2020

In Sports

I have to start by saying that I have 0 ATP points and have never played against a top 50 player in my life. But, I do know that if I would have played in the fifth set of a Grand Slam Final, I would have never hit an 85 mph first serve and even less a 68 mph second serve.

A couple of weeks ago Thiem and Zverev were protagonists of arguably one of the most boring Grand Slam finals of all time, to a point where it seemed neither of them wanted to actually win the title. Three weeks later, Nadal and Djokovic reached the finals by completely destroying almost everyone in their way -including scary and next generation players-, with Nadal giving an almost flawless performance in his match against Djokovic.

As a coach, it’s quite obvious that both Thiem and Zverev have every single shot in the book to be multiple Slam winners. What they don’t have is the attitude, the mind and the understanding that despite being physically fit and capable of hitting any shot, it is strategy and a proper mental state what wins titles. My advise to both: fire their coaches and hire a coach to work on those aspects.

HR

NBA Finals and the GOAT

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On October 5, 2020

In Sports

With the NBA Finals on the way, the debate of the GOAT will be in the mouths of every basketball fan for the remainder of the year, especially if the Lakers win.

The fact that we are even having the discussion of the greatest basketball player of all time makes me wonder if either people have short memory or if trends dictate the standards on any discipline. By reading these lines, you probably realized that I will side with Michael Jordan, even though I give a lot of credit and respect to LeBron James.

There several points I can use to make my case, however I will quickly list three that to me seal the deal:

  1. Michael failed and kept trying until he succeeded: I’ll never forgive LeBron for moving away from Cleveland to Miami to get his first championship. It felt like a cheap move and an easy way to solve a problem. I really admire MJ for sticking with Chicago until they finally broke through.
  2. Steve Kerr’s shot: “I’ll be ready” is what Steve said to Michael to assure him that he was ready and willing to take a shot in the last play of game six. Not only Michael was great, but he also made his teammates great.
  3. So many great players got deprived of NBA Rings: Barkley, Miller, Malone, Stockton, Ewing and many others were shut down by MJ and his Bulls. To put in in perspective, LeBron and Steph are the equivalent of Larry and Magic. If either would have silenced the other one, then that person would be the equivalent of MJ.

I can rank LeBron anywhere you want and as high as #2 if you want me to, but never #1. That place still belongs to MJ, and I only listed three reasons.

HR

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