Priorities, focus and procrastination
|
On Monday I sat down for a couple of hours and created a long To-Do list. Then I spent the rest of the day in a flurry, taking action, crossing things off my list. At the end I felt good. I had ticked many things off my list, giving me a steady stream of dopamine. The problem was that I had only completed unimportant tasks — I had focussed on the easy stuff. The next day I decided to use a different approach. I looked at the list and spent five minutes picking out the most important item. Then I wrote it down as a single task for me to work on that day. “Make progress on completing the big and horribly boring thing that is actually really valuable.” Then I put my long list away, to stop me from getting distracted. To my surprise it worked. I managed to complete the task, and I found myself wondering — if that was just a day’s worth of work then why did I put it off for two months? Two months of procrastination... It is easy to get sucked into the trap of doing lots of small and easy things, rather than spending time and effort on a few important things. One champion of focussing on fewer things — to accomplish more — is Gary Keller. He has even written a book about it. The book is called “The One Thing”, and as the title suggests he takes the concept to its utmost. Behind all of this is the same concept. It all comes down to priorities. Or if you want to take it to the extreme — priority [singular]. What is most important? Stay awesome! 😃 Best wishes, PS – The concept of priorities also has other interesting effects in the workplace. A common frustration is when priorities keep changing. Another source of frustration is when people have different priorities, particularly when there’s a need for collaboration. Below are links to two posts of mine that discuss these topics.
PPS – If you know others that might enjoy this newsletter please point them at the Cyborg Interfaces website. |