Work on What Matters
We all have a finite amount of time to live.
And we are all trying to balance our career with our the other life-affirming activities like supporting our families, exercising, hobbies, you name it.
The paradox is: The deeper we get into our careers, the less time we have available for work, while at the same time our responsibilities and the expectations around our impact keep growing.
And while sleepless nights and deprivation of non-work activities may work for a while, we realize sooner or later that the work just keeps expanding relative (or even exponential) to the effort we pour in. Increasingly senior roles require that we accomplish more and more, and do it in less and less time.
The only way to drive more impact in less time is to work solely on what matters.
What can I work on that matters?
- What only you can do: If we start with taking a hard look at which of all the tasks in our (work)-life lie at the intersection of stuff we are exceptionally capable at and stuff that we genuinely care about, we are already half-way there. I’m not talking about work that we can do faster or better than others, but work that simply won't happen if we don't do it, because our input is crucial. This category of tasks will get narrower and deeper the further we go into our careers.
- Editing the small things: A lot of projects, processes, and routines are just one small tweak or change away from succeeding in a major way. Look all around you, what meeting-process, team-constellation, KPI or stuck project needs just a little nudge from you to lead to a disproportionally large positive gain or breakthrough?
- Finishing Things: We only get value from finishing projects, and getting a project over the finish line is the magical moment it goes from risk to leverage. What is unfinished on your plate that if finished becomes leverage instead of a drain on your mind? Double-win.
- Fostering Growth: We can grow the team or people around us. Who could majorly profit from a little coaching or mentoring from us? If we can un-stuck people or help them remove obstacles out of their way, not only do we make our relationships stronger, but we also help ourselves and the company be more effective.
What are some common mistakes we can avoid?
- No "Snacking": Given a choice between work that’s easy/low-impact (aka “snacking”) or hard/high-impact, choose the latter.
- Don't drain your energy: As James Clear says, "be "selectively ignorant". Ignore topics that drain your attention. Unfollow or avoid people that drain your energy. Abandon projects that drain your time. Do not keep up with it all. The more selectively ignorant you become, the more broadly knowledgable you can be.
- Lack of prioritization - How Louis Grenier said it best in a positioning course I am currently taking - "By running back and forth between the things that might be important, we forget to spend time on what really is!". Meaning, pick 2-3 things that you want to work on, focus on those and consciously postpone the rest to later.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but entails a few things that resonated with me and that I found help me to feel like I work on things that matter.
Inevitably there will be periods in our lives where we have to do the shitty stuff as well and feel drowned by it all. But if it's taking over our lives for too long (and yes more than three months is too long!), then we need to change something.
So let's end with Will Larson, who has shaped a lot of my thinking on this topic and whose article served for outlining of this essay:
"The only viable long-term bet on your career is to do work that matters, work that develops you and to steer towards companies that value genuine expertise."
