Getting sh*t done

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Today’s read will take about 8 minutes to read. The clock starts now.

Introduction

Today’s theme is inspired by a concept I tweeted about on Friday.

I unfortunately own the badge of spending too much time on planning last year. I have romanticised my notebooks and my colour coded sheets. And in return I had days where completing a sheet of what I had to do for the rest of the week was enough.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear elaborates on the difference between being in motion or taking action. While the two ideas may seem similar, they are not the same.

He mentions that when in motion we tend to spend a lot of time on strategizing, learning, and planning. While these all are good things, they do not push the needle forward towards our destination.

Being in action however is bound to deliver an outcome. I was in motion when I was stuck for hours thinking about what I needed to buy to make my living room in the new apartment nicer. I was in action when I went and bought myself a sunset lamp.

I was in motion when I spent my entire Saturday thinking of the main theme for this newsletter. I am in action this Sunday writing it down.

James argues that we sometimes prefer being in motion because we think we need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress, without running the risk of failure. Actions may lead to criticism - motion protects us from any form of judgement.

Objectives

Subject

The plethora of activities that we have to meet in a day may put us out entirely from beginning our work. It may feel overwhelming looking at how many hats you have to wear in a day: everything seems important and urgent.

As a consequence, we refrain from taking action from the fear of failing at any of our tasks. Leadership positions are considered to be in the spotlight, so to avoid being seen as untrustworthy or unable to do our job, we focus on motion.

In reality however, not everything is important or urgent. Breaking down the wall of being continuously available for everyone and everything, and knowing how to reframe your daily schedule will make you a more efficient and successful leader.

PRIORITISATION

In the study of productivity, one of the most impactful pieces for leaders is the Eisenhower matrix:

Have a look at the tasks you have to complete in a day: if you have granular things to do, try to categorise them in order to see which of them occupy the most time. You should not mark everything as important: I find that hard to believe.

By the end of this separation, you will have moved from considering every task important to being able to add weight to your tasks. Always prioritise the important and urgent tasks in your schedules.

Some individuals do not respond to the Eisenhower matrix, as it’s expected. Not everyone can start with putting out the fires of importance and urgency every single day. If your working style is different, you may be looking at an alternative matrix to use in order to plan your days. 

As an alternative for Eisenhower, I present to you the Fun/Effort matrix. You will now create 4 sections of different fun and effort levels. If you are the type of person that leaves the best part of their food for the end, you might look at separating your daily schedules to have a mix and match of the 4 parts of the matrix.

Any form of adding weighting to your tasks is helpful. You can be creative and create your own. While we must aim to prioritise the most important elements of our schedule, that does not mean they should be taking the most time. We are not trying to look busy. If your main areas take little time, you can move to other categories and continue making actions.

Even prioritised, our days as leaders are diverse in the skills we have to use. As such, mastering context switching is a superpower.

Framework

Even with a perfect schedule, you might have trouble focusing your attention on a single thing. While doing something, your mind could be entirely in a different place. Finding your focus is about learning how to tune the mental noise so you can concentrate on the work at hand.

This concentration is immensely powerful. Psychologists call it “flow”, when you’re so completely engaged in what you’re doing that you lose track of time. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a pioneer on the research of flow describes the concept this way:

Flow boosts performance and motivation. We all do our best work in this state, and our mind feels more rewarded, too. But how can we stay in flow with the diverse activities we have to fulfil as a leader? The secret stays in effective context switching.

If you want to take your leadership skills and productivity to the next level, you need to spend some time on reframing your relationship with context switching. Here are some solutions you can use to get the best results out of your prioritised tasks:

It may feel weird to move to a smarter structure of context switching. Businesses celebrate and expect responsiveness from leaders: being always available is rewarded so we may feel like this is the expected style of work in our environments. We start wondering what the new message or email is about, and our brain starts to crave novelty. Naturally, we jump to the other task: the disturbance created curiosity which stimulated dopamine, driving our choices away from our previous focus point. But with enough exercise, we can get our schedules to be healthier.

Final thoughts

As a final note, I want you to start thinking of your time as a product. The success of it is defined by how you project manage it.

In order for time to respond to the client’s needs, it needs to fulfil the requirements of an MVP (your top priorities). Further, it needs to be well organised, easy to use, and provide results (productivity techniques). Lastly, it should be powerful enough to perform multiple sequence tasks without having a task damage the performance of another one (effective context switching).

In the end, it is your responsibility to stay in action. Plans and strategies are just that if they’re an excuse to stay in motion.

If you believe in my thoughts and ideas, I get closer to others alike who would appreciate my content through your reposts, shares, likes, and comments.

In a digital algorithmically world, your smallest interactions are of immense value. I’m always excited when conversations spark in comments, or when someone asks for more information. Shall you be that person in the future, I thank you and I look forward to discussing with you further!

Quality content

This week’s quality content puts into spotlight the inspirational James Clear. His book “Atomic Habits” has been revolutionary for the way I now interact with healthy habits and work. His book is to the point and includes countless methods to reach your potential.

Alongside his book, his weekly newsletter provides its readers with 3 short ideas from him, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question for us to ponder. I strongly advise you to subscribe to it following the link below:

Finally, James created a 30 day email challenge that mimics the frameworks from his book. Every 3 days, he will provide its readers with a new element of creating healthy habits. The challenge includes countless further reads, a workbook that you can use for your progress, and in depth support to designing effective atomic habits. If you’re keen on habit forming, this email challenge is a must do.

That’s it for today. Thanks so much for reading!

Feel free to reply to this email with any further questions you may have, I am always available.