Many, many of us have tons going on. Too much. We have so much we want, we have endless projects, and we end up worshiping the evil god of “business”. Am I alone here?
I’m not going to talk too much shit for worshiping that god. There’s something to be said for high productivity. It’s impressive to smash eighteen things off a to do list and feel the thrill of adrenaline from the overwhelm. Hell! I’ve been known to say that if you don’t have stuff falling off your plate and you’re failing at things then you’re not reaching high enough.
Here’s the problem… when you’re fighting fires and you’re a slave to the tyranny of the urgent you’re probably not playing the long game. There’s a sweet spot to productivity and as long as you’re still pretty efficient at knocking out tasks then keep kicking ass. I can tall you from experience though that there’s a cliff to productivity and efficiency. When I say cliff I mean it, our effectiveness drops by 70%-90% after that cliff.
Sometimes it’s better to slow down a bit and get organized. Work your patterns and systems for part of the time to raise your effectiveness and that will have an overall net gain.
Storytime…
“Once upon a time, there were two woodcutters named Peter and John. They were often at loggerheads over who chopped more wood. So one day, they decided to hold a competition to determine the winner. The rules were simple—whoever produce the most wood in a day wins.
So the next day morning, both of them took up their positions in the forest and started chopping away in their fastest possible speed. This lasted for an hour before Peter suddenly stopped. When John realized that there was no chopping sound from his opponent’s side, he thought: “Ah Ha! He must be tired already!” And he continued to cut down his trees with double the pace.
A quarter of an hour passed, and John heard his opponent chopping again. So both of them carried on synchronously. John was starting to feel weary when the chopping from Peter stopped once again. Feeling motivated and smelling victory close by, John continued on, with a smile on his face.
This went on the whole day. Every hour, Peter would stop chopping for fifteen minutes while John kept going relentlessly. So when the competition ended, John was absolutely confident that he would take the triumph.
But to John’s astonishment, Peter had actually cut down more wood. How did this even happen? “How could you have chopped down more trees than me? I heard you stop working every hour for fifteen minutes!”, exclaimed John.
Peter replied, “Well, it’s really simple. Every time I stopped work, while you were still chopping down trees, I was sharpening my axe.”
Everybody, everywhere seems to be busy. Most people are just too busy doing and trying to achieve that they do not take the necessary time to renew themselves, to learn and grow—to sharpen the “axe”.”
The opportunity:
Could you handle to be busier or do you need to sharpen your axe?
What will you put on your plate to put you closer to your goals?
What will you take off your plate to slow down and sharpen your axe?
If you don’t have a clear and easy way to prioritize things I use this framework to organize tasks:
#1 Highest priority, time sensitive, monetarily impactful.
#2 Highest priority and time sensitive.
#3 Moderately important, not time sensitive.
#4 Low importance, not time sensitive.