Weekly Shakedown - Issue #7 - On productivity
Hi friends
Happy Satur-yay! 🎉
You may have noticed that things look a little different around here - well done you for noticing.
Q: What have you done? A: I’ve taken the decision to transfer my fledgling newsletter to Substack.
Q: Why? A: This isn’t shiny new toy syndrome in action - or, at least, I haven’t yet admitted that possibility to myself. Rather, I think this platform will offer benefits to all of us. Whilst I’m grateful to Revue for providing a platform that gave me the courage to start a newsletter in the first place, I found the user experience to be quite difficult. What should have been the simple process of transferring my copy from Notion (where I draft and edit the content) and into the text editor was a long and painful process (and as you’ll see below, I’m looking to be both efficient and effective). So, in the spirit of good productivity practice, I sought to eliminate that pain point by upping sticks and moving here. I’m already seeing the benefits and saving time. Hooray for me.
Hopefully, you’ll also see some benefits from the transfer and I won’t end up losing half of you to the automatic junk folder filing system of doom. 👹🗑 One of the key benefits is the ability to comment on posts right on the page, so that you guys can share thoughts and ideas and conversations. So do use that feature to let me know if you’ve already noticed improvements in the user experience. This is primarily a resource for you guys so I want to make sure its an enjoyable one.
Anyway, in getting to this stage I realise that I’ve never set out my overall thoughts on productivity and why I think this topic is so important, so let’s start in this new world at the beginning.
Enjoy
G
Filling Your Day
Isn’t it funny how, almost without exception, the work we do fills the space available to it. In that sense it acts like a gas.
It’s crazy that people who work 9 to 5 are able to clock off almost exactly on time every day. As if the work they had to do was magically preordained to take exactly 8 hours minus lunch and breaks.
And it’s not just a 9 to 5 phenomenon. People working in professional services will know the unspoken rules about when you can safely clock off for the day without people giving you funny looks as you leave. At some firms that barrier is around 6:30 / 7pm and at City firms it can sit as far back as 10pm or later. But no matter how senior you are within those firms, and how much actual work you’ve got to do, you still it is still possible to fill up the day, or finish what you need to do, at the time you usually leave.
The reality, of course, is that during those hours we’re likely not being as productive as we think we are.
That’s not to say that you’re not being “busy”. After all, busyness is the key metric in employment. Rather, I contend that you’re filling your time with expendable tasks. Responding to every email as soon as it arrives. Filing away emails in an ever more complex hierarchical structure so you can get to inbox zero (or as close to it as possible). Participating in meetings or calling colleagues to do a quick “update”. And the worst one of all - carrying on administration tasks that need to be repeated on a daily / weekly / monthly basis, where such tasks could be automated with a bit of time investment at the outset.
But if you boil it down, your day would likely be just as productive if you were to simply achieve the “mission critical” tasks that really bring value to your business or your role as an employee.
And that’s what I mean when I talk about productivity and why I’’m an evangelist for productivity tools. I don’t want people to use tools for tools sake. I want you to be able to be your most efficient AND effective. Because when you’re both of those things you’re not only an invaluable resource, but you’re also much more likely to outperform your colleagues and your own objectives.
Pareto’s Law 💡
Vilfredo Pareto was a Italian economist who showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Joseph M Juran, a management consultant, then took that concept and showed that it worked much more broadly. His revised principle, which he named after Pareto, states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Ergo, 80% of company profits are likely to be generated by 20% of its products or customers. 80% of complaints will probably come from 20% of customers.
The principle also applies closer to home. 80% of your stress is likely to come from 20% of your activities. And, in your day, 80% of the productive work you do will probably come from 20% of the tasks you carry on.
Thanks to ImpossibleHQ.com for this image.
Knowing this is one thing. But many people wrongly assume that they’re an outlier. Surely, they say, I’m doing things all day that need to be done and are therefore relevant and necessary.
To those people, I would suggest you take a closer look at where your time is being spent during the day.
One way of doing that is to write down the one key task that you need to accomplish that day. (Pro tip: do this before you’re opened your emails and you get sucked into a world of meaninglessness.) Then, throughout the day, just pause and ask yourself - is what I’m doing now helping me to achieve that goal.
Flip things on their head
Once you’ve identified that your time is being sucked away from you in unproductive tasks, you can now think about doing something about it.
In the Four Hour Workweek (which was the inspiration for much of this email), Tim Ferriss advocates for a dramatic cutting back of work time. He posits that you should identify those tasks that really do drive your productivity forward, or which, if you’re an entrepreneur, generate 80% of your profits, and cut the rest out.
With the rest of the time, you’ve got two options. If you’re brave enough or have the flexibility built into your working life, stop working and do something else that’s meaningful (that’s Tim’s approach). More likely, you’re not in the position to simply tell your employer that you’re going to be taking the rest of the day off. So, instead, why not 5x your productivity and double down on those productive tasks. You’ll be amazed what can be achieved. Your employer will thank you for it when the results come in because you’ll have demolished your objectives and delivered 5 times the output of your colleagues.
And that is what true productivity allows you to achieve.
Designing Your Life
Time for a little plug.
If any of this has resonated with you, you may be interested in a course being run by my friend, Nathan.
Called ‘Designing Your Life’ - it’s a course for those who feel unsatisfied with where their career took them.
Maybe you aren’t sure what you want from a career or your life. Perhaps you’re facing too many awesome-sounding options and can’t choose the one that will make you happiest.
Designing Your Life is about approaching these career-driven problems like a product designer. It advocates for curiosity, flexibility, iteration and pro-activity.
In Nathan’s own words:
“The course is not 3-steps-to-success nonsense. It’s a toolkit to help people understand themselves better. To identify what their hopes and dreams really are, and then using the tools we will be teaching to build something genuinely meaningful, engaging and fulfilling for the people who attend.”
And the best bit? It’s totally free.
The course is comprised of four sessions, running on consecutive Wednesday evenings from 4 November.
To sign up, send your details to Nathan at nathandudgeon@hotmail.co.uk quick, before he changes his mind.