Moving the needle becomes quite a challenge for everyone these days. When we are drowning in a sea of information, it’s hard to decipher what work is contributing to the bottom line and what is simply wasteful and busy activity.
I usually have a nagging sense of dissatisfaction when I find myself doing unimportant activities that contribute little or nothing to my goals or my team’s goals. It’s a sixth sense and I tend to take pause when I find myself working hard for no good reason.
A lot of work these days is a thinking person’s game. You have to step back and get clear on what matters and what doesn’t. Sometimes, having dialogue around all the swirling issues and pulls helps to put a spotlight on what is important and what does not matter.
Too often, we suffer from attachment. We get attached to something that may have mattered in previous work or projects and we still put energy and investment into those lingering effects.
William Faulkner famously pointed to the importance or prioritizing in writing, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”
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I think in knowledge work, you have to do likewise. Our sunk-cost biases and blind spots towards some things we may have been vested in previously can hold us back from truly breaking through. It’s critical to take stock and ruthlessly kill our darlings regularly, those things that are not meaningful contributions towards our goals.
Setting priorities is like getting a cleanse and allowing a reset. You feel lighter, more focused and able to execute. You get rid of the drag that creates cost in your actions and thinking.
You can always take a look at your:
- Commitments
- Projects
- Relationships
- Apps
- Material belongings
- Overhead
- Recurring costs
Make a decision in these areas and unburden yourself form those things that may have mattered at one time but are simply taking up space in your new reality.
We don’t get to be automatically aligned. We have to make priority setting a natural part of our approach to work to stay focused.
