Main mistake of busy people
One of the most dangerous mistakes you can do to harm your productivity is to assume that you can finish everything.
When you strive to complete all the tasks that fly your way, you are losing your focus. You stop prioritising and work on what’s faster to do. You don’t pay attention to the things that are valuable. Most valuable tasks take a while to complete. So they simply fall through your net.
By putting them off, you start to accumulate work debt. It starts small, with abandoning improvements. You no longer learn new things. You don’t improve your working process. Ignore large but not pressing problems and opportunities for long-term changes.
Then, you start ignoring reviews and maintenance work. “Don’t fix what’s not broken” turns into “Don’t touch what’s not broken”. And this causes slow but sure degradation of your “status quo”. If you are a manager, you don’t feel you have time for 1–1 with your subordinates and other routine tasks. “They are working well enough, so what’s the point?”
In time, outstanding work debt accumulates to the level you are no longer capable of ignoring. So you go into permanent firefighting mode. You are focusing on fixing broken things. Overtimes and overwork become your norm. And there seems to be no end to the chain of breakdowns…
But that’s not everything!
Due to overwork and extra stress, your productivity deteriorates even further. You get sick. After all, you have no time to look after your health. You don’t even have a chance to sleep properly.
Your family starts growing distant because you don’t have time to spend with them. And this only adds to the pressure and disappointment.
At which stage of this journey are you now?
This situation is easily preventable. All you need to do is to recognise that there is no way you can do everything. This decision will force you to put priorities in place.
And if you would prioritise value over the number of tasks completed — the whole story would change. If you would put improvement first — you will get growth. And in time you would have more time and more impact than you could’ve imagined.
Make your choice! 😉
