Realistic expectations, ruthless elimination, and rapid exploration

Posted: - Modified: | productivity

“You're pretty organized, right? Do you have a system for productivity that I could use?” someone said to me. She sounded frustrated by her lack of progress on some long-standing projects. I shrugged, unsure how to help.

I don't consider myself super-productive. I am, however, less stressed than many people seem to be. I've been learning to keep realistic expectations, get rid of less-important tasks, and work in quick, small, useful chunks.

Realistic expectations: We tend to overestimate how much we can do, particularly if we're looking a week or two ahead. Even if last week was derailed by interruptions, we hope next week will be a smooth ride. I'm guilty of this myself. I compensate by expecting little of myself – just one to three important tasks each day, moving forward a little bit at a time. If I find myself with spare time and motivation, I check my other tasks for something to work on. It's okay if I end up procrastinating something. That usually means I spent the time on something I valued more.

Ruthless elimination: “But how do I motivate myself?” This is another thing that people often struggle with. I use different strategies depending on what I need. For example, I'm currently working on a project with a high risk of failure and a fair bit of work. For me, it helps to amplify the perceived benefits, downplay the small pieces of work that I need to do (it's just a small task), and downplay the risks (failure isn't all that bad). On some other projects, I might decide that my lack of motivation is a clue that I should just wrap up the project, get rid of specific tasks, delegate work, or transform those tasks into things I might enjoy more.

Rapid exploration: After I adjust for realistic expectations and get rid of tasks through ruthless elimination, I think of tiny tasks that will help me move towards my goals. That way, I can explore and get feedback faster. Then I try to get as much value as I can from those steps, usually ending up with blog post ideas and lessons learned in addition to the thing itself. This also means that I can squeeze work into 15- to 2-hour chunks instead of waiting for a 4-hour span of uninterrupted, energetic time.

There are a bunch of other things that help me out (keeping outlines of projects and tasks in Org Mode, documenting as much as I can, knowing my tools well), but those three behaviours above seem to be different from the way many people around me work. Hope that helps!

You can comment with Disqus or you can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.