The Strange Lesson My Whiteboard Taught Me
I walked into my office today and saw some brainstorming I had done over a week ago.It was all over my whiteboard.
It was a map that helped me see some of the dependencies and workflows in my team—visibility here is critical for making improvements.
But then I realized that if I wiped it away to make room for the new problem I needed to solve right then, I would lose a lot of my progress.Sure I can take a photo, but those so easily get tucked away into the bottomless digital pile.It’s so easy to do some of the work without doing all of it. If you don’t do all of it, it’s easy to waste all the work you did do.
And that’s the lesson.
You will develop an incredible amount of work waste unless you’re careful not to do some of the work without doing all of it.You will move faster if your work progress is documented or if a decision is made at the end of the time you’ve set aside to work.
2 Minute Action
Get all of your “to-dos” into a single pile. Pull them all in from everywhere you keep them.Your notepad. Your inbox. Your sticky notes.Get them all in a list and prioritize them. Each one must fight for its life to stay on the list.You are much less likely to have work waste when you have a single place to store tasks and review projects.Nothing gets lost.The work you’ve done so far gets recorded in the same place as everything’s else.
How To Be Wrong 98% of The Time And Still Be Right
The Moon Landing
The computer that directs the space shuttle to the moon does two things: inspect and adapt.
If the ship is a little off-course, it adjusts the trajectory and pushed onward. Inspect course. Adapt course.
Doesn't sound too crazy at first but it's remarkable when we realize that it's something like 98% of the journey the space shuttle is "off-course."
The Punchline
As we each walk through our days, optimizing our routines, squeezing just a little more out of daylight, looking for those hacks that will promise us disproportionately high results . . .
Keep in mind that it's not about looking like you're on course, it's about inspecting and adapting. 98% of the time, you'll be wrong, off the mark, and spending your energy re-calibrating.
That's the un-sexy part of what we do.
It's the "no pain, no gain" part.
But it's also the conscious recognition that it's normal to be 98% "off-course."
So it's not the course that's important, after all.
Being productive, then, is about inspecting progress and adapting to reality--not necessarily about pushing forward at full speed.
2 Minute Action
What things in your life might be signs that you're on the right trajectory?
If you're not sure, you may want to try asking yourself:
- What activities make you feel the most alive?
- What activities make you feel the most dead?
- What % of your time are you spending on each?
Asking yourself this will take 2 minutes and can make a profound impact on the work you seek and the life you live if done on a consistent basis.