Working on What Matters: 20% Today
Part 1: Defining What Matters
As professionals, we have quite a bit of latitude in how we spend our time. Sure, we’re “working” during work hours. But is the time we spend moving us closer to our goals in the most efficient means possible? Simply having worked is not the goal– but it’s easy to get caught in a trap of treating it that way. You rarely get extra credit for how hard you worked– what matters is what you accomplished.
Let’s assume for a moment, that the goal itself is clear. Let’s use a metaphor of marbles in a box– our goal is to move all of the marbles from one box into a second box.
We could spend our work hours in any variety of time-filling ways:
- Moving marbles one a time
- Looking for a container to scoop multiple marbles at once
- Taking each marble out, cataloging its position in the box, and organizing into a series of bins for later placement in the second box
- Picking the box up and pouring it into the second box
Anyone in the middle of this operation, when asked what they were doing, would reply with a variation of the same answer: “moving the marbles into the 2nd box”. When they go home at the end of the day, they’ll all have worked hard.
Each of the marble moving techniques has its pro’s and con’s, and what it comes down to is A) their understanding of why they are tasked with moving the marbles, and B) their comfort with risk. Maybe the person cataloging each marble is a time-waster, or maybe, because they don’t know why they’re moving marbles, they’re taking every precaution not to screw the project up. They have a good imagination (“what?! you don’t know where each marble was originally?!”) and a low comfort with risk, and it will take them all day to get the task done.
On the other hand, the person who just picks the box up, dumps it, and breaks the box down for recycling, they sure got the job done quickly. But did they know the marbles scratch easily and are now ruined? Depending on the context, they could be a master of efficiency or a master marble-ruiner.
They both have excellent intentions, and they are both hard workers.
As we learn a new job, one of the things we’re doing is building a mental model of the context of the job. What matters about this job? Speed? Quality? Not interrupting the boss? Great organizations clearly define what matters, so you’re not left guessing. In any of the hundreds of decisions you make each day, you know what matters to your boss, and you can make sure you hit the organization’s priorities.
Bosses that don’t clearly define what matters are left shocked and confused at their employee’s actions. “They spent how long moving those marbles?! Those idiots! I just wanted the box they were in!”
Part 2: Urgent vs. Important
Assuming that we know what matters about our job, we’re still not out of the woods. We have a myriad of tasks placed on us, and an equal number of paths available to accomplish those goals. To help us navigate our options, Eisenhower created a Decision Matrix. It looks like this:
The more time we spend on Quadrant 1, the less time we have available to spend in Quantrant 2. When I look back on the time I’ve spent at Whiplash and VGKids, it’s almost exclusively Quadrant 1, with quick gulps of air in Quadrant 2. Many of us live in what’s called the Tyranny of Urgent, and it won’t stop until we decide to stop it, and spend our time in Quandrant 2 instead.
So far I’ve worked in small companies where Quadrant 3 isn’t as much of an issue, but if the popularity of Dilbert is any indicator, there’s a massive amount of time being lost there worldwide.
As I fight my way through this myself, I found a new lense to look through:
Optimize for the best possible future while continually improving the present.
We can’t shorten that to just, “Best Possible Future”, because if we don’t respect today’s needs, we won’t be here tomorrow. But we can’t ignore the future, or we’ll just be skipping from one emergency to the next in our own work-version of Dante’s Inferno. So how do we balance those needs?
I propose a bastardization of the 80/20 Rule:
20% of our energy should be dedicated to today’s crisis, while 80% of our time should be spent on ensuring the best possible future. If we can keep today’s and tomorrow’s needs in balance, the life we want to lead will come into place around us.
