Working Effectively

Last Updated: 11 Jul 2023

A collection of lessons I’ve learned about working effectively. Before going any further, let me establish that the notes here are for myself. I don’t know if any of these tactics would work well for someone else. I think most people arrive at their own version of the truth in different ways. There are hundreds (thousands?) of “self-improvement” books out there, so it’s not like the world needs a another one. I’ve gone through a few myself with mixed success. Sometimes there’s no way to learn a lesson until an event really makes it sinks in, and a strategy you once thought was silly suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Also, when I say work I don’t necessarily mean a job. It’s anything and everything you spend time on. This includes your hobbies, your health, and anything else you care about.

Part 1 - The Most Important Thing Upfront

Attention

In our hyper connected, information abundant world, your attention is your most valuable commodity. Everything is out to grab a piece of it (social media, the news, Netflix). Backed with a decade of big data, they’ve all become very good at it too. Sometimes it feels like your biology just wasn’t built to keep up with it all. Arguably, it isn’t.

But our attention is important, because that’s how we achieve our goals. When we really focus our attention on something, is when we open ourselves to the most growth. A lot of books seem to return to this basic idea. Indistractable, Ikigai, Flow, Getting Things Done, Deep Work. Almost all of it can be boiled down to just:

Focus on one thing at a time

This can take many forms depending on the task at hand. Maybe focus means paying attention at a meeting, taking notes, and then following up with a summary and a plan for everyone involved. In this case, maybe an hour of focus is all we need.

But as the objective grows larger, so does the demand. If our goal is to master an instrument, we may need to focus on it for years, or even decades.

Why Can’t I Focus?

Although we may understand the importance of focus, being able to focus is another matter. How often do we pick up the phone to scroll social media, procrastinate on a responsibility, or really struggle through a chore? When the moment comes when we must choose to focus, instead something seems to get in the way.

In most cases, I don’t think general laziness is to blame, but rather any number of deeper reasons, including things like a lack of motivation, self-doubt, anxiety, fear, etc. Rather than reaching for that pomodoro timer, take a moment to consider if there are emotional reasons why we’re not feeling motivated.

Things That Don’t Align With Your Goals

The first question to ask is whether or not the task at hand is something we should even do. Important here is the word should and not the word want. This could include things like going to the dentist, working out, or cooking for ourselves. We may not want to do these things, but we probably know that we should.

A better example might be working on a project at work that we don’t think brings any value. Hence we don’t feel motivated and the work doens’t get done. In this situation, our lack of focus exists for a good reason. Maybe it’s time to speak with our project manager and discuss the future direction of our project.

Overwhelmed By Difficulty

Sometimes we might have the motivation to work on something, but when faced with the shear difficulty of what lies before, turn away to something simpler. This could be something like “getting a graduate degree” or “finding a new job”. We end up putting off our applications and falling back on old jobs and routines.

For this particular challenge, an easy place to start is to ask for help. And then work on breaking down the task until each individual step is not so daunting anymore.

Fear of Failure, Fear of the Unknown

So by now we’ve identified something we should to do, and figured out the steps to do it. And yet we don’t take the plunge into that first action. This procrastination may be because we fear acting and failing to meet expectations, whether our own or those of others. Instead, we delay to avoid a potentially bad outcome.

For this, I don’t have a lot of insight. It can help to think through your fears, but it’s also easy to overthink and be trapped by them. I’ve found that at a certain point, you just have to count down from 10 and do it.

Part 2 - Efficiency in the Day to Day

In this section, I’m outlining a few productivity tips that have worked for me (sometimes). These are surface level behaviors to help my workflow, but won’t solve underlying issues with focus, motivation, or procrastination.

Exploration

As days get busier, I’ve had less time to experiment and explore new ideas, but I believe this has been to my detriment. Exploration is when we find new ideas and build perspective. In the long run, this helps us find better solutions and grow beyond our current capability.

Writing down your Thoughts

Personally, writing helps me focus. The act of putting down your thoughts into words solidifies the idea. So when I’m working on a problem, I’ll often write a short paragraph on what I’m thinking. Often, this act of writing helps me figure out my problem. And as an added bonus, I now have a reference I can revisit in the future.

Self-Reflection

In order to learn, self-reflection is a must. However, the typical questions of “What happened? How did it go? What did we learn?” may not always work to create real growth. Instead, try the following set of activities/reflection questions:

Describe the experience
Explain your reactions to the experience
Explore “what if” scenarios that test alternative explanations for your performance
Identify new behaviors thta would improve performance
Commit to at least two behavior changes and milestones for those changes

Notes