Working on the right things is harder then you think. Today I pitched out an exercise to my team at work that I know helped me re-focus my efforts on the right things.
Around 6 months ago, I was leaving working feeling like I didn’t know where the day had gone. I thought about the big projects or campaigns that I had been working on or completed. I struggled to come up with much that was worth much attention.
So what I decided to do was track everything I had been doing the last week and start tracking everything I was doing for the next week or so. This would allow me to better understand where my hours were going. As I started looking back on the past week’s activities I started writing down what I was spending my time on. Meetings, responses to other peoples questions and problems, email and slack, small tasks and updates. When I broke down some of the items where I was helping a colleague out or when I was making a small update, I realized something. Almost everything I was working on was not in support of mine or my team’s objectives for the quarter and the year.
After seeing this I made some clear changes. I blocked off time in the calendar to work on an initiative that aligns with our objectives. This also made it harder for others to book me for meetings. I started putting my slack to “away” and only checking emails periodically and then responding them in batches throughout the day when I want to. I also started denying or pushing off small tasks or updates that didn’t really move the needle on things. What I quickly found was I was able to spend quality time thinking and delivering on projects that were designed to achieve our goals. I ultimately found that this also improved my overall happiness and satisfaction as I was able to spend my time working on more meaningful and thoughtful activities.