Don't Waste Your Time
Why are you wasting your time completing tasks and processes that are not adding value to you or others? Stop it. We'll share how.
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My wife laughed at me today. She is reading a book called “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown. As she was reading, Greg shared a story that mirrored exactly what I had done in a previous role. She laughed because she did not realize how much of an “Essentialist” mindset I had. (It was a compliment I was willing to accept).
On page 153 of the book, the author shares a story of his colleague, an executive, who ran a personal experiment. He had inherited a pretty lengthy and time-consuming process from the person whom he replaced. A lot of effort and care had gone into building this process. However, the new executive did not believe it worth his time nor energy to continue it. He truly believed no one valued the process.
So what did he do about it? He simply stopped completing the process. He waited and watched to see what the ramifications would be. No one said a word. No one noticed.
Similarly, I had done this too. One slight difference is that I was the one that built the initial process. I was working in a highly visible role, where stakeholders needed to know what my team was working on. I started a newsletter that I would send out every 2 weeks, or twice per month, to all stakeholders. I included updates about what we had accomplished over the previous two weeks, and what we expected to work on over the course of the following two weeks. I also included a visual aid that outlined my anticipated long-term road map.
At first the newsletter was a hit. I used a tool that told me who was opening the newsletter and clicking on the various links to learn more about our team’s work. The CEO looked at the first several newsletters; the president looked at a few; directors and other executives poked in as well. I thought we had found a great solution.
However, about 4 months in, the numbers dropped significantly. What started out as a 40% open rate became a 5% to 10% open rate, and it was typically the same few individuals. It was a lot of work for such little traction. I became annoyed that I was now having to carry on this process, when seemingly no one cared. I decided to run a test. I stopped publishing altogether. I didn’t say a word. Like Greg’s colleague, I watched and I waited.
I almost succeeded too. 3 months passed before anyone said anything. And it was only by accident that anyone even noticed. I was in a conversation with an executive. As we chatted, something was said that reminded them of the email. They asked why it had stopped. I explained my reasoning. The felt that there was still value in maintaining the regular update. After back and forth discussion and negotiation, we settled on an agreement. I would start back up the communication. But instead of twice monthly, I would just publish the newsletter once per month. So my experiment was not in vain. Although I was not able to entirely get rid of the process, I was able to mitigate the amount of time I spent on it.
If you find yourself ‘stuck’ with similar unimportant tasks, try a similar approach. Stop it. Without telling anyone. See how long you can go without anyone noticing. If no one says anything, perhaps the task or process really was not that important nor worth your time.
A caveat: There are certain tasks, that even if you don’t understand their importance, are necessary to the business. They may be compliance-based tasks or regulatory tasks. Such tasks cannot be ignored, no matter how unimportant or painful they may seem. As you decide whether a task can be stopped or not, first give some thought as to why the process was started in the first place. You should be able to determine if there is some material need that requires it, or not.
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