Summary: Only do what produces results. Stop doing everything else.

I’ve spent my life in athletics and fitness. As a hobby, I was a strength and conditioning instructor for 12 years.

I remember one man who used to come in, hop on a bike or elliptical and work out for 45 minutes.

He was consistent. He invested the time. Put in the effort. But remained visibly out of shape.

One day, he must have been watching one of my classes. I saw him trying to follow the workout, which I had written on a board, on his own. But he was struggling with the movements.

He wasn’t going to hurt himself, but he wasn’t going to get much out of it.

I think anyone willing to push themselves deserves to be commended. But I also prefer that they push themselves productively.

I walked over, acknowledged his consistency at the gym. Mentioned it looked like he was following the regimen I had just led and asked if he would be open to a few pointers.

He wasn’t.

I don’t know why. But he turned down free coaching.

He kept coming back to the gym, for years, and never got in any better shape.

He was “busy” working out. He had put in a lot of gym hours. But he wasn’t productive.

Sure, it was better than nothing. Which is fine. If that is what you aspire to.

One of the most common challenges that leaders face is being too busy.

Nearly every leader I coach mentions this.

Too many decisions need to be made, projects need to be pushed forward, tasks need to be completed.

Meetings to attend, flights to catch, reports to write, fires to put out.

People issues, budget issues, customer issues, building issues.

I get it. I’ve been there.

Then I got tired of it. Decided to do something about it. I chose to stop being too busy all the time.

My productivity skyrocketed as a result. My health improved as my stress went down.

The Simple Joy of Accomplishing More While Doing Less

Here’s the thing about being chronically too busy. If you are a leader and you are in charge of your schedule, your busyness is a choice. It is a choice driven by lacks and needs:

· A lack of personal discipline

· A lack of clear priorities

· A lack of a strategy (decision making framework) for quickly gaining new clarity when things get muddy

· A lack of boundaries and the ability to enforce them even if you defined them

· A need to be needed (co-dependency / hero syndrome / smartest-person-in-the-room thinking error

· A need to be a martyr

· A need to avoid offense, conflict and to always be liked

This is typically all packaged up in the person of a very smart, committed, and ambitious individual. Someone who has achieved a modicum of success. Very likely even some level of public acknowledgment.

This is because, to a certain level, working a lot can make things happen.

But then you hit a ceiling. A limit. You plateau.

You might extend your hours or your effort. But the added investment of time and energy produces diminishing returns.

Please Accept a Few Free Pointers

Don’t be like the guy in the gym who wouldn’t accept coaching. Here are a few, free pointers that could literally change your life and the future of the organization you lead. And no, I’m not overselling this.

Only do what only you can do: Not all work is the same. Here is a simplistic way of illustrating this: Some work you can hire someone to do for $10 an hour. Other work, for $100 hour. There is $1,000/hr work. And $10,000/hr work.

If you are the only person who can make differences that produce a $10,000/hr change – don’t waste your time on $1000/hr work. Definitely don’t do $10/hr work.

This doesn’t only relate to you. If you have an executive or senior management team – don’t give them $10/hr work to do for you. (That happens more than you might think.)

Only do what only you can do – use the leverage of your position to produce the greatest good.

If you feel like you don’t have anyone to give the $10, $100, or even $1000/hr work to – then building your team is likely your first priority. Build or hire them.

Only do what matters most: It’s likely that 80% of your time and effort only produces 20% of your results. Conversely, there is a special 20% of your time and effort that consistently produces 80% of your results.

You’ve probably heard that before. But you probably haven’t identified that 20%.

Evaluate a typical week. What do you do (or should you do) that produces the greatest results?

Religiously, reserve time to only work on those high traction activities. Get good at saying “No” or at least “Wait” to the other stuff.

Only do what produces results: Sometimes what we believe works and matters…doesn’t. It is very easy for leaders and institutions to fall in love with methods, habits, and routines. But many of those don’t produce results. Or at least not enough. We just really believe they should.

Stop doing those things. Or at least, stop doing them in the same way. Cut out what isn’t fruitful and just focus on what actually is.

To Conclude

Only do what only you can do. Only do what matters most. Only do what produces results.

To do this, you’ll be forced to change how you lead. You’ll probably be forced to build your team.

Block time for this. Be assertive about it. That work is what will set you free from being too busy. And by extension – set your organization free to grow.

Take good care,

Christian

As an interesting side note: This translates to fitness as well. Most people think you need to spend hours in the gym or running to stay in shape. The reality is that if you only do what works, with the right intensity, very short workouts (15 minutes or less) are very effective for building muscle and cardio.

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