Why Do I Feel Like I Don't Get Anything Done - DBR 042

Do Busy Right - The Task and Attention Management Podcast

Today, I'm going to talk about a pretty common feeling around our work and productivity… Why do I feel like I didn't get anything done? I think we've all experienced this feeling. We get home (or whatever we do in the WFH culture) and our significant other asks some form of "How was your day?" Sometimes we just say "Fine" and move on. But once in a while, we get introspective and think "How WAS my day?" At this point, we try to think of something to report – something that seems interesting or meaningful about our last X hours – and struggle. We know we were working all day, but what did we actually DO? Did we produce some value, some tangible effect or progress? Or do we sigh and move along with a sense of "another day on the treadmill"? This is a horrible place to be motivation-wise. What's going on here? Is there something we can do about it? I think there is. First, let's deal with the most common idea I see… The 'pick one (or X) thing to do today' idea - fine What other option? A completion mindset – the subject of this episode When I talk to clients, I hear two kinds of complaints: 1 - I didn't do anything but email today – I didn't get to anything important

• Email has become a work assignment tool. But I agree with Cal that it is a bad one…
• Spend some time learning when and how to say No and/or ignoring emails
• It's not true that everybody is your customer base – teammates - let other people handle the problem
• Saying No – experiment with it rather than just saying "they'll get mad" – find ways to say it

2 - I didn't move the needle – no progress on the important stuff, despite working on it

• Intangible work and quantifiability
• Take a physical product – tangible, visible progress
• Make the intangible tangible – define your task well
• We're taught the wrong approach in school – "move it along" and "it has to get an A" – recipe for an incompletABLE task
• Create a better Definition of done. After all, we're all doing best effort
• Done is better than perfect – if Da Vinci took another look at the Mona Lisa…
• We're not great at defining what our task is, particularly around the notion of quality – we're taught this in school – no grading rubrics
• We "do the best we can"

Salience of incomplete tasks

• Salience - tasks come to mind
• Mushy tasks – I'll 'move it along' – that doesn't change the salience of the larger task
• Accomplishment is more binary than that
• Or, if you can point to something tangible that is different in the world your brain is looking for tangible change in the world. Not a "I worked on it for two hours"
• What's going to be different about the marketing report after I've touched it
• Your brain is going to resist doing this planning work
• But, it's a good reason for planning - Framing the task for yourself

Why don't we do this?

• Hustle culture 110% - "don't have time" to think about it
• Another is that we know we're not good at planning

Completion mindset

• Definition of done – "This constitutes complete"
• Did you do what you planned? Then say "I did what I planned" – I did the process
• When I say do it – plan an amount of effort and do that effort – then don't go back to it
• A completion mindset
• That's the completion mindset – pick something completable and complete it within a time box
• The lack of structure leads to a limited sense of accomplishment

Back to the "complete one thing" method. Completable in one day?

• Your most important tasks are not completable in one day
• Many of your most important tasks are not completable at all
• Relationships?
• Learning / getting better?
• So, build a habit of thinking in completionist terms
• Perfectionism is a big enemy here – avoid that trap - take feedback as the gift it is

I'd appreciate the gift of your feedback. What's one thing I could do better with the podcast? Is there a question or situation you'd like for me to address? [email protected]

Two pronged approach

• Define completable tasks
• Allocate the time and spend it on the task – push yourself to get it DONE in the time you've allocated
• Declare it done and submit it
• Other people are great at finding my mistakes, but it's hard to proof my own stuff
• Mistakes don't remove 100% of the value of the product
• Be willing to be judged – collect the data – improve the process

Results

• You build a habit of completing work - this builds confidence in yourself
• Every day, you will have something to point to – "I did that"