December 8

What do you do when you’re working? I mean, actually working?

Thomas Edison once said ““Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”

There are a number of activities we engage in every day that are grouped together under the heading of “work”, but not all of them are truly what we’re paid to do. We are very, very busy, but not all of that busyness results in actual value.

There is a select set of activities that you do each day that truly constitute “work”. For me, that would be writing, thinking, solving a client problem, or producing teaching that helps someone else do better work. There are a number of activities that I have to do in order to keep things moving forward, but those activities are my actual work, or the value I’m paid to produce.

So, what do you do when you’re working? What set of activities produce eighty percent of the value that you’re accountable for delivering? How can you set up more of your time and energy around your actual work?

Not all activity is “work”. Know the critical value that you’re actually paid to deliver, and set your days up around delivering it.

Question: What do you do when you’re actually working?