In my previous post, I already told you what work performance looks like in terms of effort and focus. But often, it’s really tempting to spread too thin at work. This means you do so many things simply to check them off the lists.
But are they really the things you should focus on? Because if you don’t know what to focus on, you don’t know your priorities. And the opposite of spreading too thin at work is knowing what needs to be done. (See my previous blog post on the Eisenhower Matrix.)
Checklists aren’t inherently wrong, okay? I even use them as guideposts to know what I should do next. But I realized that doing exemplary work goes beyond ticking off boxes. Because we don’t always have to look busy at work.
Doing a thing or two for a whole day, like learning how to code, if it means that you’d be able to produce more once you know better, then that’s still a productive day.
Admit it or not, loads of activity don’t necessarily translate to accomplishments.
From Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More:
Being busy is not an accomplishment.