When you keep getting asked to do more with less, productivity is a hot topic these days. We are trying to “do it all” by balancing a demanding job, mentoring others, and most likely some continuing education (you’re here, aren’t you?). Despite all of our attention to all of the tasks in our professional life – we never feel caught up. What if we could get caught up and increase productivity by letting go of some of the tasks on that to do list?
My biggest lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic was that I had way to much stuff on my to do list, that didn’t end up mattering. I work in an industry where I had to change gears and focus on the Covid-19 global pandemic. That meant delaying most of the tasks on my to-do list.
In my process of letting stuff go, it meant unceremoniously piling documents into a box and putting it in the corner of my office. It’s been 5 months, and I’m able to start working on some projects that are not related to the Coronavirus. I still haven’t had a need to go back to the box, and I honestly couldn’t tell you what is in it.
It turns out that what I thought was really important on my to do list- doesn’t matter any longer.
For the sake of sanity, tips on how to let things go
While it seems easy for me to say, how do you determine what to let go, how to let tasks go (tell someone no or delegate the task to someone else)? If you want to focus on increasing your productivity, you have to get comfortable with letting tasks go.
Will this matter later?
Will this task matter 15 days, 30 days, 6 months from now?
Maybe this is how procrastinators find their work life balance? You don’t have to worry about whether or not to let a task go if you delay completion until it no longer matters.
Take a critical look at your list and evaluate how important your task is in relationship to the longevity of its impact.
A critical look at the tasks that really matter
An Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, noticed patterns in his daily life where 80% of outputs come from 20% of inputs, naming it the Pareto principle. Asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. Essentially, you should be focusing 80% of your effort on the 20% of your to-do lists that bring you the biggest gains. Think about how amazing it would feel to bring your to do list down from 10 tasks to 2?
If you were to focus on the 20% priority tasks, think how high quality your work would be – instead of stretching yourself thin and treating all tasks that you think you need to complete equally.
Since your time is a limited resource, use the Pareto principle to increase your productivity and decrease stress by letting tasks go that don’t have a great benefit overall.
How to determine your 20%
You need to do a bit of a task analysis. What is taking up your time vs. has a benefit to your final outcome. What are your personal goals, your organizations goals, project objectives? Do yourself a favor and pass on the rest of the tasks by delegating or ditch them all together.
Part of this is by having goals for your team that align with the organizational goals. How do you know what direction to steer the ship if you are just reacting to everything that is coming your way without an overall plan with objectives, deliverables and a due date?
Use this free tool to come up with action plans to achieve your goals for both yourself and your department. It will help you determine what is important on your to do list, let your superiors know what your team is working on, and you can use it when you have your performance appraisal for what you have completed.
What are the key elements to achieving the 20%?
You are not going to be able to immediately go to that take list and rip it in half – it’s a process where you will have to see what the key tasks are to achieve the 80% of your work.
See what happens if you leave something without a due date for a week – did the deliverable change and you would have had to re-do part of the task anyways?
Letting it go – by automating the tasks
My husband once answered a question in a job interview by emphasizing how lazy he is. Yes, he really did that.
He continued to explain that he is lazy and will always find a way to automate a task or reduce his effort on a task while still handing in a good project.
I have to say, as a hiring manager, this answer would stand out.
I guess the lesson here is to have increased productivity is to actually – procrastinate, eliminate, and get lazy.
Although this seems like terrible advice, think of the dusty box in the corner of my office. I thought that everything that I had on my to-do list was essential, because that’s how I have obtained success as a high achiever. But it’s time to do myself – and my sanity- a favor and focus on the top items on my to-do list so that I am consistently delivering high quality. Increase your productivity and decrease your stress by letting tasks go.