{"id":2553,"date":"2012-08-26T17:12:44","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T00:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2019-03-08T06:33:18","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T14:33:18","slug":"work-less-to-get-more-done","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/26\/work-less-to-get-more-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Work Less to Get More Done"},"content":{"rendered":"

For several years now I\u2019ve used a productivity trick called weekly\/daily goals. I\u2019ve written about it many times before<\/a>, but the gist is simple:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You keep two to-do lists, one for the day and one for the week.<\/li>\n
  2. As the week goes by, move items from your weekly to daily list.<\/li>\n
  3. When working, only focus on the daily list. When it\u2019s done, you\u2019re finished for the day.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The power of this method is that it forces you to not work on certain things. You avoid the infinite to-do list syndrome of constantly procrastinating because it feels too hard to get started.<\/p>\n

    Despite its simplicity, I get a lot of emails with a common implementation problem. A typical email exchange goes like this:<\/p>\n

    \u201cHey Scott, I really like the weekly\/daily goals, but I have a problem. No matter how hard I try, I can never get everything done on my daily list! I can only get about half of it done before I give up. What should I do to finish my daily goals?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    To me the answer is obvious\u2014if you aren\u2019t ever finishing your daily goals, it probably means you\u2019re putting too much on your plate. Set fewer goals and actually finish them. Easy, right?<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, almost nobody takes my advice! They claim that they have to get that work done, so they can\u2019t possibly set a smaller to-do list. Instead, of setting smaller goals, they continue creating to-do lists they can\u2019t possibly finish.<\/p>\n

    You Work Less Than You Think (or Why These Emails Drive Me Crazy)<\/h2>\n

    The template rebuttal to my \u201cwork less\u201d argument is insane. If they can\u2019t possibly set a smaller to-do list, but only end up accomplishing half of it, then it doesn\u2019t really matter how big the list is. Nobody cares how much work you intended to accomplish, only how much you actually finished.<\/p>\n

    This tendency to grossly overestimate your ability to get work done in the short-term is a common one. Even productivity authors aren\u2019t immune. Cal Newport posted his dismay<\/a> at his meager total of hours devoted to his most important research tasks.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m not immune to this either. I think a difference between people like Cal and myself and most isn\u2019t that we have a magical ability to get more done, but that we actually take the time to measure our input. I\u2019ve done enough timelogs to know how much time I waste.<\/p>\n

    The average person, who has never meticulously tracked work for several days, more often reacts to failing at a particular to-do list, not by scaling down their ambitions, but, ironically, by adding more work to next day\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

    Why You Should Plan to Work Less<\/h2>\n

    Goals only work if they motivate achievable action. Zig Ziglar used to say goals should be out of reach, not out of sight. If you\u2019re not succeeding your daily goals lists at least half the time, you\u2019re not stretching yourself, you\u2019re just wasting time.<\/p>\n

    In the spirit of this, I offer two propositions:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. We should endeavor to know, honestly, how much time we spend working and how much we actually accomplish. Doing a timelog is easier than ever now that there are services which track it for you<\/a>.<\/li>\n
    2. Once we know how we actually spend our working time, we should try to incrementally improve it and not pretend that we\u2019ll be superheroes tomorrow.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      If you do a timelog and discover you\u2019re only working 4 hours a day (which is very common) the appropriate reaction isn\u2019t to immediately convince yourself you\u2019ll start working 8 hours, but to make incremental shifts. Try 5 or 6 hours and log yourself again in a couple weeks to see if you\u2019ve made improvements.<\/p>\n

      Why Take Small Steps?<\/h2>\n

      When your self-image, especially the idealized self-image that plans your work out, doesn\u2019t match who you actually are, you become less efficient. I can say, after having done a mix of both for years, that the days I set a small, but achievable list are my most productive.<\/p>\n

      Unfortunately if you\u2019re under the impression you\u2019re capable of working 8 hours straight, but your timelog reveals you\u2019re only working 2, then planning becomes meaningless.<\/p>\n

      Of course, we also remember the one day we set a large to-do list and actually did finish it. This is misleading because you can always accomplish more by temporarily kicking yourself into overdrive. But this drains you, so it\u2019s rarely sustainable for more than a week or two. The goal should be to raise your baseline level of productivity.<\/p>\n

      How to Implement this Advice and Start Getting More Done<\/h2>\n

      First, do a timelog. I\u2019ve always used pencil and paper, but if you\u2019re more tech-savvy than myself, there\u2019s plenty of apps for recording your time spent<\/a>. Doing a timelog is a pain in the ass, but it\u2019s essential if you want to know what\u2019s a reasonable benchmark for how you should spend your time.<\/p>\n

      An alternative to a timelog is to record the tasks you actually accomplish on any given day. This is a less reliable metric because task-completion is more variable than time spent, but if you do it for a longer period of time, you can get a good idea of how much you can accomplish on a typical day.<\/p>\n

      Second, set your productivity standard to be only somewhat above your current average. If you\u2019re getting done 4 hours, try 5 or 6. If you\u2019re completing 8 tasks, try 10 or 12.<\/p>\n

      Third, keep this standard for a full month, before going back and seeing if your productivity improved during the time period. A month is a good amount of time because anything less tends to get distorted because of the motivation burst when setting a goal.<\/p>\n

      Finally, if you\u2019re still not meeting your goals, ratchet it up another 25-50%. By doing this incrementally you can eventually reach higher levels of productivity. Eventually this tapers off and it gets harder and harder to work more without sacrificing energy or efficiency, but a lot of the early gains come from simply reorganizing your time and wasting it less, not by working longer.<\/p>\n

      If you\u2019re serious about getting more done, here\u2019s a summary:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Do a timelog for a few days, or a detailed record-keeping of your daily goals over a few weeks.<\/li>\n
      2. Set a goal to increase your work accomplished by 25%.<\/li>\n
      3. Come back in a month and measure yourself, if you\u2019ve improved, you can try again or simply aim to maintain your productivity levels.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Hopefully this approach can stop the nonsense of planning for a 10-hour day when you\u2019re only actually completing 3 hours. Getting things done doesn\u2019t require working more, but working smarter. How can you work smarter, if you don\u2019t even know how you\u2019re working right now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        For several years now I\u2019ve used a productivity trick called weekly\/daily goals. I\u2019ve written about it many times before, but the gist is simple: You keep two to-do lists, one for the day and one for the week. As the week goes by, move items from your weekly to daily list. When working, only focus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,4,682],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-discipline","7":"category-goal-setting","8":"category-nc-learning","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWork Less to Get More Done - Scott H Young<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Taking small steps and planning your work can decrease the time spend on it and make it more effective at the same time.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/26\/work-less-to-get-more-done\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Work Less to Get More Done - 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