There tends to be a lot of emphasis on increasing your productivity in the online work space. Podcasts are dedicated to it. Best-selling authors like James Clear (Atomic Habits) make the argument that if you were just 1% better the result over the course of that year would be pretty astounding. Online courses are willing to teach you the secrets of productivity. Planners promise you your full focus if you just give them a small pile of cash.
There is a pressure to be more and more productive. It saps a lot of joy from your work, and if you let it, from your life. There’s an assumption made that becoming more efficient is better, and an assumption that you’ve already done the hard work to determine what the best use of your time and energy is.
But that’s not always the case. You can be fully focused on improving your efficiency and productivity, on something that’s not at all valuable.
Having a project mindset forces you to have more discipline in the process. You need have a plan. Consider the impact intended. Evaluate the time needed. Build a budget. Figure out what your intented outcomes are, and how do your outputs align with those outcomes. Making this plan helps you when your tired and just trying to put one foot in front of the other. The plan needs to be in place.
You need to reject the hamster wheel of continuous activity, being busy for busyness’ sake. Instead, you need to consider your impact.
some of us don’t have much experience in this type of thinking. We are used to having managers or bosses tell us exactly what to do, how to do it, and when it needs to be done by. Setting your own goals is a trial-and-error process. You need to learn how you work best. You need to see what it important, and what will give you the most bang for your buck. Not all tasks are of equal importance.
This can be freeing for you, or it can be terrifying. Learning to differentiate the important from the unimportant is an extremely important skill set to possess. This is all the more true and the gig economy where your valuated based on you can produce. No one wants an employee who is just happy to be a caretaker.
Having a list of projects, the process that you took to develop and implement the projects, and the outcome of those projects is one of the best ways for you to further your career and to enjoy your work. It shows that you are not only able to work hard, but you were also able to do the strategic work of planning the project. Now that’s entrepreneurship material.
Project Mindset + Productivity Discipline? Now that’s a great combination!