What is the vital work?

The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes. 

‘The vital few’ - as the 20% part is often referred to - is worth finding. 

It’s worth finding in our efforts, our ideas, decisions, choices, actions and behaviours. 

So what would be your ‘vital work’?

What’s the stuff that’s really truly worth doing? Worth doing because it delivers such a return, you’d be crazy not to do it. 

But wait ... we can spend plenty of time dong anything BUT ‘the vital work’!

We dance around the edges, pffft about with busy work, rework things that are already done and stall and delay ... rather than hit the vital work with focus. 

If you can spend even a few minutes at your next meeting, in the team workshop or at the quarterly planning session focusing on the vital work, you’ll be spending time wisely. 

And a daily - or hourly - check of our to do list can also help reveal whether we are working on the vital, valuable work. 

Now ... we just need to identify WHY it’s valuable, why it’s vital. 

It probably delivers great impacts, results and outcomes. 

A hefty 80% of them!

ISH: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’

It’s natural to want to do well - at work, in study, in life, to do our best But what happens when striving for the best becomes more; the pursuit of perfection?

Perfectionism is on the rise and has dire consequences for how we think and feel about ourselves and others, how we think, live, and work. It's causes over-thinking, over-working, burnout, sleeplessness and mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

We can’t keep going like this!

But what’s the alternative? In 2019 I released ‘ISH: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’. It uncovers how to think, work and achieve in clever ways adapted from the worlds of software development, and improvisation. How do they get things done? What can we learn from them?

In ‘ISH’, I explain:

🔅The problem with chasing perfection and why we seek it

🔅The mental loop that traps us into thinking perfection is the answer

🔅The idea of ‘ISH’ which means somewhat, near enough

🔅9 ways to think and work that provide a healthy and productive alternative to perfectionism.

Excellence, quality and continuous improvement are important. But the pursuit of perfection … not so much.

Q: Do you 'ish'?

All that effort, unhappy with the outcomes

On the topic of ‘maximising’, this week’s posts highlight the damaging effects of striving for more, better, perfect.

Maximising isn’t as good as it sounds. It means we put in extreme, herculean efforts trying to make things better, tick all the boxes, cover all the bases (and other metaphors!) to cover every question, topic or query. We work back late, take work home, stay up late, do ‘all nighters’, come in early and put other priorities aside to focus on doing still more on this task or project.

We expend excess time and energy. Excess. More than is required. We know it’s not required because of economic and mathematical laws and principles like the Pareto Effect (the 80/20 rule) and the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Effort is not equal. Some effort is useful, giving us a good return and progress; some of our effort ends up being a total waste of time!

And then ... maximisers don’t tend to be as happy with the outcomes as if they'd called ’time’ sooner on a task. It's a big 'no' to maximising

Do you apply the 80/20 rule in your world (20% effort brings 80% of the reward)?