Why we are busier than ever, and our goals keep escaping us
I spent multiple days with our clients a few weeks ago navigating our annual Agenda 1 meetings. In these meetings, we sit down with one of our clients and review what worked well in the given year, where we as a team fell short, and how we can leverage what we experienced this year to hit our objectives next year.
I was fascinated by our leadership teams' excitement and engagement heading into 2024.
I am sure many of you can relate to this excitement and momentum. As you look back on 2023, I would invite you to consider two questions:
What areas of the business did I, as a leader, succeed in?
What areas did I fall short in and miss my goals?
According to a Gallup Study published via the Harvard Business Review, nearly 80% of sampled respondents said they "don't have enough time."
So why do we feel busier than ever yet fail to hit our objectives? What are we missing that keeps our calendars full, but our goals remain far off in the distance?
Peter Drucker once said, "Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."
This distinction is intriguing. While efficiency and effectiveness are critical in productivity, each serves a specific purpose. Our culture has gotten increasingly good at focusing on efficiency. With the rise of Generative AI, new productivity tools, and time management habits, we are zooming in on what it looks like to be more efficient. Unfortunately, we do not consider the effectiveness of our quest for ultimate efficiency. What if we miss our goals because we need more effectiveness in all that we sought to accomplish this year?
Drucker said our effectiveness is defined by "doing the right things." What are the right things?
This is where your productivity toolkit comes in. Your own set of tools, apps, and habits enable you to focus on the most critical and highest-quality work you are expected to perform. Every individual's toolkit will look different, but what is most important is that each item in it answers the following question:
How does this tool help me offboard non-essential information and free my brain to leverage essential information to drive my work forward?
Any non-essential information is information your brain does not need to keep track of to accomplish your work. This includes appointment times, notes from meetings, tasks, and static information. On the other hand, essential information is the type that needs to be carefully considered, reviewed, and analyzed and often comes in the form of abstract thinking.
A simple way to distinguish between the two types of information is to identify whether a set piece of information you deal with can live in one of your tools. If yes, it is most likely non-essential information.
While listing my recommendations for the best tools available in a given category would warrant a separate blog article, I want to point you to an article I published a few months ago that breaks down the most critical types of tools every individual should consider.
For additional information, visit https://toolfinder.co for an extensive list of tools for various applications.
