Four Monk

Right Priorities

Bring focus to the right priorities. Another problem is the unconscious tendency to focus on less important work, because we enjoy it or we’re good at it, at the expense of our highest priorities. Chris Argyris, the influential MIT professor and organizational thinker, showed how routine behaviors like this can become accepted norms when we fail to recognize and challenge ourselves to address them.

This was true for Marcus, a senior leader who developed a habit of obsessing over administrative tasks. The busier he got, the more he slipped into tactical mode, in order to get things checked off his to-do list as quickly as possible. It helped him feel productive, but failing to delegate these tasks meant he never had time to focus on longer-term, strategic issues.

To shift this pattern, Marcus applied a quick reality test during pivotal moments of transition throughout his day. The task was to fill in the blanks to complete this sentence: “I’m tempted to work on…, but I know I should focus on…”

On the surface, this question seems obvious. But for Marcus, it was precisely the simplicity and ease of application that helped him combine reflection with quick action. The thoughtfulness embedded in the statement triggered a deliberative choice, one dictated not by the urgencies of the moment or easy tasks that felt gratifying to accomplish, but by his honest assessment of his highest priorities.

Broadly speaking, working on important things typically requires having good skills for tolerating uncomfortable emotions. Here’s a personal example: Reading the work of writers who are better than I am is useful for improving my skills, but it triggers envy and social comparison. Acknowledging and labeling the specific emotions that make an experience emotionally challenging is a basic but effective step for reducing those emotions.

You’ll be better able to pursue goals that involve going outside your psychological comfort zone if you have top-notch skills for managing your thoughts and emotions.

Spend Less Time on Unimportant Tasks

Unimportant tasks have a nasty tendency of taking up more time than they should. For example, you might sit down to proofread an employee’s report — but before you know it, you’ve spent an hour rewriting the whole thing. In the future, you might decide to limit yourself to making your three most important comments on any piece of work that’s fundamentally acceptable, or give yourself a time limit for how long you’ll spend providing notes.

Having strategies for making quicker decisions can help too. When you’ve got a pressing decision to make, it can be better to make a quick decision than a perfect one that takes more time.