Progress vs Productivity

Adventures in Businessing: Entrepreneurship, Small Business, and a Healthy Dose of Humor

Show Notes

• [0:00:49] Episode Summary | Intro
• • The Topic That Keeps us Moving & Out of Bed in the Morning
  • • Being Motivated by Progress!

• [0:03:27] Progress is Essential, but...

• We sometimes forget that being busy or active doesn't always go hand-in-hand with moving the needle forward.
• It’s easy to not plan your productive time well.
• • It takes a lot of planning to do ‘deep work’ well.

• [0:05:15] The Secret SuperPowers of a Good Manager

• Facilitating & Tracking Real Progress
• Real progress has nothing to do with looking busy.
• Being aware of putting your big rocks in first.
• Rewiring How You Perceive Busy vs Productive
• • It’s a fundamental, though rewarding, shift.

• [0:08:52] What is Progress?

• Is it strictly movement over time?
• • Instead let’s consider: The right amount of better over the right amount of time.
  • • You know when you’ve taken too much time for too little better.
    • You know when you’ve scheduled too much better for too short a time.
    • The sweet spot is always the right amount of better over the right amount of time.
    • Time is a real constraint that can free us up in ways that make us more productive.
• Progress Doesn’t Mean Much Without Time Constraints

• [0:13:07] The Impact of Not Defining Constraints or the Right Amount of Better

• Lots of activity is a false security blanket.
• It’s hard to stay passionate about something over a long period of time if you aren’t making the necessary progress.
• • Working on things that never ship is a good example of this type of burnout.
  • Poorly scoped work also results in this kind of burnout.
  • When you do not have steady progress, everyone loses motivation.
• Most people are quite bad about predicting or estimating how long something will take to accomplish.
• • Don’t beat yourself up about that though, and while it’ll never be perfect, it gets better with time.
• As your company changes, how you do the work will change as well.
• Invisible progress is a very real thing, let’s be mindful of it.
• Focused effort will lead to results.

• [0:21:10] How to Help Your Team Establish Progress

• The Ingredients of Progress:
• • Clarity
  • Collaboration
• Progress is impossible to determine without clarity.
• Your team cannot make decisions without clarity, and decisions by the team are necessary to make progress.
• • Clarity also means checking in frequently to ensure everyone is still operating under the same parameters.
  • Clarity enables your team to make better decisions.
• The Importance of Planning
• • Slowing down to speed up ensures better results in the end.
• All Leaders are CROs: Chief Reminding Officers
• • Constantly be reestablishing the clarity aspect.
• Do you have a proper collaborative workflow?
• • Does everyone know where the hand-off points are?

• [0:30:38] Parting Words

• Next Episode: The Work In Between the Work