Complication confuses people, and rarely makes thing better. This is something that I think most people overlook. Working in startups, a lot of people start with good intentions, but get lost in the weeds trying to look smart and over-engineer solutions.
A lot of times people will zone in to what they're trying to achieve and go so deep that they forget to zoom out and look at the big picture. This happens all the time. When you only focus on your role, and don't look at how your entire company is operating holistically.
Everyone everyone's always trying to do their best in startups, Alot of people are usually pretty type A ,pretty driven, pretty hard working and chronically a little under slept. One thing to keep in mind is that it's often the simple solutions that are the most effective.
It's not always the most elegant, not the most cool, not the most over engineered solutions that really move the needle. The most effective solutions come from looking at the data and looking for 5-10% improvements and doubling down on those over and over, day after day.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't try new things. But I think when I look back on all of the growth strategies that I've implemented, working in startups in the last two years. It's always been the most simple solutions that have been the most effective for me.
There are some great books on this topic. For example, “The One Thing”. The one thing is this book about a really famous real estate entrepreneur who basically just deleted everything from his calendar or his diary at the time. That wasn't serving him. He looked at what were the things that he was doing to produce the most value.
He looked for things that only he could do better than other people. I think it's by Gary Keller. Basically, this book is really about simplifying one's workload by focusing on the one task that's most important in any given project. I think this relates back to my earlier point about complicated rules paralyzed people.
Another great book on this topic is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. The subtitle of this book is “The disciplined pursuit of Less”. And I think that subtitle really is all you need to know from this book. I'm not saying it's not a great book. But I think most people who are too busy already can probably spare themselves reading the 200 or so pages with the classic business book anecdotes and the filler material in the middle.
Basically, the underlying principle of this book is that most people find themselves overloaded with information. They feel both overworked and under utilized. And they feel busy but not productive.
I'm sure a lot of people reading this right now have experienced in the last couple of months. Just being on back to back calls all day being really stressed, not really knowing what's going to happen next in the world. You check the time and it’s six or seven o'clock in the evening, and you have no idea what you did all day, even though you were technically at work.
The discipline pursuit of less is really about just not doing things that are not essential. It's so easy to start working on things that seemed cool that draw your attention to draw your interest. I can be guilty of this myself. I am passionate about learning more and get attracted to new information and new tools and new systems and new processes and new frameworks, but it's actually the core fundamentals that have always stayed essential to producing value.
As we're nine or 10 months into COVID at this stage, and more people are working remotely than ever. I think having a clear focus and having the confidence to have the ability to say no to things that are not business critical and are not essential to success is super important.
Everyone should focus on achieving more by doing less.
If you've made it to the end of this article look back on your calendar for the last week.
Look back and really ask yourself, what have I achieved in the last week?
What have I achieved in the last month?
Do I have a clear focus?
Do I know what my priorities are?
Do I know the tasks that I do that produce real value?
Do I know how to move the needle?
Do I know what needle I'm even trying to move?
These are all clarifying questions that you should be asking yourself all the time. And don't feel guilty or embarrassed if some of those questions you don't know the answer to, it's been a wild couple of months.
We're coming up on the second last week of 2020. Take the time to zoom out for a second. Take a breath. Really try and think, what are the things that I did the produced value?
What was I working on when I got into flow?
Where is my zone of genius?
And what did I have fun doing?
It’s important to remember to have fun.
Would love to see in the comments below if these questions provoke any thoughts in your mind.
If this article made you think, don’t forget to share it with a friend ;)
Never forget to have fun. At the end of the day, we’re all dispensable in the workplace and without humour and banter the world would be one boring place.