Photo courtesy of linspiration01 and Flickr
‘What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.’
Sun Tzu
My dear friend and colleague, Michael Neill was one of my early mentors, and the person who introduced me to the principles behind clarity. His new book, Creating the Impossible launches this week, and it’s brilliant. It’s all about how to get dreams out of your head and into the world. Here’s an excerpt:
Beyond Busyness
A couple of years ago I was chatting with the über-author Jack Canfield and I asked him if he was busy at the moment. He took a few seconds to consider his reply. ‘I’ve got a lot on,’ he said, ‘but I’m not particularly busy.’
This points to a key distinction made in Cal Newport’s insightful book Deep Work: busyness is often a substitute for productivity, not its cause.
According to Professor Newport, one of the reasons we spend so much time on email, social media, and ‘available’ to interruption is because it creates the experience of being continually engaged in activity, which leads us to the false conclusion that if we’re busy, we’re being productive.
Yet a more practical definition of productivity is this:
The ratio between your effort and the reward you get for that effort.
Notice this has nothing to do with our level of activity, busyness, hard work, or stress. If we get high levels of reward for each effort, we are highly productive; if we don’t, no matter how much time and energy we’re putting into the job, we aren’t. As Sun Tzu says in The Art of War, ‘What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.’
Yet typical productivity systems are based on the idea that there is always a 1:1 ratio between effort and reward, so essentially one unit of effort will bring one unit of reward. If you want to increase the amount of reward, you need to increase the amount of effort. That’s why time and productivity management systems abound. In the 1:1 model, productivity is a numbers game where you always need to do more to get more.
Contrast that with a time when you experienced diminishing returns. Perhaps you were exhausted, or you’d been working on something for so long you couldn’t see the wood for the trees. In those situations, we could say the ratio of effort to reward was 3:1, where it took at least three units of effort to receive that same one unit of reward.
Or let’s turn that experience on its head. What if it were possible to experience exponential returns on your efforts? So that instead of 3:1 or even 1:1, you experienced 1:2, 1:3, 1:5, all the way up to 1: infinity. I call this high reward to effort ratio ‘effortless productivity,’ not because you don’t do anything, but rather because your rewards for your efforts are way out of proportion to the amount of effort you actually put in.
Here’s another way to think about it:
Higher levels of productivity don’t come from finding ways to squeeze more oranges; they come from getting more juice to the squeeze.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t have to put in the hours. I don’t know anyone who consistently produces quality results over time who doesn’t. But whether those hours are experienced as hard work or even busyness is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.
I really love Michael’s book. One of the things you’ll find when you read it is an access code to view a complimentary 7 day video series that will help you jumpstart your impossible journey. You can watch the first video and get your copy of the book here: https://www.michaelneill.org/ctibook/?ref=6799
By the way, if your ‘impossible dream’ is to transition from full-time employment to something more fulfilling and on-purpose for you, you may be a good fit for the next intake of Project Jupiter (starting at the end of this month). Here’s how you’ll know if you’re right for Jupiter (and vice-versa):
– You are currently in full-time employment, but…
– You want to transition from your job to something more fulfilling and “on-purpose”
– You sense that it’ll probably take 1-3 years to complete the transition, but…
– Your goal hasn’t been getting much closer; it seems to stay the same distance away
– You want to make progress, but lack clarity about either the ‘what’ or the ‘how’
– You know that if you were clear on those, with a solid plan, you’d do what it takes to make it happen
– You’ve been thinking about it for long enough, and you’re ready to do something about it NOW
If that’s you, hit reply to this email and type “Project Jupiter” in the subject line.
To your increasing clarity!
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart
Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PLUS: Whenever you’re ready… here are 3 ways I can help you get the clarity and results that matter to you:
1. Hire me to speak at your event
If you want an entertaining and impactful keynote speech or breakout session for your conference, offsite or town hall meeting, click here https://www.jamiesmart.com/book-jamie-to-speak-about/
2. Join the Profitable Coaches Group
Join the Profitable Coaches Professional Group and connect with the growing community of like-minded transformation professionals who are passionate about exponentially increasing their grounding, impact and their livelihood. You can join for free at https://www.jamiesmart.com/profitable/
3. Join the next intake of Project Jupiter
If you want to transition from full-time employment to something more fulfilling and on-purpose for you, you may be a good fit for the next intake of Project Jupiter (starting January 2018). Here’s how you’ll know if you’re right for Jupiter (and vice-versa):
– You are currently in full-time employment, but…
– You want to transition from your job to something more fulfilling and “on-purpose”
– You sense that it’ll probably take 1-3 years to complete the transition, but…
– Your goal hasn’t been getting much closer; it seems to stay the same distance away
– You want to make progress, but lack clarity about either the ‘what’ or the ‘how’
– You know that if you were clear on those, with a solid plan, you’d do what it takes to make it happen
– You’ve been thinking about it for long enough, and you’re ready to do something about it NOW
If that’s you, email Nikki at info@jamiesmart.com and type “Project Jupiter” in the subject line.
PLUS: check these out :
Get your free Profitable Coaches Scorecard book www.JamieSmart.com/scorecard
Listen to the Results Mindset Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/resultspodcast
Listen to The Profitable Coaches Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/pcp
Read the first 2 chapters of my Sunday Times Bestseller RESULTS: Think Less, Achieve More www.JamieSmart.com/instantresults
Comments
Well, what he says is obvious. From my (and probably anoyne’s) experience more effort doesn’t always mean more results. Though I’ve never been in situation yet (maybe except some situations with women), where less effort brought better results.
But what’s conclusion from what doesn’t bring more/bigger/better results? I can see none so far, as long as I don’t know what does.