How to get the best out of your days . The Activity dilemma — vs Result based Approach
Recently the subject of my life has been, “moving away from activities” and going more into Results. The idea of moving to results started with a reflection on how do I get more out of what I was doine and become more and more productive, how do I really move forward with alot of Ideas that I have in my head, and all the goals that I plan on accomplishing.
That’s when I came across the Idea of shifting my focus to a more result oriented approach instead of being activity based.
— What does that mean?
Well, if you think about it, the things that we do on a day to day basis are merely activities, example Going to work, having a meeting with a colleague, having time with family, doing a particular task and so on and so forth. All of these are activities but by themselves they seem empty. They need to be bundled up together into something more meaningful and that’s where the Idea of Results come in.
The Idea is to commit on a bigger vision of things (you can term that a project) that has a clear objective and a clear output (The Result), and not merely the task or activity involved.
The key word here is “Commit”. Since its the committment to see the result happening that is more important than the result itself.
Lets run through some examples of Activities Vs Results.
- Join a gym or go out running VS Reduce my weight to 60kgs.
- Take the Kids out every Sunday VS Improve the relationship with my kids
- Meet to consult on a project at work productivity VS Improve Organizational Productivity
- Attend a conference VS Build up relationship with 5 key major stakeholders
These are just examples but might help to differentiate Activities Vs Results.
The key here is to IDENTIFY and COMMIT to the results that you are trying to achieve, and not committing to activities, always keeping in mind that activities are there only for supporting the results. If the activities do not produce the intended results, they can always be changed.
So how did this translate this into what I am doing
- First, started identifying the key results that I want to push forward. Wrote down key things I want to see happening in my personal, professional and social life.
- Second, narrowed down to the a few very specific RESULTS. The things that will move the niddle the most.
- Third, made an agreement with myself that anything I pick on doing, I will have to move it to completion, No excuses. If I can’t move it to completion, I shouldn’t pick it up. — “Committment”
- Fourth, was to build a mechanism to track the progress on the results that I have been working on. — “Tracking”.
- Fifth, Learn and Improve, constant learning on how to best accomplish the results, and constantly setting myself up to being productive. — “Learn”
Hope this has been helpful, feel free to leave a comment on the things that you have been working on to become more productive.
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Till next time.
