Enter into any office space in any modern day corporate, and you will see the religion of hustle culture everywhere. We celebrate the worker who takes on eighty hours work a week, works on fifteen different projects at the same time and answers emails at two in the morning.We celebrate the worker who works 80 hours a week, works on 15 projects simultaneously, and answers email at 2 a.m. It is in our culture to go through the motions of productivity, believing that it is all about numbers: more tasks will be accomplished, more successful you will be.
However, the best leaders in the world bristle at this idea.
As Quotenestify, we know that in business there are no more finite currencies than time and attention. Doing too much is doing nothing. Ruthless cutting back on commitments is the road to true professional mastery as opposed to speed. This mindset is known as Essentialism or “deep work” and is the magic trick behind companies that have visions.
I’m here to tell you that the myth of multitasking is busted—and the truth is that focusing in one way has a lot of power.I want to tell you that there is a myth about multitasking, and the truth is that focusing in one way has a lot of power.
1. Steve Jobs: The True Definition of Focus
Focus is not about saying yes to the thing you have to focus on, it’s about saying no to the 1,000 things that are also good ideas.
— Steve Jobs
The Context:
Steve Jobs came back to a very confused and struggling Apple in 1997, with the company offering dozens of products, each with its own confusing variety name, from different Macs to printers and digital cameras. The company was immediately cut down to four basic computer models by Jobs.
A philosophy that is in practice.
This is one of the most difficult lessons that ambitious workers can learn: You can’t say no to bad ideas, you can only say no to good ideas. A bad offer is easily refused. Sadly, it is brutal to turn down a project that may be profitable, but that’s not your business. Jobs knew that for every “yes” you give to a side project, you’ll be taking energy away from your masterpiece. The key to focus is to be bold enough to let people down in the short term so they can do great things in the long term.
2. Greg McKeown: The Discipline of Less
Instead of doing “less”, it is about doing “the right thing”. “Essentialism is not about doing less, it is about doing the right things.
— Greg McKeown
The Context:
Leadership strategist Greg McKeown described the current “disease” of the business world in his bestselling book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less—in terms of the undisciplined pursuit of more. He noted that people who are able are being penalized with more work than they can do, until they get them so far that they are no good at all.
The Philosophy in Practice:
McKeown’s dictum alters the whole definition of productivity. A non-essentialist’s success is found in the fullness of his calendar. The essentialist’s assessment of success is based on the size of their effect. A hundred times a millimeter of advance leads to never crossing the finish line. Essentialists take a few moments to then ask themselves, “If I could do only one thing today, what would it be that would have the greatest impact? Then you put your finest efforts into that one thing and you ignore the trivial noise.
3. Peter Drucker: The Trap of Efficiency to Watch for
“Nothing is so useless as doing inefficiently what you do not need to do.”
— Peter Drucker
The Context:
For decades, Peter Drucker, the renowned management consultant, studied the operation of big companies. All too often he saw executives getting worked up about improving processes, optimizing supply chains and automating workflows for projects that offered no strategic benefit.
The Philosophy in Practice:
We tend to be mistaken on the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. The word ‘efficient’ means mechanical in the sense of ‘quick and cheap’ doing a job as efficiently as possible. Effectiveness is a strategic process – determining whether the task is actually significant. You can be very effective in responding to trivial messages, in attending idiotic meetings, or producing gibberish reports that are never read. Drucker’s wisdom is a clean cut wake-up call. Any workflow, any increase in reading speed, any new productivity app, you have to brutally interrogate whether the work should exist in the first place.
4. Gary Keller: The Domino Effect
What is YOUR ONE Thing that you can do that makes all the other things easier or not necessary?
— Gary Keller
The Context:
Gary Keller of the huge real estate firm Keller Williams, authored The ONE Thing to help entrepreneurs filter through their daily noise and chaos. He felt that the activities of life weren’t all the same and that a flat hierarchy of a list of things to do was a formula for lackluster performance.
The Philosophy in Practice:
This quote is a mental scalpel, known as the “Focusing Question. In business, some tasks are simply maintenance or administrative tasks and others are huge “dominoes. Once your domino is knocked over, it will cause a whole row of smaller dominoes behind it to fall. If your scheduling, inventory and payroll issues are a problem, for instance, having a world-class operations manager (the ONE thing) might immediately resolve those issues (making them easier or eliminating them). The idea is not to work through your list, but to find what one action will make the rest of the list moot.
Productivity isn’t about working more hours, it’s about working more valueable hours. With these insights from some of the world’s greatest business thinkers, you can break out of the rat-race of busywork and start designing a career that is clear, impactful and uncompromising.
