keeping time away for quality work. it is not time management. the quality of the effort, the way we work, the kind of work we do is of importance.
the person who spends two hours every morning before work to get his manuscript done. avoiding mail and other wastes of time. being there in bigger chunks of time as possible.
reading deep work reminds us of that, gives us tactics and reaffirms its use and motivates us by remembering how useful it can be.
Now comes the usefulness of the 4DX (the four discpilines of execution)
the lead measure and the lag measure. identifying that one action, the task, which when done repeatedly leads to the desired effect.
we may think we know this, but there is a big difference in really thinking what that initial task is and just focusing on that, in big enough chunks to get it done.
still the lag measure, the final result can be measured to see how the game has been working. did I win? was my gamble on the right task?
but to identify that task, we need to go behind the process and really see. maybe it is waking up and doing tab transcription everyday, so that later in the morning I can record the video.
maybe… still, we need to go through the process and see if that is the best time usage. maybe I can record the video in the morning, and then do tab after editing.
human factors. what’s the human bottle neck.
4 DX really brings clarity and simplicity to the process.
to produce Y bottles more of water bottles per month in the plant, the lead measure is NOT producing Y/30 per day. instead it may have to do something with the shift times, what is done during shifts, in between, etc.
that is why it is called the lead measure. the real thing, which when measured and improved, brings the desired lag measure, which is already done and we don’t have direct control over.
we don’t have direct control over the exam marks although that is what we measure. how much time did I spend every day on the core syllabus? did I do it everyday? by doing that did my marks change?
the daily time spent on core syllabus is the lead measure, which when measured and done right, brings in the lag measure of marks, which we can’t change by the time we measure it.
see? not sure how something so obvious was never formalized before.
of course scaling up and other books and systems have talked about it, but maybe not so clearly, maybe also they didn’t make it simple, instead had too many branches especially for an individual .
the deep work idea is simple, but it is useful to keep reading the book, to be in the mood. in fact I read Adam Grant books, which are mentioned in the deep work book, to feel in the right companionship and mood to do deep and good work.
plus, identify the real task that will move the needle.
make notes on calendar to measure the consistent doing of the same.
see how the performance is. mark daily. keep the marking process easy to access and do.
keep it very simple. one task, one measure, one desired result.
anyway that is the best we can do. we will do the best that we can do 🙂 slowly to even more 80/20 and delegation. careful delegation and freedom…