Tag: “Engage”

In this article I will use the word “work” in the way it is used in GTD, that is, understood as anything you’ve committed to do, either in personal or professional contexts.

Are you one of those people who estimate the time that it will take to complete each task, in order to know how many things you will get done at the end of the day, week or month? If so, how often do you check off all the tasks in your to-do list, at the end of the period? If you’re like almost people, the answer is “rarely”.

It doesn’t matter if you are running a business or organizing your family vacation. Prioritizing on multiple available options is the kind of decisions that bring the most value to the development of your life. You constantly do it, with big and small things, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes in a more intuitive way.

Productivity is nothing without “Doing”. Those lists, plans, projects, goals, and visions, are nothing if you do not spend quality time to meet your commitments. Everybody gets things done, no doubt, but the quality of our work makes a difference. It is important to care and provide a good finish. We tend to do too many things at once. Perhaps we do not fall into multitasking, but it seems that we are giving up the idea of focusing on just one thing.

The smartest way to improve any aspect of a business (sales, costs, customer satisfaction, etc.) is to measure the current results related to that aspect, use the data to infer a strategy that may improve performance, implement that strategy and measure again to determine whether we were right or not. Surely we will fail occasionally before finding the correct clue, but having actual data on which support our decision is critical. Build, measure and learn. This is the mantra of The Lean Startup entrepreneurship method, so fashionable lately.