How to Work Faster

What to do About That Feeling That You’re Not Going Fast Enough

I want to legitimize my site and bring my vision into reality. I’m just beginning, and it’s hard. Creating content isn’t hard. What’s hard is the fact that I feel like I’m not going fast enough. I feel this way about most of what I do, not just this. This feeling is something I’ve worked on before and I I have picked up some strategies along the way to combat this.

I don’t want to pack up and call it a day. I haven’t failed. I want to create and I want to create multitudes. So I do these things to enable myself to keep going. I want to find a way to handle it and make a way to sustain it. Just because I do things the way I do them doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do them. In fact it’s often not.

Sensory Overwhelm is a Real Thing

Everyone has ADD these days. That’s not because people have changed. That’s because the amount of sensory input has multiplied exponentially even in just our lifetimes. People used to ingest a weekly newspaper’s worth of information…in their whole life (ish). We are not built to handle more. More. MORE. Find a way to create space in your day for you to think clearly. For a lot of uppity Silicon Valley types it’s meditation. For you it could be something else.

There is too much going on. It’s a fact.

Get More Specific with your Objectives

If distraction is the number one reason this site will fail, the number two reason is because I’m trying to do too much. I have so many things that I want to do on here to bring you guys great, valuable material.

When I’m not creating, I’m consuming. A lot of time it’s empty calories, but sometimes it’s content with an ROI. One of those good things I consumed was The Toyota Way. Toyota has a set of principles that they apply to their business, the DNA of their business. Toyota’s MO is making the best use of their resources available. In Japan that’s a necessity due to the limited nature of available resources. The relevant principle here is the principle of production leveling. Define what is consistently attainable and do that every day, no more no less. By forcing yourself to figure out how to achieve a steady output you find a way to work with the constraints.

Focus on The NEXT High Impact Thing

Don’t spend your time on low value activities. In the case of this site an example of a low-value activity is picking the font for the main page. Another example of a low-value activity is planning for the blog. Planning feels like a valuable activity, but it’s a distraction from what I should be doing, creating. Focus on the things that drive progress forward.

All that said…

The whole objective of time management during any endeavor is to maximize value-add time. That’s not done through efficiency (i.e. more work in less time). That’s done by cutting out value-add time. REST IS VALUE ADD TIME. If you don’t re-charge the batteries, the batteries are going to die.

Closing Thoughts

Setting difficult-to-meet expectations isn’t inherently a bad thing. It challenges you to find a way to do it within the allotted constraints. Until you find your groove, try something. If it’s too much, change it. Keep doing this and, with time, you will find your grove. Once you find your groove, sit in it and keep going!

✌️& 💜. Thanks for reading.

Written while listening to 🎧 Garth Brooks (yes, I caved and bought it).

For more, checkout http://michaelcolumbus.com/