Category: Blog

Did you ever find a collegue tapping on your shoulder for a question, for help? Did you ever had that one person always asking you to come over for a small discussion without even sharing the topic? I don’t blame these behaviours, but we should all admit that they’re shortsighted. Rarely we do need that much sync to communicate during common day to day job. If we do, it means something about our process _depends_ on this behaviour _because_ we can’t avoid it, not because it’s a requirement of the job. Also, a small discussion without sharing a topic can rarely go into deep processes. It all needs some extra work afterwards, which is why sharing the topic beforehand and with enough time allow people to prepare and, guess what, be productive. Synchronous communication like this is easy. It makes you feel in control, while in fact you waste people time with one-on-one because you can’t have a more structured approach. Also, as shown before, it doesn’t allow you to make complex decisions since everything is _on sync_ and without preparation. Would you build a skyscraper with no prep? I hope you won’t, and the same applies to many of the complex choices we have to make daily. If we prepare, if we dive deep, we can do more, achieve more, express more. So, what to do then? Ask them to share more info, to add more context. Ask them if you can reply later so that you can reply with more context and knowledge, this way you can help them have a much better insight. Maybe they’ll still tap on your shoulders and you won’t change _their_ behaviour, but at least you changed your impact. Oh, and if you’re the one that taps shoulder frequently, then think twice. I know it sounds great, but it’s not.

If you happen to be in a smart working company chances are that you’re lucky.
Surrounded by great people with a nice mindset.

You might be tempted to simply do your work. But what is your work?
In today’s jobs our work doesn’t really equate a task.
Is a task “your work”?

I’m not sure. What I think is that a task is part of our work.
Completing a task is part of what we should do.
We should also be sure to do it correctly, be sure that we understood the problem and how to fix it, following up to be ensure that the people depending on our work will use it correctly and so on.

The more we help the people after us, the more we try to be sure that what we did was great, the more the workflow will improve, the more the quality of what we do will stand out.

It’s easy to simply finish a task. It’s one click away.
But your work is much more than that, don’t be fooled by technology and go the extra mile to help, improve, document, discuss.

What will you remember 10 years from now?

Will you remember that customer that shouted at you?
Will you remember the long working hours?
Will you remember the anxiety of finishing a task?

or

Will you remember that trip to Hawaii?
Will you remember your wedding day?
Will you remember that time when you did bungee jumping?

As you might have guessed: Some experiences stay with us, some other disappear.
Work is great, work is part of our life.
But work should be efficient, if it’s not then it won’t make a big difference.

Working too many hours might be useful for a short sprint to help a project, an extra hour from time to time might seriously help your coworkers live a better workday tomorrow and in these cases then go for it. Do it.

It shouldn’t be the norm though.
Your quality of work is based on your life, and your life is what you’ll remember 10 years from now.
All the rest is gonna disappear. You’ll even forget many of the discussions you’ll have with your partner, let alone the issue at work.

So learn to protect your time, both in and out of your work.
Make your time count, be more productive at work by having less distractions (messages, etc) and protect the rest of your time.

After some years both as an employee and as a company owner I came to realize that urgency, for some people, is the standard.

I don’t know if it’s because they realize what must be done too late or if it’s because they are extremely anxious.

The fact is: For some people urgency, emergency, is the standard.

There is no difference between long term, short term: Everything is urgent. Everything is needed now.

These people might be easy to spot, but it doesn’t mean they’re always visible in plain sight.
Some people hide the urgency behind a great communication, some people use different words. In the end you might not guess instantly that they are “those type of people”.

It might take a while and some introspection to understand who they are but when you do there is only one answer to them: Delay them.

Not if the work is truly urgent, not if it’s truly critical.
Delay them when it’s not.

Here’s the thing: Urgency is like a sale. If everything is on sale, nothing is on sale.
Same goes for urgency.

Go for the important things. Those will _always_ pay off in the long term.
Not so many things are truly urgent. A lost website might be urgent, payment not working might be urgent.

Wrong text? It depends.
Wrong image? Unless it’s inappropriate then it’s definitely not urgent.

Urgency often lies in the needs and the social status of the other people.
They overpromised and urgency is their way to get their act together.
Or maybe they need to save their face in front of their boss, coworkers, whatever.

Urgency is rarely a matter of damage, mostly a matter of status.
It’s hard to distinguish between the two, but after a while trying you’ll start noticing pattern and know when it’s the right time to delay, to put the important things first.

Because important things will always make a change. Urgent things will always make a fix.