Work

• Choose your path.
• Acceleration by elimination.
• Find algorithms.
• Productive, not busy.
• Core values
• GWC
• Never say ‘That’s someone else’s job.’ Ask ‘What else can I do?’
• Free, perfect, and now.
• What would I do to disrupt me?
• The things that get scheduled are the things that get done.
• Don’t just aspire to make a living. Aspire to make a difference.

You’re going to spend approximately 50% of your waking day, most days, working.

Our society has evolved to the point where everyone needs to work, all the time. This helps make for better nations, a calmer population, and peace. However, if you are lucky like us to live in a peaceful country, that’s relatively well off, that enjoys a high standard of living, your base needs are for the most part met.

So the question becomes: If you’re safe, how do you spend half your waking hours doing something that interests you? That you enjoy?

Choose Your Work

The first thing you have to do is choose your path. Unfortunately it’s usually up to ‘teenager you’ to make the first choice and choose which path you want to take.  I say ‘unfortunately’ because you haven’t experienced life yet.

You’ve experienced whatever sheltered version of life your parents provided for you. Based on that, you choose the next steps in life.

At this point, some people say you should look for inspiration. You should look for where you can make a dent in the world.

That’s a tall ask.

The massive problems in the world are just that for a reason: They are massive. They are problems. And it’s going to take a ton of resources and hard work to solve them. This seems like a worthy cause, working on the unsolved, but before you choose that path there are a couple of things you should know.

Eventually Everything Becomes a Job

You may love to paint, but if you paint to feed yourself, that’s your job. If you are compelled to paint, then that is something that when you have to paint, you’ll enjoy painting. However, for the vast majority of us, painting because you love to paint, and painting because you have to paint are two very different experiences.

The passion, the motivation, gets us started. But after a while the repetition, the day in day out grind makes it something else. So what you need to understand is if you want to be a world class painter, then it’s the discipline and consistency that will get you there. Not the passion and motivation.

The Two Work Perspectives

Now when it comes to work, there are two perspectives you can have when attempting to find work you love:

1. Do what you love
2. Love what you do

Hopefully they can be one and the same thing, but they aren’t always.  Doing what you love is easy, but loving what you do is harder.

The good news is the more you do something, and the better you get at it, the odds are the more you will enjoy it and want to spend more time at it. The work itself becomes fulfilling and you can start to love what you do. When you achieve some competence, that moves you to achieve some expertise, that moves you to achieve mastery.

It’s like hearing a song on the radio. The first time you hear it, it might be OK. But by the 10th time they play it, you usually really like it. It’s the same with work. Preferably work that challenges you, that you need to strive to master. Because challenge is part of the enjoyment of the process.

Three Keys to Productive Work

One of the traps you can fall into at work is being busy, but not productive.

It’s interesting to me that it’s called business, which can be read as ‘busy-ness’. Whatever your work is, I’m sure there are parts of the process that you could eliminate to make your days more productive.

The first thing to do is to get some clarity around what you are trying to do, where you are going, and how you are going to get there, then focus.

Focus on defining the steps to get to where you want to go, then relentlessly executing on those things. You will be amazed how with a little focus, you can do what you want to do, and get where you want to go, faster than you ever thought possible. You can accelerate by eliminating distractions.

The next thing you can do is find algorithms like this to make things easier.

Use computers where you can, but also use what other people have learned. Use the knowledge that people have to make your work life more efficient, and more productive. Use the tools that exist in the world to move forward.

A simple Google search, followed by an investment in time to learn what others have learned, and before you know it, you’re stronger, faster, smarter and moving forward.

Core Values (ask yourself who you are)

There are a couple of practical applications I’ve learned over the years as well that may help you with your work life. By sitting down, and defining your core values, you can pursue work that aligns with them. Here are mine for reference. I don’t expect you to have the same ones, but figure out what defines you as a starting point.

• I am curious about the world and I learn to adapt and change.
• I assess complex situations and creatively implement realistic and practical solutions.
• I have good values and communicate in a positive and caring way.
• I will be there for you.
• I am driven and I will persevere.

OK, that all sounds great. But so what?

I use these values to identify the work I want to do. What I want to spend my time doing. If there is a job, or a project, or a company I want to start, the first thing I do is understand how the core values of that thing align with who I am.

How do I do that? I use my core values as a decision tree.  I ask myself a question that lines up with each value

• Does this work pique my curiosity? Will I learn, grow and change because of it?
• Is it an interesting complex problem that can be simplified?
• Are the people involved positive, and caring?
• Will they be there for me?
• Will it take some sweat equity and drive to persevere?

A simply yes or no answer helps me through that process.

The GWC

Then, next comes the GWC.

This is the second part of decision making process I use when evaluating something. Do I get it (the G), want to do it (W), and am I capable of doing it (C).

So if I get it, want it, and am capable, then I’m golden.

The work has passed the first two tests, it aligns with my core values, and I GWC it, now I can move forward.

Core Purpose (ask yourself: why am I here?)

The one final piece of this is ‘does the work align with my external core purpose, and my internal core purpose?’ If it does, I start on it immediately.

My external core purpose is to enrich the lives of those around me.

My internal core purpose is to live a purposeful life.

What’s a purposeful life?  I define a life filled with purpose as having someone to love, meaningful work, and a cause to embrace. Hopefully everything I do meets those tests too.

The Three Worst Words You Can Say About Work

Moving to the actual implementation of the work, there is something I need to clear the air about. The absolute worst thing you can think, or do, or say when someone asks you to do something is to say ‘that’s not my job‘.

I hate that.

If someone asks you for a favor, or for help, that’s a slap in the face. As far as I’m concerned it’s cause for immediate dismissal.

If you define your job so narrowly that something adjacent is not a part of it, then you will never move forward. You will never progress. You will never improve and if you’re not learning, growing, and improving, then you can go be mediocre somewhere else.

The Five Best Words You Can Say About Work

However the flip side of that, which is amazing to hear, and is the best and most productive thing you can ask is simply ‘what else can I do?’. That shows initiative. That shows willingness to go above and beyond.

That is someone you can rely on, and value more than just the expense of their paycheck.  But people who add value to a situation eventually get paid for it.

Change Happens

One of the other things about work is you have to stop and look around once in a while because things change.  Ask yourself:  Is what you’re doing going to be automated? Is what you’re doing going to be eliminated?

Technology is coming for your job, whether that’s your job of driving, your job of data entry, or your research job. It may not happen today, this week, this year, or even in the next decade, but you have to be aware of what’s coming. Your only defense against this is to constantly learn. Constantly improve. Constantly keep moving forward and that will open up a world of possibilities for you.

In fact, you can even start to think about your work a little differently and be proactive.  You know your work better than anyone else does.  Maybe there’s an opportunity there.

Ask yourself:  What would I do to disrupt me? What would I do to eliminate the need for my job? What would I do that other people could also do, or that I could do for them, that would make me even more valuable?

Stop and look around. This isn’t 1955 where things are the same for decades to come.  Is someone out there already starting to disrupt your work? How can you get on board before it’s too late? This comes down to the allocation of your effort.

If you realize your job is patching a leaky boat that is sinking, isn’t your effort better spent getting off the boat, instead of fighting to keep a doomed ship afloat?

Where Is The Potential?

Another way to look at your work is within the framework of fulfilling potential. There are things in our work that are hard, or repetitive, or kinda suck.  I’ve had to do all those things.

That said, as my skill and proficiency get higher with any kind of task, I can identify, and implement, improvements so I feel better about those things. They turn from ‘I have to do this thing’, to ‘I get to do this thing’ over time.

It’s all about perspective, and for me, using the words ‘get’ and ‘yet’. I get to do this thing. I haven’t figured out how to make it more enjoyable, yet.

The Company of One

My final note about work is it is moving more and more to a collection of individuals as opposed to a company.  It’s moving to groups of people who are skilled in one area or another, who come together on a project or task and complete it as required, then potentially go onto a completely different project with a completely different set of people.

You could almost call this a ‘company of one’. This is one of the futures of work.

With that ‘company of one’ future in mind you have to realize how you spend your time directly impacts how much money you will make. Not only that, you will have to balance all the different things about running a company: Your cash, your strategy, your execution of work, and the people involved.

You will only succeed if you control your schedule.

If you spend your time on the things that matter. If you do things that must be done first, and you only spend your time on the important things. This is the key to success. So manage your schedule well. Focus on the things that matter and make the difference, and you will succeed.

Just remember that what get’s scheduled, gets done. So put it in your schedule to learn, grow, and master whatever it is you love to do.