Work Ethic
When it comes to time management, I’m what it may be called a guru. By me, by other people. I’ve wrote materials in this niche, created courses, coached people and even started (but abandoned) an SaaS time-management.
And at a past time in my life, about eight years ago, I’ve first got into touch with GTD (Getting Things Done) and Eben Pagan. While these are two different time management system, they carry a similar message - focus on high leverage, important tasks. The same can be said about Stephen Covey (he divides tasks into high importance, high urgency / high importance, low urgency / low importance, high urgency and low importance and low urgency.
Eben Pagan promoted something in the area of high lifetime value, high financial value, low lifetime value, low financial value. All of these are based loosely on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
The lesson was clear. Focus on the important tasks. It is more important to work one hour on what matters than five on secondary tasks. It sounds good in theory. Yet, I call it BS.
Let me explain you why.
It is hard to determine what is an important task and what is not. About a year ago, I was working on a project that I couldn’t consider it important by any means. It was simply work. Not something I was very passionate off but more as a favor to someone else. Yet, this project lead to a sequence of events that changed my life dramatically in a good way. If I were to quantify it, if my life was at a 50 before, thanks to this unimportant, secondary, bottom of the list task, it jumped to 500.
You can call it serendipity. But this happened again and again. A few days ago, I’ve contacted a number of people for something. The least likely to actually close, closed. And it closed fast. I’m not saying that others won’t close but it was unlikely, very unlikely. Years ago, I was a bit bored in an evening and decided to visit someone. This put a lot of things in motion and it again changed my life dramatically, in a good way.
On the other way, the “high priority, high importance” tasks brought predictable results but that’s about it. They were like bricks building a wall. A nice wall but no only bricks, no gold coins, no diamonds.
This leads me to another important point …
THE FORGOTTEN & SACRED WORK ETHIC
In a world where everyone wants to work four hours a week, to save time, to do things faster, easier and if possible, do nothing all day, everyone forgets about the fact that earning money actually requires putting in the hours. 40 - 50 hours a week. That an online or offline business requires at a minimum the 9 - 5 work ethic. AT A MINIMUM.
When you quit your job to start a 9 - 5 job, don’t expect to work less. You only trade the office for your home office. Yes, after a while you’ll work less and less but don’t expect this in the beginning and this beginning can mean from 6 months to 5 years.
The idea is to put in the hours every day. Yes, spending 1 hour answering emails is better than one hour watching TV. Any form of execution towards what matters to you is BETTER than no form of execution. Eight hours a day spend on low importance tasks is far more important than one hour spent on high importance tasks.
Why?
Reason #1 - What is high importance and what is low importance is very relative. That low importance email you have down the list may bring you a JV that in turn will make you very rich.
Reason #2 - It improves your skill. Writers write. So even if you work on stuff that is not important, you become better in your work.
Reason #3 - It builds discipline. At the end of the race, not the most motivated person or the one with the best attitude wins. The winner is the one that got the most out of the equation …
Now don’t get me wrong. Between answering emails and spending time with your daughter, spend time with your daughter. However, between writing blog posts for the sake of it and wasting time on YouTube, write those posts. Actually, put in whatever effort you can, in whatever you can so you can hit a minimum of 45 - 50 hours per week.
You’ll eventually understand what are the 20% that generates the 80% and you’ll do them right. Until then, you’ll put in so much effort that the 20% is covered in those 50 hours. I’m annoyed when I see people saying “I want to start an online business, I don’t have any money yet I have 10 free hours a day”.
I want to shout and say “THEN WHY ARE YOU NOT USING THEM?”
Go to McDonalds, flip burgers 3 days a week and use the other 4 in your online business. Or write blog articles for $5/hour instead of wasting your time away. Or read, study, take notes, do something productive.
Between you and your goal there may be 1000 miles. The idea is to start the car and move. At 5 mph, at 10, at 50, at 100, at whatever speed you can. But to move forward.
The awful thing is that only veterans tend to get it. Beginners tend to subscribe to the 4 hour workweek type of mindset very fast. Those who are millionaires consider it a sin to work less than 40 - 50 hours a week.
Thanks,
Razvan
PS: Sorry for the typos or any mistakes. Long day.
And at a past time in my life, about eight years ago, I’ve first got into touch with GTD (Getting Things Done) and Eben Pagan. While these are two different time management system, they carry a similar message - focus on high leverage, important tasks. The same can be said about Stephen Covey (he divides tasks into high importance, high urgency / high importance, low urgency / low importance, high urgency and low importance and low urgency.
Eben Pagan promoted something in the area of high lifetime value, high financial value, low lifetime value, low financial value. All of these are based loosely on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
The lesson was clear. Focus on the important tasks. It is more important to work one hour on what matters than five on secondary tasks. It sounds good in theory. Yet, I call it BS.
Let me explain you why.
It is hard to determine what is an important task and what is not. About a year ago, I was working on a project that I couldn’t consider it important by any means. It was simply work. Not something I was very passionate off but more as a favor to someone else. Yet, this project lead to a sequence of events that changed my life dramatically in a good way. If I were to quantify it, if my life was at a 50 before, thanks to this unimportant, secondary, bottom of the list task, it jumped to 500.
You can call it serendipity. But this happened again and again. A few days ago, I’ve contacted a number of people for something. The least likely to actually close, closed. And it closed fast. I’m not saying that others won’t close but it was unlikely, very unlikely. Years ago, I was a bit bored in an evening and decided to visit someone. This put a lot of things in motion and it again changed my life dramatically, in a good way.
On the other way, the “high priority, high importance” tasks brought predictable results but that’s about it. They were like bricks building a wall. A nice wall but no only bricks, no gold coins, no diamonds.
This leads me to another important point …
THE FORGOTTEN & SACRED WORK ETHIC
In a world where everyone wants to work four hours a week, to save time, to do things faster, easier and if possible, do nothing all day, everyone forgets about the fact that earning money actually requires putting in the hours. 40 - 50 hours a week. That an online or offline business requires at a minimum the 9 - 5 work ethic. AT A MINIMUM.
When you quit your job to start a 9 - 5 job, don’t expect to work less. You only trade the office for your home office. Yes, after a while you’ll work less and less but don’t expect this in the beginning and this beginning can mean from 6 months to 5 years.
The idea is to put in the hours every day. Yes, spending 1 hour answering emails is better than one hour watching TV. Any form of execution towards what matters to you is BETTER than no form of execution. Eight hours a day spend on low importance tasks is far more important than one hour spent on high importance tasks.
Why?
Reason #1 - What is high importance and what is low importance is very relative. That low importance email you have down the list may bring you a JV that in turn will make you very rich.
Reason #2 - It improves your skill. Writers write. So even if you work on stuff that is not important, you become better in your work.
Reason #3 - It builds discipline. At the end of the race, not the most motivated person or the one with the best attitude wins. The winner is the one that got the most out of the equation …
| E x E = R Effort x Efficiency = Results How much time you put in x How valuable that effort is = Results |
You’ll eventually understand what are the 20% that generates the 80% and you’ll do them right. Until then, you’ll put in so much effort that the 20% is covered in those 50 hours. I’m annoyed when I see people saying “I want to start an online business, I don’t have any money yet I have 10 free hours a day”.
I want to shout and say “THEN WHY ARE YOU NOT USING THEM?”
Go to McDonalds, flip burgers 3 days a week and use the other 4 in your online business. Or write blog articles for $5/hour instead of wasting your time away. Or read, study, take notes, do something productive.
Between you and your goal there may be 1000 miles. The idea is to start the car and move. At 5 mph, at 10, at 50, at 100, at whatever speed you can. But to move forward.
| So my advice - forget the law of attraction, forget productivity tips, forget all that “I’m not motivated to work, what should I do” type of whining and simply get to work. Execution, good, bad, mediocre, awful, excellent, will move you forward. And this applies both to beginners and pros. |
Thanks,
Razvan
PS: Sorry for the typos or any mistakes. Long day.