I constantly recommend to people presenting me with their fake (as I like to call them) dilemmas to merely reject either of the two (or sometimes more) options/things to do that they have and get on with their lives. Most are unable to do so. They can’t say “no” to either of two people asking for conflicting requests, because they feel that doing so will degrade them in the eyes of the other party. They can’t immediately dismiss either of two mutually exclusive courses of action either, because they feel that they will be missing out on something. And so most people decide to follow the least effective “middle of the road” approach. Do everything sub optimally and satisfy no one. Not even themselves.
This is what routinely happens in many major organizations, when this level of poor decision-making reaches the upper echelons through luck and seniority, instead of merit. People for whom everything is a priority. People who have a two-way, three lanes on each way, highway in front of them and instead of choosing to follow either of the two ways, they choose to run through and over the protective barriers in the middle. But as people say, “when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority”.
Funnily enough however, when the time to assess the results of their actions comes, they wonder what they did wrong. They want to make more money but they just can’t get how to do it. Many of them will never get it. They will never understand what they are doing wrong. It takes a change in the culture around you to realize that there are more effective ways to manage your time, other than what you have been traditionally doing. But a change in culture takes an outsider’s perspective to happen. When you lock yourself in a room you will eventually asphyxiate. Your own breath will turn the air around you to poison. You need someone to help you from the outside if you are to survive.
I was working about four hours a day, every day, during my summer vacation. About an hour and a half of it was work at the yard of my beach house. Manual labor, hoeing, watering, planting, stuff like that. The rest was consulting work. But here’s the thing: It was a conscious choice to act like I did. If I wanted to maximize my productivity, I would have focused on the latter and hired someone way cheaper to do the former. So when I came back home and some stuff that I could have done were instead left behind, I was OK. I had made the choice. Not someone else for me, by pushing me around like a Muppet.
I enjoy this manual labor every now and then, even though I know that I will never become a good farmer. I am contempt with the idea that my plants will not be as productive. If I wanted my field to be more productive as a whole, I would have probably cut off half of my trees that are unproductive and plant better varieties in my limited available space. But I am just spending my time gardening because I like this change of pace, not because I have to. And so, some “underperformance” doesn’t bother me too much. I wouldn’t be OK to miss any deadlines on my consulting work however, and for this, I had managed in advance because I knew I would be sub-productive during my vacation. No surprises to anyone. That is my approach.
Contrary to many others who get surprised when they realize that they can’t satisfy everyone. And that they can’t tackle effectively conflicting priorities. Contrary to people who promise things to everyone and who -consequently- negatively surprise everyone. Contrary to people who simply do not know what they want.