Ever feel like you spend too much time working on things that aren’t getting you anywhere? What if there was a way to be more productive in less time and have more free time to do what you want? Enter high leverage activities.
Making the most of your time means doing the tasks that yield the most results. In turn, it is imperative that you find ways to spend less time doing the activities that do not accomplish much.
Your three-step plan to help spend time on what matters most and get better results with less effort…
- Take an inventory of your current tasks
- Categorize each one
- Optimize your work
Some of these ideas work well in conjunction with another post I wrote on task simplification. Read that here… Simplify for Success. The main lesson is the High Leverage Rule: a small percentage of your inputs generally account for a large percentage of your outputs. That means that 10-20% of your tasks give way to 80-90% of your results.
Take Inventory
Get out a piece of paper and write down the things you do on a day-to-day basis. Include both personal and work-related tasks that you do to advance toward some goal. Write down everything you can think of from things you must do to things you choose to do on your own. List them out, and break down bigger tasks into smaller pieces to understand the steps you take.
Categorize
Now that you have everything written out, it is time to think critically about each one. Yes, some tasks need to get done no matter what. But keep in mind that within an overarching mandatory task, some of the smaller steps you take may be optional or interchangeable. Whether something is mandatory or not, you can still improve the processes. Oftentimes, the result is what is mandatory, not the processes.
Consider the relative importance of each task to the results you want to achieve. Think about the High Leverage Rule from above and categorize each task as one of the following…
- High-Impact: achieves results quickly
- Potential High-Impact: could be high-impact if not for a clear barrier that holds it back
- Low-Impact: achieves results slowly
- Waste of Time: accomplishes nothing meaningful and only makes you mad or frustrated
Optimize
Now is the fun part. You get to overhaul your tasks – and maybe even your lifestyle – for the better. Here is the formula:
- Simply put, the Waste of Time activities should be eliminated. They don’t serve you or your goals.
- Keep Low-Impact tasks if and only if they serve a purpose that cannot be achieved in another fashion. Sometimes there will be laborious or monotonous things that need done. But before you commit to doing them all yourself, consider whether you can outsource them to someone else or automate them so they happen without your presence/attention.
- For those categorized as Potential High-Impact, go all in on finding a way to remove the barriers. Eliminate distractions that hold back the productivity of these tasks. The more you can do to unleash the potential of borderline tasks, the more you will get out of this overhaul. Do not just accept things for the way they are. Most tasks can be optimized and shifted to higher leverage.
- Removing the unwanted, unnecessary, and/or unhelpful tasks leaves you with extra time. Fill the gaps by doing more of the High Impact tasks until you reach the level of output you want. Because you will get results faster with this optimization, you can either choose to keep working and get even more results or you can enjoy your newfound free time.
Activity Leveraging Template
Get started with this free template to help you take action on the steps above…
Focus your efforts on doing what yields the best results. Eliminate the frustrating tasks that get you nowhere. Use that framework where you can, and enjoy the rewards. Thank you for reading! 🙂
