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The 5 Types of Work That Fill Your Day
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Reactionary Work
Reactionary work is the stuff that we do out of a reaction, like picking a phone because it is ringing. Checking email, replying to a text message, is all reactionary work. It is a necessary evil.
Reactionary work can be distracting and take up most of our time. Blocking time for certain activities like responding to email or replying to text messages may help.
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Planning Work
Planning work is time spent on listing, prioritizing and scheduling your work.
Planning helps us become efficient in our execution. Thus, allocating special time for planning work is crucial. Proactive planning can be exceptionally productive and beneficial in the long run.
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Procedural Work
It is the stuff we have to do, like writing a check to pay our bills, preparing our tax returns, or even making a daily report.
Procedural work is best tackled by technology: automation minimizes the time spent and errors generated in any procedural work.
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Insecurity Work
Insecurity work is our dip-checks, drills and monitoring the health of our business, making sure everything is normal.
Insecurity work can be compartmentalized into chosen time periods every day, maybe just 30 minutes at the end of each day.
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Problem-Solving Work
Our creativity is in its full potential in problem-solving work. This requires our brainpower, focus, and attention.
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Fully Engaged Work
Problem-solving work is only possible in a distraction-free zone, away from the ringing phones and notifications.
If the problem you're working on is of genuine interest, then there is real engagement and exceptional results will follow.
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Handling Reactionary Work
Reactionary work can be distracting and take up most of our time. Blocking time for certain activities like responding to email or replying to text messages may help.
Remember that reactionary work seems urgent but is not important at that moment.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
“Most executives cannot articulate the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement. If..."
David Collis - Harvard Business School professor
Invite Dissent To Build Others’ Commitment
An executive needs those she leads to translate strategic insights into choices that drive results. For people to commit to carrying out an executive’s strategic thinking, they have to both understand and believe in it. But repeated explanations don’t necessarily increase people’s understanding and ownership of strategy. Making them discuss the pros and cons of it make it so the problem is better understood and flaws are identified and fixed increasing ownership for success.
Identify The Strategic Requirements Of The Job
When someone is promoted into a function that requires strategic leadership it’s easy to spend time fixing what was wrong in their previous function but that often isn’t what the strategic leadership position requires. So, identify the strategic requirements of your job and focus on them.
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Adopt GTD Methodology in Email
think of every email you get as either something you need to take action on, track, or refer to later.
Every time you open a conversation, decide right away what to do with it. D...
Create an Email Productivity System
There’s no “definitive” system. The best framework is the one that works for you. Ideally, it should model your work style, supporting the way you work. Bonus points if it’s low-maintenance, fast to set up, and adaptable as your work changes.
Some people like to use folders with specific actions (do, delegate, reply), while others prefer the deadline-driven approach (today, tomorrow, next week).
Power Up Your Email with Plugins
Some examples:
- Undo Send: for when you accidentally press the send button.
- Canned Responses: create a template that you can reuse with canned responses.
- Send and Archive: Automatically archive an email after replying to it using the send and archive button.
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Negotiable job requirements
Apart from jobs in academic professions, like medicine or law, job requirements are largely negotiable — you just have to prove that you can bring value to the table.
People who aren’t...
Impostor syndrome as a good thing
Embrace that feeling of inadequacy.
The combination of believing that you can get to almost wherever you want to be, having discipline, and having insecurity about where you are is the formula for a successful, impactful career.
What’s “realistic” for you
Work alongside the best in your field, read their books, listen to their interviews, study what they did to get where they are — and eventually, those crazy unrealistic dreams will become realistic for you.