There is an increasing trend in productivity applications — reporting. On the whole this is a really good. Just recently, ToDoist introduced a new reporting section into their side bar. Open it up and it shows you what you have done today or what others in your team have completed. This is actually kind of helpful so I am thankful for it. But most apps include some kind of function or feature that is designed to let you see what you have done. Or…it lets you see what you have checked off your to do list. But, don’t value your day just by what you check off a list.
What your to-do list is for
Your to do list might sit in a task management application or even in a notebook on your desk if you are especially old school. It should be set up to do exactly what it says on the tin — managing your tasks. You might have a few other uses for it as well beyond this. I use mine for a shopping list and a ‘longer time consider’ purchase list. It’s great for this. I am also increasingly using it as a general inbox. The capture feature is so fantastic in ToDoist, that I am tending to use it for stuff beyond just tasks, where possible, and then move stuff to a more appropriate home later.
But, the bulk of it is just managing my tasks. And it does it very well. So, it is really helpful to be able to see, at a glance, what got completed today or this past week or whenever, from my to do list. I don’t check this every day but periodically. There is value in seeing how much I completed and, more importantly, what type of tasks they were. This information can help me discern if I am spending more time than I should be on less important tasks or easy wins.
This is valuable information.
Where this approach fails you
Across every area of life, work and everything else, I would guess that most of the things we do that have the most value are not things you would put on your to do list. Therefore don’t value your day just by what you check off a list.
Task managers are great but they have limits and there is so much we do that cannot be tracked in a task manager.
Things you cannot track
Think about it:
- Spending quality time with family members or friends
- Providing encouraging feedback to colleagues
- Taking a call that brings value
- Sending messages to someone who needs support
- Providing assistance to a co-worker
- Making someone laugh
- Challenging or encouraging someone in area of life or work that needs improvement
- Going for a lengthy walk
- Getting a solid night’s sleep
- Having a great idea
- Identifying a critical decision
- Helping to understand the factors in affecting that decision
- Making the decision
And so much more. Most of this is stuff that you likely won’t be tracking in your task manager. When you review the list of things you checked off, they won’t be there.
Relative value
Not all things are created equal when it comes to productivity/effectiveness. We know this to be true. We are not workers on a factory line producing homogenous widgets. Every one with equal value. The number of widgets produced in the time being the only measure that matters. Most of us, are not like that. Even people who do have that kind of job, your job is not the only thing you have in life. So, the number of tasks you complete is not the only measure of how valuable your day was.
As you look at what you have completed, some things will be significant, other things less so. You cannot therefore determine how effective you have been simply by the number of things you have done. I often find it to be the case that one thing I do in a day has provided more value overall than everything else combined. And, to note the point above, that one thing might not even be something I checked off a list.
What we cannot see
One brief point to note, whenever we interact with others, we cannot really discern the impact and the value of the time spent here. The further into the future this impact comes or persists, the harder it is discern.
I will give you one personal example. I was sitting in a talk once, probably in 2003 or 2004. The speaker shared a line of encouragement that helped them when they battled some mental health struggles. It did not really resonate with me at the time. Twenty years later, in a particularly bleak time, I kept on hearing this line of encouragement in my head, in his voice, as he had delivered it. At that moment I felt the power of it and it really helped me. That person would never have been able to know, in 2003, the impact of that talk on me, some 20 years later.
We cannot see that and so it impossible to accurately determine the value of what we do overall. Yet still we make these judgements on ourselves based on very weak data….we need to stop doing this.
Where this approach can lead
The metrics we use to measure our success, over time, can become the primary thing that influences our activity. To give you an example, this is a common complaint levelled at the UK education system.
The introduction of league tables impacted a lot of things for schools including applications, funding, ability to hire staff etc etc. The tables ranked school primarily on the basis of test results. And so, the complaint is, that over time schools have focussed their efforts more and more on training pupils to achieve high results on specific tests, rather than providing a well rounded, quality education. That’s the accusation, it may not be accurate.
If we are led to determine the value of our day by the amount we check off our list, then we are led to try and check more and more things off that list each and every day. This inevitably means that anything that is not on that list, we feel pressure to ignore. These will get in the way of the things from which we derive our value from. Not only that, we are further directed towards the quick wins and shorter, simpler tasks. If I focus my day on one or two big tasks, I look very unproductive. Thirty quick tasks makes me a productivity ninja! Or so our metric would have us think.
You get the point, don’t value your day by what you check of a list!
Over time, this actually makes us less effective, our days less valuable. When a co-worker asks for help, we feel unable to step in as at the end of the day, it doesn’t contribute to our ‘KPI’. Even at home, we are more inclined towards home life tasks etc etc. In short, this approach makes us less effective, less productive. But, and here is the bitter irony, based on our metrics, we appear to be much more so.
How to measure value
Firstly, I am not convinced that seeking to measure the value of each and every day in this way is helpful. I think it is far more helpful to assess patterns and trends over a longer period in order to course correct if needed. That said, what can we use?
- Not how many things you check off a list.
- Examine your calendar and see what things had time blocked out for them — how valuable were they?
- What things did you actually check of that list? What impact did they have?
- What other interactions did you do have, what other things did you do? What value did they provide
This blog post (How to prioritise in practice) has a section on the value that different things have covering direct and indirect value, immediate and cumulative value and therefore short term and longer term benefits.
Don’t value your day by what you check off a list. This alone can never tell you what impact your day had and it can lead you down a path of actually reducing that impact over time. Instead, take a more holistic and intuitive approach to measuring these things. And only for the purpose of course correction, not for the purpose of determining your value.
