In a discussion at Manager Tools, someone brought up the idea of time multipliers - either by deciding not do do things at all; changing how you do things; doing things easier; automating them; or … you get the idea. That then primed my mind when I saw a couple quotes this morning that connect to this idea:
Alfred North Whitehead says, "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”
and James Clear gives us, “The costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.”
We get more effective when we decide to operate in better ways. But sometimes those decisions force us to slow down, and we don’t think we can. We get stuck in the loop of doing instead of pausing to think. And it’s even worse when we think we have to do everything in front of us - or that we have to do it all NOW.
This is a great reminder. Delegate (sometimes to the floor) when possible. For the rest, focus on one thing at a time, and pause often to look for opportunities to improve.