Most people imagine procrastinators are lazy or distracted by time wasting activities. There is a form of perfectionism where the person engages in activity right away and carries on with the appearance of being very busy. Despite being “Hard at Work,” their effort seem to be nothing more than a smoke screen hiding their resistance to getting results. They are like a hamster on a hamster wheel; lots of effort, no measurable productivity.
This brings up an interesting distinction. “Work” is a separate concept from “result.” The definition of procrastination should include any activity that delays you from getting to a result. While this isn’t a common way of seeing procrastination, it does explain why so many people can work so hard yet still become overwhelmed by deadlines all the same. Productivity is productivity. If a person works very hard, but chooses methods which leave the breaks on, they prevent themselves from getting any real work done. This form of internal resistance is still procrastination.
Hypothetical Question and a Painful Truth
Let’s say you are the owner of a small company; who would you rather have working for you:
Person A: Works very hard, has a positive professional attitude, looks good in a suit and says all the right things. Yet he doesn’t actually produce anything.
Person B: Lazy ass couch potato. A bit of a slob, sometimes randomly inappropriate but nothing serious. Yet he is consistently four times more productive than the next best worker in the company. He always gets his assignments done on time and with high quality.
You may think person A sounds like he should be productive and person B sounds like he shouldn’t. People are rarely as simple as their surface impression. How many times have complete dullards snuck their way past interviews by looking good, smelling good, and presenting a good package, but caused loads of damage to the company after their probation period passed? How many geniuses have been rejected because of a bad impression?
Everyone likes to believe that what they see is what they get. Managers often equate being busy to being productivity. When they see a group of workers chatting, relaxed and having fun, they assume that it is a sign of screwing off. So they crack the proverbial whip and kick everyone’s ass back into action.
It doesn’t matter if the workers have completed all their tasks ahead of time; it doesn’t matter if the sales quotas are far past the quarterly expectation. Employers tend to be more stuck on the appearance of work over what is produced. Except there are countless examples where the appearance of work has nothing to do with productivity. Administrative offices, marketing teams, and government bureaucracies are rife with people who are very good at the appearance of being busy. They scurry about, filing this here and that there, yet by the end of the day they accomplish very little.
If you ask a HAWer (Hard at Worker) what they accomplished, they will take great pride in telling you about all the actions they did. Yet if you press them and ask, “What did those actions produce?” They will look at you blankly. They are so involved in activity (by following orders) they have lost the connection that their actions should lead to some sort of production. After a long and embarrassing silence, they may start to realize that their actions don’t lead to specific results.
Author’s Note: Don’t do this. Many people in your personal network are very busy producing very little. Rubbing their nose in it won’t help them change, and bringing it to their attention will make them resent you for it. On the other hand, you dear reader, are reading a book on personal motivation and productivity. You are at a point in your life where you want to look past bullshit and become genuinely more productive. It is helpful for you to understand that “looking busy” and “actual production” are two different things. Just remember that many others are not ready for this sort of information.
How to be Inefficient and Ineffective
Inside the mind of “Hard at Work” Mentality
HAWers don’t see themselves as procrastinators because they engage right away. They work hard, but they are never satisfied with the methods they are using. Second-guessing themselves is a common activity. They backtracking on completed work, choose a different procedure and do it again. Then after a while they are dissatisfied with their modification and take another direction yet again.
There is nothing wrong with changing procedures for the purpose of innovation, but they attempt to innovate before they come to their first set of results. In trying to be perfect, they waste huge amounts of time and never get to a completion point where they can evaluate their procedure.
Often HAWers suffer from a deep seated fear that a poor result will brand them as a bad worker. They will be found out and fired. The only time that work can be evaluated is when they come to a result. If you can arrange to have infrequent results, then you can’t be graded as often. What matters about work is work, being and looking busy.
Sadly, even when the HAWers comes to a result, they can’t recall the convoluted path they used to get there. Results reflect procedures; if you used 30 different procedures (or parts of different procedures), how do you know what worked and what didn’t? Say you got a perfect result. Can you replicate your effort? Say you got a negative result? What do you have to change to improve on? The next time through doesn’t lead to optimization nor innovation; just another confused set of activities with another random result.
It is All about Results
No matter what you do, you are always being paid to produce specific results. Only micro-managers and bureaucrats care about how you do something. Business owners and customers don’t care about how it happens only what is produced. It is important to remember that customers are the deciding factor which make or break a company.
Customers are the people who pay for all the staff, all the overhead, all of your boss’s profits; no customers, no company. Customers do not care how many legal hoops you had to jump through to produce your product. They don’t care about your history, nor the corporate mission statement, nor action planning meetings. They don’t care that you spent 2.1 million on 10 different prototypes, nor do they care about the German engineering company you contracted to solve some product developmental problems. They don’t care about your investors, nor complex shipping logistics. Your customers only care about what is produced and if it is the answer to their specific problem.
Think about yourself as a customer for a moment; you buy all sorts of things. Do you care to know about the myriad of different processes involved in putting together each sub component of the car you drive? No, you just want your car to get you to where you want to go. Do you think about all the steps involved in a restaurant to get food to your table? No, you only care that the food is hot, delicious, comes on time and looks like what you ordered from the menu. Do you care about the process to which a writer goes through to write a book? The drafting, editing, and sorting of information, the research involved? Doesn’t really matter to you. The only thing you care about, as a reader, is if the information is easy to understand and useful to you.
I’m a consumer too, and just like you I only care about the product and how it solves my problems. If that’s true for me and you, then why would it be any different for people who use the fruits of your labour?
So, if you follow this logic you would have to agree that how something is produced is not as important as what is produced.
What Do I Produce?
The next logical questions you should ask are:
“What do I produce in my job?”
“How can I increase my production with less effort?”
The first question identifies and clarifies your purpose, your mission and your role in the company you work for. The second question optimizes your efforts and focuses your creative mind on being more productive in a sustainable way. These two questions give you a competitive edge over others you work with. Most employees are just there for the money, they focus on actions but not productivity. When you focus on better quality production you distinguish yourself among the most valuable employees of that company.
Managers may be threatened by an employee who is too productive; they may believe you are going after their job. However, executives are always looking for good people to occupy key positions. You may find becoming highly productive lines you up for promotions and other opportunities. So the fear of less productive managers is justified.
Non-Physical Production
Some people say their job isn’t the type that “produces” anything. Typically people think production means the manufacturing of a concrete, physical product. Many jobs produce intangible benefits, and it may be easier to think in terms of how you serve the interests of the company as a whole.
Consider the production of a security guard as he guards a construction site. What does he produce? He produces an abstract idea called “Protection.” Protection means that he is actively deterring theft and vandalism of the site. Vandalism can be expensive just in the damage to grounds and equipment; but the cost of stalling the morning shift (doing clean up and getting replacement equipment) can be far more expensive. It is hard to measure the expense of an event that didn’t happen, but that is the point of having a security guard. The expense of having a security guard is far less than the potential loss in not having one. “Protection” produced by the security guard can also reduce the insurance premiums on a multi-million dollar work site. This can easily pay for the wages of the guards by 10 fold.
The construction company knows this, the sub-contractor knows this. Job production should be obvious to everyone, especially the person doing the job. Yet when you see a security guard sleeping at their post, you have to wonder. It is surprising how often people are not associated with what they are expected to produce in their job.
Traits of the Most Valuable Employee
Valuable employees are rare. When a company finds one, they keep them at all costs and usually they get upgraded to management. They start with a good attitude on the job, but they also consistently look for ways to increase their productivity on a daily basis. They also possess a few other traits:
1) Relaxed Work Flow
Counter intuitively, they don’t work harder; they work easier and get more done. People who are always under stress and “work hard” tend to exhaust themselves. Towards the end of the day or end of the week their quality and quantity of production change. After several years of working under stress they burn out, take more sick days, never have enough vacation time and ultimately seek a new job where they believe they will be more satisfied.
The relaxed worker never builds up stress so their production is consistent from day to day; also their lengthy experience base stays with the company longer as they optimize their efforts. This is a more sustainable approach.
As a teacher, I was sick for approximately 3 days out of a ten-year period. I rarely bothered with vacations. Why? I didn’t need breaks because the work, itself, was fun. My production, as an ESL teacher, was to create positive experiences for my students while furthering their understanding of English. Being in the class room environment really recharged me. The only thing that felt like “real” work was class prep (an hour at the end of the day) and filling out evaluations (once per month).
Even with those chores, I managed to optimize the activity to minimize my effort and maximize my output. My reports were consistently handed in early and done in a way that made administration’s job easier (I informed myself by asking how my reports were to be used). My old reports became training material for what new teachers were expected to do. I’m not saying this to brag, yet so many people are used to working under pressure for so long, they scarcely believe that working in a relaxed manner gets more done.
2) Mastery of Basics
Top employees master recommended techniques in a short period. They learn what works and gain direct experience using current procedures. They also know why they are used and develop a clear base line of expected results. Developing mastery is only the starting point.
From there they ask the second question: “Is there a better, easier, more effective way to do X?” Because they have already established a base line with current methods, they can effectively evaluate if a new process is better, faster, or easier than an old one.
3) Separate Ego from Results
Innovation can happen quickly, but it requires one’s ego to be detached from results. Many employees, especially craftsmen, tie their self-worth to the quality of their work. The first time you do anything new, you should expect results to be poorer than well-established methods. It usually takes a few iterations to get the kinks worked out, then you may see that the new method has far greater potential than the original. If your ego depends on perfect results from the start, then you will be less likely to try something new; thus never discover these greater potentials.
This is what happened with cars and horses. The first generation of cars were inferior to horses in every possible way; they were louder, slower, more expensive to run (in both maintenance and fuel) than horses. They required specialized skill to use, they broke down much more often and they smelt bad. The first generation of “horseless carriages” were a joke, a hobby for rich eccentrics. No one ever thought these ridiculous contraptions would replace the horse (which has been a dominant form of transportation since our civilization began).
50 years later… how many of your friends have horses as their primary form of transportation? The innovation of a car unlocked lead to a vastly superior way of transportation which outstripped horses and changed the world.
Many managers (lacking an innovative mindset) berate the employee for their crazy ideas and initial low productivity. They seem to think new method should immediately produce better results than traditional techniques and never give the innovator time to iterate their system. I wonder if they prefer riding horses to driving cars.
4) No Fear of Evaluation
“Hard at work procrastination” is about working very hard at something, but adding resistance to the work you do to delay coming to your results. One of the more common reasons for “dragging one’s feet” on the job is due to a fear of evaluation. Evaluation can only happen after you come to results, and that is the part most people are afraid of.
Screw that! Get evaluated as much as possible. Evaluate yourself. Fear only controls you as long as you avoid it. Hit that sucker straight on. Do it a lot, and fear loses power over you fast. Fear of failure? Think it reflects badly on you as a person? Get over it! Go out and get a bunch of shitty results and realize that your personality has nothing to do with your results. Realize that your results (good or bad) are only a reflection of the procedures you use; not the person who does them.
A true innovator is a scientist running experiments. They try something new, get a result then evaluate their progress. If it the results suck then they modify what they are doing. If the results are perfect then they optimize the procedure to get the same results with less work. But the only way those iterations can happen is by coming to an end point where you can measure your progress. Changing procedures in the middle, as HAWers like to do, completely disrupts the ability to evaluate a procedure. It is a classic sign their ego is tied to results.
How to Become A Highly Valuable Employee
The valuable employee is intimately aware of what they are supposed to produce for the company and see it as their mission. However, they are infinitely flexible in the path they use to get there. A good attitude will distinguish you in the top 10% of workers, but if you want to become a true powerhouse consider the following steps.
Step 1) Determine Your Own Mission
After working for a company for a couple of weeks, you should have a good idea what you are expected to do. You may get some ideas about what the whole company is about from their mission statement; yet most modern mission statements are rehashed so often and filtered through political correctness they become meaningless. If it is well written, you can get some ideas about what the company is about, but don’t trust it absolutely. Companies without a specific mission statement always default to: “Make as much profit as possible.” Either way you should figure out the mission statement for your specific position inside the company you work for.
My primary service to the company is to ________________________________.
I am paid to produce ________________________________.
The primary skill I am developing by working here is ________________________________.
Step 2) Good Communication with your Supervisor
Innovation means you are trying things that the company hasn’t thought of before. This will rock the boat for people who are stuck on traditional ways of thinking. It pays to have a good relationship with your immediate supervisor. Talk with them. Get to know how they see your job and ask them if your interpretation of your mission statement is a good one.
Managers tend to be conservative. They are good at following rules and reluctant to try something unfamiliar. They don’t like risk and leave innovation to executives. Workers, who use procedures and enforce policies every day, are usually far more aware of the results they produce than the executives. Often they know where changes are needed to get better results. However, as they are only paid to be a grunt worker, not to think, they aren’t asked of their opinion.
As a worker, you may have to deal with very conservative, traditional and fixed thinking. Your supervisor is ultimately responsible for your productivity, if what you do works well then they look good. If your innovation pancakes, they look bad and will have to explain themselves to their boss.
The best way to be allowed to innovate is to establish a good communication about the mission statement of your position and then sell them on a new procedure that would make your job that much easier. Don’t be surprised if they steal your good ideas; uncreative people usually feel a need to take credit for the work of others to prop themselves up. Just remember that in the practice of continual innovation you become the source of good ideas. You cultivate a resource inside yourself and you become invaluable.
Step 3) Practice Innovation Every Week
Every week you should come up with 3 ideas which can improve your productivity, reduce your stress, or improve working conditions. Write these ideas down in a journal. If you are inspired, you can list down more than three per week, but you should always keep up a pace of generating a minimum of three ideas per week.
Why? It is a mental exercise to work your creative mind, even if none of your ideas are used it keeps you focused on being an excellent employee. In your brain, you have a cluster of nerves known as the reticular activating system (RAS) just above your spinal cord. It acts as the gatekeeper of information between your sensory systems and your conscious mind. When your conscious mind is focused to come up with three new innovations every week, the RAS will become more sensitive to any sort of information which may help be an innovation. You will actually see opportunities for improvement which most people ignore.
“It isn’t what you know but who you know.” With only one good idea, it is easy for your supervisor to take credit for it. Being an idea generator means your supervisor will come to rely on you and you will develop a reputation for being “the ideas guy.” Sooner or later you will become known to senior management and they may invite you to corporate planning sessions. Then you will develop those contacts which will allow you to advance your career. Even if you work at a company with a glass ceiling (no further advancement), you can use social media platforms to develop your reputation in your industry. If your company doesn’t recognize your talent, then perhaps your advancement may lie in being recruited by another company.
Step 4) Put them into Play
Every week that you add to the list you will find that some ideas are better than others. In some weeks, brilliant inspirations and some weeks the ideas are few, weak, and infeasible. At three innovations per week, you will discover that your list quickly becomes larger than what you can realistically do. The list really serves as an “idea board” of things to try.
Every week takes some of your best ideas (the ones that you feel will give you greater productivity) and apply them to your job. See what happens.
Asking for Forgiveness is better than Asking for Permission
You may think that it is a good idea to ask your manager before doing something new. Managers tend to be conservative by nature. They may have worked in the same company for years and they like predictable routine.
Innovation, by definition, is not predictable. It is not safe. It is always risky to try something new. When you ask for permission, your manager is on the hook for your actions; they are responsible for the results produced. The manager may believe they risk their job should your innovation goes wrong. Why risk their neck to improve the company when the status quo is good enough? Besides they reason all innovations need to be approved by senior management.
When you ask for permission don’t be surprised if you get more “No’s” than “Yes’s.” What’s worse is that if they expressly say “No” to your plan, it is squashed before you start. If you decide to do it anyway, after the manager specifically told you not to, you are defying his authority. Even if your innovation goes far better than the traditional method, you may still make enemies of your supervisor.
On the other hand, if you do it without permission, your supervisor is off the hook. If it works out well, your supervisor will call you a genius and promptly take credit for increased productivity based on his excellent leadership. If it fails horribly, you get to be the scape goat. This means you may get a warning or have to do training again in “proper procedure.” If your intention is an honest improvement on productivity, then it will be hard for anyone to find fault with you.
The above is general advice. You will have to exercise your own judgement about the character of your supervisors and the nature of the company you are working for. Larger, more established companies tend to be rooted into certain ways of doing things and are less responsive to innovations. Companies that consider themselves institutions (like banks, universities, and government agencies) are highly resistant to procedural changes.
On the other hand, start-up companies run fast and loose, and tend to be more receptive to new ideas from their staff. Some managers are progressive in their thinking. Others want to do it “their way” only because it is “their way.” They like using their authority to force compliance from their staff. Use common sense.
Step 5) Keep Records
As an innovator you should document what worked and what didn’t. It is particularly important to note what didn’t work so you won’t repeat a similar mistake later on. Success feels good, but it can only confirm what you already know. Mistakes are often the avenues that lead to insights and uncover methods of far greater productivity. Sometimes a bad idea was on the right track and only needed a few tweaks to become exceptional. Recording and reflecting on your results (successes and failures) gives you a better perspective of the path your innovations are taking, and this is the key advantage of keeping a journal.
Knowing the purpose of your journal from the outset will save you numerous headaches later on. A poorly planned journal will be a jumble of a thousand notes. You may never use it because it takes too much work to locate the information you’re looking for; and that would defeat the point of creating it. Your journal is time saving tool, but it requires some thought before you start.
A) Use a program that has a built in search function. Google docs is great because after a few years you may know you wrote something about something but you won’t remember file names or dates. Using the built in search engine in Google docs, you can search for key ideas and recall notes from several years back.
B) If you are looking for something specific try using a consistent format for your entries. Without a format you may forget to fill in some important information on a daily basis, with a consistent format you have a habit of filling in the blanks. It takes the effort out of thinking what to write making your entries more consistent. Also you will be able to review dozens of notes much faster because you will automatically know where to look for the information as you review it. The following format may be useful to start with for making improvements at the job you are working on.
Date:
What you tried:
The result (or results) you got:
What you need to fix, improve, or change for the next attempt:
