How letting go of expectations can create space for efficient and purposeful work

Many of us, when asked how we’re doing, will answer with a slightly exasperated, maybe somewhat proud, “busy!” This busy-ness — and the expectations around how we “should” work — get in the way of actually conducting business. This constant busy-ness gets in the way of working efficiently as well as working purposefully. Why does busy-ness inhibit productivity? One of my favorite terms I learned last year was “inefficient overwork.” Inefficient overwork refers to doing more than you need to, to accomplish a task. Examples of inefficient overwork include checking and rechecking work, spending too long on a task, hemming and hawing about decisions, and setting too-high expectations. When you’re rechecking your email for the tenth time for spelling mistakes and “making sure” your message is clear, you feel incredibly busy (and likely stressed) but your actual product (the email) won’t necessarily be any better than if you sent it after the second look. If we want to work more efficiently, we need to be ruthless in identifying our personal areas of inefficient overwork. Often these habits come from the expectations of past bosses. What procedures, policies, tasks and tactics can you let go of, that will free up your time without impacting your output.

Office housework: worse than regular housework?

Unfortunately, women (and especially women of color) are disproportionately asked to complete tasks at the office that aren’t in their job description, like making coffee, ordering lunch, cleaning the kitchen, or organizing the break room. Women are also more likely to accept these assignments than men, and when men do accept they sometimes intentionally do such a bad job that they aren’t asked again. This “office housework” gets in the way of productive work, and can actually reduce your chances of getting promoted. It’s fascinating, then, that many small business owners replicate office housework in their own workflow. It can be a tricky balance, making sure that you’re not completing “housework” tasks like making coffee or printing copies, without assigning it to someone else whose job it isn’t. (It’s helpful to have clearly defined job descriptions. It’s not helpful to idealistically say that keeping the kitchen clean is “everyone’s job” — because it will most likely fall to a woman to actually clean it.)

Getting past busy-ness towards purpose

Identifying clear values that drive your business or career can reduce inefficient overwork. If your priority is simplicity, you can check in during the day and ask yourself if a specific task — or the way you’re tackling the task — gets you closer or further away from simplicity. You can identify your values through an online survey, in person workshop, thoughtful journaling session, or any way that feels good to you. It’s important to think not only about what your “values” are but whether you are actually operating with those values as your priorities. Do those values drive your work? Another way to put a framework around your values is to think about what legacy you want to leave. To craft your own mission statement, think about how do you want your community to have changed, due to the work you’ve done, in 10 or 20 years? How does that translate into the kind of work you do, product you sell or service you offers? And do you need to rethink your short term goals to better align with your mission?

Being honest about — and confident in — your skills and abilities, and how much they are worth, can be another helpful tactic in being more productive. For example, if the market value of your time is $50 per hour, and you could outsource your newsletter, flyer hanging, or printing for $15 per hour, that’s a pretty clear indication that you’re overworking on tasks you don’t need to be involved in. Tim Ferriss offers a deep dive into tackling the mental block that prevents us from delegating or outsourcing in his 4 Hour Workweek series. (If you can, outsource locally!)

Another thing you might need to overcome is a built-in, societal expectations of perfection, especially for women. Perfectionism almost always inhibits efficiency, and can lead to underperformance in several ways. First, while many men will jump at the chance to lead a team even if they aren’t an expert in the topic, many women won’t volunteer for the same position unless they are already an expert. Men may assume that they can learn on the job while women expect perfection from themselves at the start of a project. This starts as early as high school, where many boys will do the bare minimum to get a decent grade, while girls are more likely to be getting an A and still ask for extra credit projects. Second, perfectionism is a type of inefficient overwork, unless, perhaps, you’re a copy writer or grammar reviewer. Third, perfectionism impacts your confidence. If you continually expect perfection from yourself, it’s hard to celebrate your almost-perfect successes.

Getting more from yourself — with less work

Relearning the difference between busy-ness and productive work time can take a few months. Start with checking in on yourself during work tasks. When you feel like you “have” to do something — ask yourself if it’s because you think someone expects you to, or if it’s truly an integral part of a project. Until we shed the expectations we’ve internalized — e.g. that our emails should be triple checked, that our work needs to be perfect at the first draft, that it’s our role to be the office listener, that we need to respond to emails at 8pm, that our staff won’t like us if we delegate too much — we won’t have space and energy to do the work that’s actually necessary, and purposeful.

I was recently prompted to switch my language at work to be less apologetic (which can be hard after years of conditioning!) One specific phrase to replace was “sorry for the delay” — instead, writing “thank you for your patience.” Getting out of the habit of apologizing for totally normal things (taking a few days to respond, needing time to think about something, saying no to a project) has helped me build my confidence in the choices I make, creating a feedback loop of listening to my intuition, trusting in my abilities, and making choices that are aligned with my values. Language matters — at work especially. Not only can we switch the way we perceive ourselves, we can improve the way other people perceive us, and build a bit of patience and grace into our work relationships.

Another tactic that can help with productivity is taking a step back from social media if you’re stuck in comparison mode. When you come back, think about the accounts that make you feel good or inspired, and follow those. Which accounts make you feel bad, lazy, unambitious? Unfollow those. Social media is an unprecedented, democratizing way for us to connect with other people and market our businesses. Your relationships with these platforms need to be healthy and uplifting, if you want to get the most benefit from them. A friend of mine taught me a trick if you find yourself feeling jealous of someone on social media: Think about whether you’d be willing to put in the work that it took for him or her to achieve that trip/job/project you’re jealous of. If the answer is no — then you have to let go of the jealousy. If the answer is yes, get started!

Lastly, we could all infuse a little patience into our workflow. Sometimes impatience itself can be a type of inefficience, e.g. focusing on something you can’t control rather than switching to a different task. Your clients, coworkers, bosses and contractors could be working to establish their own healthy boundaries. They may be dealing with mental health issues, or hidden family crises. We truly don’t know what other people are dealing with— and you may never know why it took them a month to respond to your email. They most likely don’t owe you an explanation — just as you don’t owe them one.

This article was previously published on Medium.com in Jan 2020.