Do the work that moves the needle

What does it take to make things happen?

A colleague of mine told me how she used to spend hours in lesson planning.

Or so she thought. What she was actually doing was stewing in her own anxiety for hours, then spending a relatively short time completing the lesson plan.

As she became healthier, she realized that the hours of anxiety didn’t “count.” In other words, that time wasn’t actually helping her to accomplish anything.

She had thought she was putting hours of work into something, but the only value came from the the thirty minutes of action. The rest didn’t move the needle. It had no measurable effect. It was like a sound too quiet to register on the recording equipment — a sound not strong enough to cause the meter to respond.

In school and work, we learn that we must put the time in. School lasts for thirteen years, 36 weeks a year, 6 hours a day; a class is 50 minutes. We work 40-hour workweeks, nine to five. It doesn’t matter if we get the work done faster — we'll still be sitting there anyway.

However, if we want to be more effective, we might reevaluate our approach. For the work we do on our own time, like homework, practicing a skill, or pursuing a business venture, we must avoid measuring our work in hours or even in effort. We should measure by our results, regardless of how long (or short) a time we spend engaged in the work or how difficult our perceived effort may be.

For those of us who are used to working hard, it’s a bit offensive to hear that dutifully putting in long hours and exhausting ourselves might be a clever way to hide from doing the real work. However, it’s a good explanation for why we slog away without achieving much of value. It’s much less comfortable for us to think deeply, question our assumptions, and experiment with alternatives. We’d rather wipe down the counter that is already clean, read through the chapter again, and respond to all the emails than have the uncomfortable conversation, learn to use the new software, or slow down and examine a persistent problem we don’t know how to solve.

As an entrepreneur, I have had to learn how to be okay with not working an eight-hour day. Sure, there are some days that stretch to twelve or sixteen, but there are fewer of those than there used to be. I’ve put a lot of effort into hiring, training, and supporting my team, which was a harder, scarier path at first than simply doing all the work myself. This strategic thinking didn’t come naturally — I had to learn to do it, and I had to unlearn the lesson that putting my time into something is what matters.

From students to teachers to professionals in the world beyond school, I see the same fallacy play out: I will win because I will work harder than everyone else and show them that I care more. But nobody cares how much you care if it doesn’t have any impact. Caring isn’t enough — and working hard isn’t enough. You’ve got to do the work that changes things, that can be seen and heard. You’ve got to do the work that moves the needle.