Your most important task is the one that feels the least productive

You can use this to measure your days, if you don’t have any appointments to get to. (Image by Mark Caldicott)

One of my employees has been out sick with the coronavirus for six weeks, entirely unable to work during that time.

I’m happy to report that she’s feeling a bit better — she isn’t having breathing problems now — but her energy and focus are still a long way from allowing her to return at one hundred percent.

So in the meantime, I’ve been spending a few hours each day doing her job. And that’s been pretty satisfying, because I already know how to do her job. I feel productive, industrious, and competent, checking things off the list and watching stuff happen.

My own job, on the other hand, is more nebulous. I’m working through projects for which tasks haven’t been clearly defined. I’m trying to solve new, fresh problems I haven’t seen before. I’m trying to come up with answers to questions I don’t know the answers to. It doesn’t feel productive and I don’t always feel competent. There’s a lot of staring off into space. There’s a lot of walking around and muttering stuff into the voice memos on my phone. There are a lot of impromptu meetings with colleagues where we work together to push into new, ill-defined territory.

One of the biggest challenges I find when it comes to training leaders is their tendency to cling to the lower-level tasks that made them successful. They mastered the flow of emails and phone calls with ease; they were resourceful in learning to use new tools; they were responsive and proactive, not only doing what was in front of them but also anticipating what would need to be done next. Now, they need to teach someone else to do that job while they move on to a loftier one that requires higher-level thinking and decision-making. All the ways in which they used to measure their progress (How many emails did I answer? How many new clients did I book?) are no longer relevant. They need to come up with new metrics, ones that may seem intimidating or out of reach at first.

It’s tempting, then, to go back to the familiar in order to feel that glow of competence again. But someone else has stepped into that role. The leader must now lean into the discomfort of doing stuff she’s not as good at or familiar with, practicing consistently and seeking mentorship until this new territory becomes trusted terrain.

If you’re in this situation, you should be prepared for many of your new duties to feel strangely empty, like the rooms of a house you haven’t bought furniture for yet. You might be overseeing other people as they work, which means you get to the end of your day and feel like you didn’t accomplish anything (but still feel exhausted). You might be working on a project for which you must define the deadlines and deliverables, instead of answering to someone else; such an undertaking requires a lot of thought and maybe leads you into some blind alleys, which means you get to the end of the day and feel like you didn’t accomplish anything (but still feel exhausted).

This is normal. This is okay. You don’t need to retreat to the easy and familiar; you just need to define “productive” in a different way. You might find it useful to journal about what you’re working on (“I have to figure out which software to use, and I’m not sure how to proceed,” or keep a log about what you did (“I went for a walk, and when I came back I was finally able to make a decision about which software we should use”). You might need to find ways to track the success and productivity of your team, adopting that as a proxy for your own (all while helping them to feel competent and accomplished as they level up).

You might dismiss productivity as a metric entirely, looking for a different type of result from your work. How do you feel? How do you make your team or your clients feel? Do you feel drained or energized by the types of problems you’re solving? Are people working in harmony with each other? Are clients and partners attracted to the work you’re doing? What kind of change are you making in the world, regardless of whether you’re crossing things off of your to-do list? There are all kinds of ways to make an impact.

Whatever it is you’re dreading or putting off, it might be because that’s where you don’t feel the usual satisfaction of productivity or competence. But that project may, in fact, be the most important one. The fact that its parameters are vague and amorphous might actually be because it’s on the leading edge — the most groundbreaking, high-level work you’ve ever done. Do that work and you’ll see benefits far beyond a tidy desk and a cleaned out inbox. Do that work and you’ll find growth, challenge, and maybe even deeper meaning. You’ve got this — eventually.