Half-Assing It With Everything You've Got

importance of that element to the overall success of the project. Then, as I move through the process, I push myself to keep pace with the goals I’ve set, producing good enough work within the time I have to spend and giving myself permission to circle back if I still have additional hours at the end. This will ensure that I don’t over-invest in le

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I was happy to stumble, a few months back, across the concept of MTO goalsetting, which fits perfectly here. For any goal you’re aiming to accomplish, this approach involves setting three levels of success: the Minimum, which you’re confident you’ll achieve; the Target, which is realistic but a bit of a stretch; and an Outrageous outcome, which you... See more

Maybe you don't really want to do it at all, but just think you ought to want to do it, so you're using "productivity" to try to force the missing desire into being. Or perhaps you think you need a flawless record of achievement in order to justify your existence on the planet – and if the stakes are that high, clearly you can't afford to put a foo... See more

Match your ambition to your resources. Leading a large development team, you could attempt one unique value, two superior values, and a smattering of inferior values to round out the experience. On a smaller team, you might have to focus on just one value to the exclusion of all else. Because it’s better to be the best at one thing than it is to be

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There are important problems at the center, which tend to be hard, and less important, easier ones at the edges. So as well as the small, daily adjustments involved in working on a specific problem, you'll occasionally have to make big, lifetime-scale adjustments about which type of work to do. And the rule is the same: working hard means aiming to... See more