Tips & Thoughts

All the tips & thoughts I've posted.

• Focus on results, a flawless process is meaningless without them

  Achieving results is what truly matters, and I learned it hard way.

  Imagine a team that follows every step of a project plan perfectly but delivers a product that fails to meet business or customer needs.

  Despite their flawless process, the outcome is mediocre.

  In contrast, another team faced challenges, adapted on the fly, and delivered a product that makes customers happy and bumps company’s metrics up.

  Their process wasn’t perfect, but the result was a success.

  The takeaway?

  Good process is important, but it should not overshadow the ultimate goal - deliver results!

  ⛑️

• Embrace the audacious and dare to redefine the possible.

  Audacious ideas, like landing a human on the moon or creating the internet, inspire people by challenging norms and offering a vision of a better future.

  They foster collaboration and resilience, uniting individuals to overcome obstacles and achieve the seemingly impossible.

  For instance, the Apollo program brought together hundreds of scientists, engineers, and astronauts to accomplish the monumental task of lunar exploration.

  Similarly, the development of the internet required cooperation among researchers, engineers worldwide, leading to a revolution in communication and technology.

  Audacious ideas motivate people!

  Achieving a challenging yet significant goal is more manageable for a team than accomplishing an easy task with little significance.

  ¬‿¬

• Prioritize speed in your tasks

  Rapid action means more interactions with reality, leading to faster learning.

  Speed forces focus on essentials, eliminating distractions.

  When you are in a hurry, you don’t have time to waste on unimportant details.

  Think about your desired outcome, and focus on the most important tasks that will get you there.

  But… it also depends on the context.

  Some tasks require constant shift to the right direction and slow and steady progress will be the right approach.

  When you read The Tortoise and the Hare fable, you can see that both approaches have their place.

  I believe that your time is a precious resource, so use it wisely.

• Fight bureaucracy anytime you face it

  Bureaucracy = lots of rules making simple things complex.

  Make a habit of yours to challenge unnecessary complexity and red tape.

  If you can encourage others to do the same, you will find things move faster around.

  Set collaboration as your main priority over organizational barriers.

  I’m sure you are going to see a lot of resistance, but it’s worth it; people will work productively together.

• Don't focus on improving your productivity

  Instead of spending time and money on finding and using productivity tools, you should focus on fighting procrastination.

  Start by simply collecting data around your procrastination:

  • What is your root cause? Are you having fear of failure, you don’t have motivation, too much on your plate?
  • Do you have clear goals? Check a couple of times your goals/tasks, maybe they are not clear, not specific enough, maybe they are not achievable and your gutt feeling messes with your mind?
  • Do you follow any particular schedule?
  • Do you have any distraction? If you find anything, see how to remove it or minimize it. Even rare Slack notification can break you out of the stream.

  I can go further on the list of examples, but you can practice your Google skills and find more ideas how to identify if you are procrastinating.

  People tend to focus on time management as a thing to improve productivity; they start using some tools and services to manage their day, but in fact, valuable time can be found in those gaps where you are procrastinating.

  I use brain-dump approach, in the morning I fill template, identify a list of all goals I need to achieve, prioritize only three of them for the day, all the rest move to the weekly bucket of goals. In the same template, I add notes on what I should be aware of, what risks, whom I should contact, etc. After I’m done with this exercise, I can focus on my day following clear plan.

  Do I procrastinate? Yes, I do! You should too. But you can control it, and let it happen as a treatment after a goal from your list is done.