7 Things Person with a Job could learn from the Book Rework
This book has been around since the last decade and never have I felt so resonated with what the author is trying to tell the readers than with this masterpiece.
Though it deals with with people who want to start a business, already have a business and people who haven't yet thought about it. But for me it served as a guide for navigating the corporate world. Here are few tips that I think would always be applicable no matter the duration, type or location of your job.
1. Alone Time
Set aside some meaningful hours in your day when you are most productive, this time should be free of meetings, reminders, conversations, messages and emails. In this time you do you. You will notice a tremendous improvement in the quality of the work you are doing without the interruptions bringing you down.
2. Prioritize
Every task seems most important and you can’t make do without it. But that just becomes overwhelming to the point, where you are just blindly doing things. So get down and create a list putting the most relevant task at the top and so on. This will make you think about the nuances of each task and the severity associated with it, while making the next top thing always on the top.
3. Simplify
We are often lost in the complexities, sometimes seemingly easy tasks takes hours to complete only to realize we were dwelling in the art of making simple things complex, so start by questioning what you can do without and remove that thing from the equation. This takes away a chunk of things you don’t have to go through when trying to do the task again. The best example for this is Medium where the formatting and the overall template is really simple and still it is the most aesthetically appealing blogging site.
4. Embrace Constraints
We try to run away from things that don’t seem plausible or easy. Instead try embracing the suffering caused by constraints — not enough resources, time, skills etc. Constraints can be self-imparted too, for improving resiliency of your solution. You will surprise even yourself when you unleash your creative side to solve the problem.
5. Be a manager of one
The most helpful advice from the book is this, try and come up with your own timelines, and goals and then execute them. Be conservative about the amount of heavy direction and daily check ins, as they act like crutches to your growth. Building something from scratch and owning it teaches you responsibility and accountability, giving you the power to call out something as your own.
6. Small Wins
This is one of those tips/ things that I was already using but didn’t know, holds so much significance, it is basically to divide your projects into smaller parts and celebrate those small wins. Projects that are long tend to become exhausting after a while and to escape the burn out phase you need to give your brain the dopamine release of getting things done, be it small or large.
7. No No Workaholic
Probably this has been reiterated a lot of times before too, but it is the single most efficient tool for increasing your productivity. So stop putting in those long and extra hours where you actually don’t get any work done ,instead go home (yeah the pandemic) or close your device and recharge. One feels the need to put in extra hours at work when they don’t have anything else to look forward to, so start by deciding a hobby that keeps you hooked. This will make you efficient as well, since now you will try and come up with solutions to get done with work fast.
And That’s all folks !
