Aligning activity with objectives
Creating space to reflect and move closer to the person we want to become.
Clarity about what matters provides clarity about what does not.
Cal Newport
Many cliches are true. That’s why we keep saying them over and over again.
Missing the forest for the trees, working in the business instead of on the business, or getting stuck in the weeds are all timeless cliches that capture a serious problem: daily minutiae getting in the way of important long-term pursuits.
We can become so focused on our day-to-day responsibilities that we completely forget the reason we’re doing them in the first place. These daily actions start as a concrete way to make progress in an important area of our lives, but over time, the inputs diverge from the outputs.
In many cases, actions that once created meaningful progress are now preventing us from moving forward. Common examples include
Being so busy working, we don’t have time to focus on our careers
Spending countless hours with our spouse, but never truly communicating
Doing the same workout every day, without considering what our long-term health goals are
There are countless different ways we can miss the forest for the trees and get so focused on the specifics that we completely lose sight of the bigger picture.
To avoid this trap, we need to create space to reflect and plan. We need to zoom out and recalibrate.
Zooming out
If we don’t create time and space to zoom out, it’s only a matter of time before we get lost in the weeds. We become so focused on our actions that they begin to obscure our true objectives.
To make sure our actions are serving our long-term objectives, we need to zoom out beyond our day-to-day habits and responsibilities and consider two things. First, we need to define (or redefine) what our goals are in each area of our lives. Second, we need to decide if the actions we’re taking today are supporting this vision or holding us back.
This ensures what we’re doing today is aligned with where we want to go and who we want to be tomorrow, but when we stop to reflect, it feels counterproductive.
It’s uncomfortable when we’re not actively working on anything, but we need to periodically stop to recalibrate our vision for the future and make sure our actions are aligned with our objectives.
We need to create regular space in our lives to ignore our to-do lists and think about the future instead.
Creating space
Saying that we need to reflect and consider a longer time horizon is one thing, but actually doing it regularly is much more challenging.
When life is busy, and we have a million things to get done, ignoring everything urgent to sit down and ponder the future doesn’t feel very helpful. It ends up being the first thing we skip to make time for everything else.
But to ensure everything we’re doing is actually worthwhile, we need to create space to zoom out and protect that time fiercely. It doesn’t matter how much we get done unless the work that we’re doing is actually moving us closer to the person we want to become.
Being busy feels productive, but if we don’t align our activities with our objectives, then we’ll never make any meaningful progress on the things that matter most.
Prompts
What everyday activities have started to hurt your long-term objectives instead of helping?
How can you create space in your week to reflect on a longer time horizon?
What is the cost of being busy?
Deep Dive
Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday
Holiday argues that the common trait amongst all great thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries is stillness.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Kevin