Task-Centric vs. Outcome-Centric: A Different Perspective on Productivity.

There’s a common misconception about being productive — that productivity is about completing a lot of tasks each day, and therefore, to become more productive, all you have to do is complete more tasks. Of course, this is not true.

Becoming more productive means doing work that matters so your measurable output increases. Completing two tasks that move a project or goal forward will produce far better long-term results than completing ten tasks that have no impact on any of your important projects or goals.

Stop picking the low-hanging fruit.

We have a natural tendency to go after the low-hanging fruit. To check off the easy tasks because doing so makes us feel good. We get that dopamine hit, which puts a smile on our faces and makes us want more. So we populate our to-do lists with even more easy, non-important tasks we can check off and get that dopamine hit. It becomes a vicious circle. We put more and more unimportant tasks on our to-do lists, hoping for more dopamine hits.

We tell ourselves we are completing essential tasks. After all, we must have a clean desk to focus better on our work and ensure we have enough staples in our top drawer just in case we run out while stapling important documents. Oh, and we…