How to understand Progress vs Movement in Life?

In today’s ultra-busy world, each one of us is working hard to be as productive as we can so that our hard work gets recognized and rewarded.

But one crucial factor that often tends to get overlooked amidst all the noise of being busy and productive is, whether you are working in the right direction to make real progress or are you merely being busy? Just like a stationary exercycle in the gym, where the rider pedals hard but the bike remains static in its place. You might feel like you are moving fast but the destination doesn’t seem to get any closer.

You need to realize that your movement does not depict your progress. The fact that you work doesn’t mean you are doing it right.

Ask yourself, “Are the things you engage in, help you to fulfil your dreams and aspirations?” If the answer is no, then I think you need to do some reconsiderations.

Here’s a simple strategy of putting you back on the path of progress.

Requisites

To make progress in your career, or your life, you must have some sort of direction. Find the direction and set a goal. Start considering Time as the most valuable currency you have!

Terms to know: Measurables and Non-measurables

Measurables are the work which will give you positive return by propelling you towards your goal.

Non-Measurables are all the activities and work that will bring you no noticeable return towards achieving your goals (things that essentially don’t help you move toward your goals but maybe they have to get done anyway) like doing work other people demands, chit chat with colleagues, checking social media etc.

The 80: 20 Strategy

The optimal strategy is to spend at least 80 per cent of your time on yourself on things that help you to fulfil your dreams and aspirations -(Measurables) and then only the remainder 20 per cent on Non-Measurables.

• But since reaching this ratio will take practice and time you can start by doing 50-50 distribution to get the essence of it and overtime as you keep getting better, you can easily hit the optimal mark.
• Remember the success of this strategy totally depends on how disciplined you are in following it.

The above strategy is a part of a whole program on increasing productivity which deals with combining this system with other strategies to massively catapult your productivity. For starters, this will give you a good stepping stone towards the journey of real progress.

If you have any query on the above-suggested system please write me on the comment section or email me at nilanjan@coachable.in

I want to end this post with a quotation of Hal Elrod:

“Most people’s strategy to achieve more is to do more. But when you focus on becoming more you find that you can achieve more by doing less”

Power to You!

Nilanjan