Some things are 80/20. Some things are last-mile delivery.
Make sure you know which is which
I have a massive, never-ending list of admin to-do’s.
They’re not work tasks. They’re just random things around the house or in my personal life that I need to take care of as a functioning adult.
No matter how many of them I do, there are always more.
And I used to constantly feel guilty about all the admin things I wouldn’t get done every day and would push, again and again, to the next day or week.
Until one day my coach sat me down and made me rate the negative consequences of NOT doing all those admin things.
And I realized that, for the vast majority of those things, there was NO negative consequence whatsoever if I did them next week or next month instead of today.
I have a few things every day that actually MUST be done.
And then a long tail of tasks that I could do today but honestly, I could do then later and it would be fine.
My to-do list is 80/20.
My skincare routine is very different.
I use a certain set of face washes and creams to keep my skin acne-free (yep, I’m still battling acne 😅).
I have a morning routine and an evening routine — 14 instances of skin care per week.
I used to be pretty consistent with my routine during the work week and a bit sloppy on the weekends. I’d usually end up skipping it on Friday and Saturday nights.
But I was still following my routine 12 times out of 14. Pretty good right?
Turns out, my skin got MUCH clearer when I went from 12 / 14 to 14 / 14.
That last little bit of consistency made a huge difference.
My skincare routine is last-mile delivery.
Too often, we get stuck thinking EVERYTHING is 80/20 or EVERYTHING is last-mile delivery.
If you think everything is 80/20, you beat yourself up for being inefficient and spending too long on things.
If you think everything is last-mile delivery, you beat yourself up for not doing every little thing exactly perfectly.
But the reality is that SOME things are 80/20 and SOME things are last-mile delivery.
There’s no moral goodness in doing everything efficiently OR doing everything perfectly.
Neither is a reflection on YOU as a person — your intelligence, your dedication, your work ethic, your chances of success.
There’s just the factual reality that some things yield good results when you focus on a few things that matter and ignore the rest…
And other things yield good results when you do every single thing perfectly and dot every I and cross every T.
And all you need to do is make sure you know which is which and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Do you know what causes your stress at work?
It’s not your boss. It’s not your to-do list. It’s not your long hours.
Your work stress is caused by your tiny unquestioned assumptions about what good looks like and what is required for success.
80/20 vs. last-mile delivery is just one example.
Come talk to me, and let’s identify ALL the tiny assumptions that are causing your stress (I bet you there’s only a handful of them — easy peasy).
And then let’s make the plan to rewrite those assumptions, embed them in your brain, and get you back to doing your best work.
What my clients have to say…
“I had a bit of a conflict where I was like: ‘No one can relate to me. My problems are so unique. My work situation is so unique. No one will ever be able to understand what I'm going through and what I'm feeling.’
And I was so surprised because Pooja got things immediately. She was seeing things that I hadn't seen. She was making these connections. I felt that she could relate and could see things so clearly.”
—Client | VP at Major Financial Institution
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