E1 (or How To Do Less This Year)

There's an old clip of Bill Gates & Warren Buffett on YouTube doing the rounds where they talk about madness of busy-ness. It's great. Check it out if you haven't seen it.

It reminded me of a science lesson I had in the Third Year.

At my school, twice a year, pupils were given a small slip of paper to hand to their parents. On that piece of paper were two grades, for each subject. An Effort Grade and an Achievement Grade. Effort was scored alphabetically, achievement was scored numerically. A-E, 1-5.

A1 was the marker. Nine subjects, nine A’s, nine 1’s - the ultimate score. A target set by every teacher in the school.

Except one. Our Physics teacher was a straight-talking, fell-running Lancastrian. One afternoon in 1985, he conspiratorially shared with us his view that the school had it wrong. "It’s not about how much effort you are seen to be putting in", he said, "It’s only about what you achieve." "In fact", he went on, "You should all be trying to achieve as much as possible with the least amount of effort. Go for an E1."

Shouldn’t we all be aiming for E1 in our jobs too?

Year on year, new things are appearing that should make life miles easier at work. New technology, quicker communication, smarter software, richer information, more mobility – even artificial intelligence. Yet everyone is so bloody busy.

“How are you?” “Busy!”. Busy being busy?

I reckon we should make a different kind of effort in 2019. To say no and free up time. Type less and create more. Reward outputs instead of inputs. Celebrate the meeting-dodging, early leaving, high achievers. Push for E1.