Effective

Questions of the week: How would you overcome that frustration if you were stuck on a particular task and couldn't find the solution? How do you shift your mind to other work when you are already working on some task? How would you identify that you have completed a task efficiently? Or how would you measure efficiency?

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I write this article based on the insight of my conversation with my team in our monthly 1-on-1 call. I speak with each one of my team members. This article is a compilation of a whole week's takeaway. You can subscribe to the?Building our Team?newsletter (1700+ subscribers)

How would you overcome that frustration if you were stuck on a particular task and couldn't find the solution?

The frustration mainly occurs due to other factors like too much time pressure, our back against the wall, difficult teammates, unrealistic expectations or lack of skills to find the solution.

You may have your reasons, but it has nothing in particular with you. It's the situation.

You are not your work; sometimes, work doesn't happen.

Your estimation went wrong, and that's fine, accept your mistakes and ask for help by taking accountability and Responsibility.

There is no shame in expecting that...

- You are bad at estimating

- You cannot lead the team

- You are not a team player?

- In all your decision,?you only think about yourself.?

- You cannot come up with creative ideas

- You don't understand tech business

- You don't understand leverage

- You still need to learn how to be a professional

- You cannot take constructive criticism

- You are ashamed if you are called out in public

- You don't know the art of persuasion?

- You are delusional that you never make mistakes

- You are afraid of failure

- You only can work by putting in the effort

- You have not learned to use intelligence to solve the complex problem?

- You don't want to get less or no bonus because of your ego

- You are a linear thinker

- You only work for ticking the box and playing safe

- You don't want to do creative work

- You cannot come up with ideas?

- many other flaws.

You are afraid of losing your job and don't dare to tell it your lead

Frustration occurs when the reality is starkly different from the expectations in mind.?

How do you shift your mind to other work when you are already working on some task?

Your question has a term called. Context Switching

As a modern worker, you have to split your attention across different tasks throughout the day — answering emails, checking Skype, and fielding questions from colleagues. Moving from disparate task to disparate task like this is called context switching. And while switching tasks is necessary, the number of times you shift contexts may be wrecking your productivity.

According to psychologist Gerald Weinberg, each extra task or 'context' you switch between eats up 20–80% of your overall productivity:

• Focusing on one task at a time = 100% of your productive time available
• Task switching between two tasks at a time = 40% of your productive time for each, and 20% lost to context switching
• Task switching between three tasks at a time = 20% of your productive time for each, and 40% lost to context switching

So you should not become an expert in switching between tasks; instead, you should become an expert in scheduling tasks.?

It would be best if you guard your time and cognitive load.

Especially when working on projects that span multiple teams, a huge amount of context needs to be formed in your mind before you start solving the problem. Building context can take hours to be lost by a random interruption.

There are many ways to do that. I will share a concept of a Themed day.?

Free days are completely separated from business activities

Focus days are spent on your most important work

Buffer days are for planning, admin, and busywork

Start small and build on.?

How would you identify that you have completed a task efficiently? Or how would you measure efficiency?

"in a way that achieves maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense."

In the world of software and tech, there is a famous saying, "It's important we make sure we build the right thing rather than wasting our efforts efficiently building the wrong thing."

So if you do the wrong thing efficiently, you still need to add value. This brings us back to the question, and we may have to rephrase it.?

A rapid cycle of Build-Measure-Learn, by which we look to minimize the learning loop to deliver valuable outcomes to our customers.?

How to identify if we are doing right or wrong? As those who know the school of thought I come from, I hate the question of being right or wrong.?

Here is a better question I have discovered recently. "Is this task taking us towards our goal or away from our goal" Once you identify it, let's see the word efficiency again?

Efficient vs Effective.?

Efficiency is the ability to do many things, and effectiveness is doing important things. We want to shift from being efficient to being effective.

More Effective means you can get the goal with the least amount of effort?

So my answer to your question here is to think about your question and ask yourself do you want to change the question??

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