One of the most basic ways to improve your quality of output is to assess to what extent you are balancing the things you want to do with the things you must do.
This is true in the individual and organisational context.
Things you want to do are referred to as desires. These are actions that are driven by a sense of joy, ease and internal motivation.
Things you must do are referred to as obligations. These are actions driven by necessity, responsibility, and in some cases survival.
There are several points we should first understand. Firstly, every person and company must have a healthy balance of both.
If you only do the things you want to do (desires), it will more than likely lead to long-term losses that far outweigh the short-term pleasure, because the basic duties are being ignored.
However, we should also not only do things we have to do (obligations), because these drain the necessary purpose and passion required to achieve anything meaningful.
What then should we do? We should assess our daily actions over a week and see if the spread is healthy and balanced.
Once you have a healthy balance, you should ensure the timing is well integrated.
In other words, you cannot have full weeks or months where you are only doing one of the two, they need to be intertwined continuously, otherwise you would still suffer the same consequences.
Finally, I advise that you sequence them correctly by first tackling the things you must do, then reward yourself with the things you want to do.
Of late, I’ve learnt the highest level is those who realise that if they must do something, they want to do it.
They convert their obligations into desires.
