Friday, July 22, 2016

Axiom 85: Everyone Measures Success Differently



"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so."
-Galileo Galilei

"The person who scored well on an SAT will not necessarily be the best doctor or the best lawyer or the best businessman. These tests do not measure character, leadership, creativity, perseverance."
-William Julius Wilson


It hit me one day when I noticed that some people do lousy work. For whatever reason the quality of their work is bad. However, you can't always write bad work off to just laziness or stupidity. If this is true then why are smart, hard-working people producing lackluster work? It is all in how you measure success.

Everyone has a different standard they use to measure success. Your boss, your significant other, your coworkers, and yourself might all have different opinions on what doing good work looks like. The key is understanding what all of these different measures look like. Only then can you determine if you are going to be successful in your current situation.


It's not necessarily that one measure of success is better than another, or that there is a right and wrong. Just make sure that the scales of success are generally similar between yourself and the ones that matter when times count. If your boss or client uses a totally different measure to gauge success than you do it could spring a surprise failure on you if you are unaware. 

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Axiom 84: When Everything is an Emergency Nothing is an Emergency


"Now when everything has priority, nothing has priority. If everything comes first, nothing comes first." -Larry Geller

"I learned that we can do anything, but we can't do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything." 
-Dan Millman

At one point in my life I began to realize that I couldn't get everything done on my to-do list. I'm naturally a person that likes to have all the items crossed off my to-do list. I had to come to terms with the fact that the older and more successful I became that my to-do list would always remain full. What I also learned in the process was that all tasks are not created equal.

Equal priority cannot be given to all of your tasks. If you have a lot of things on your to-do list focus on the most important ones first. There will be low value "busy" work tasks on your list and there will be high value important tasks on your list. Many times we get caught up in so many low value "busy" work tasks that we never push the ball forward on those big important tasks.


That's why I say when everything is an emergency nothing is an emergency. It is up to you to not treat all the things on your to-do list with the same level of priority. If you do then your overall level of production will remain low and you will never be as successful as if you were to work on high value tasks first.