Hello hello Hive fam it's @tengolotodo the male half of @mmonline here.
Happy Thursday and a big hello to anyone else joining in with our #ThoughtfulThursday series!
Today for #ThoughtfulThursday, I want to kick off a conversation with a question that's probably crossed all of our minds...
Is working harder the only way to earn more, or are we confusing "busy" with "productive" on our journey to financial freedom?
For as long as I can remember, it was always work harder, and you will succeed. This mindset is deeply ingrained in our corporate culture. Is it the same with you?
We believe that putting in more hours, busting your balls all night, and never saying no to a task is the guaranteed way to get a payrise. It’s a badge of honor to be the first one in and the last one working.
What bollocks .... Well up to a point, this is true. Effort is a must, and no one ever built a business by sitting on their hands. Putting in the hard work to learn a new skill or get a project off the ground is a necessary part of the process.
But what happens when that effort plateaus, and you're just running faster on the same treadmill?
As busy as a bee!
This is where the distinction between "busy" and "productive" becomes critical.
So often people will say they have been so busy, so I ask what did they actually do? What did they actually produce?
I remember back when I was a Projects Manager I could spend all day in meetings for the various projects and achieve sweet fa. People can be professional meetings attenders and produce nothing!
Yes they were as busy as a bee, but they weren't as productive as a bee!
Being busy means your calendar is full, your to-do list is never ending and you're constantly doing something (but who knows what!).
Being productive on the other hand is all about focusing on the tasks that deliver the most impact.
Take the online world, it’s the difference between spending three hours on a poorly converting social media post and spending one hour refining a top-performing article on your website that brings in passive income.
It's about asking, "Is this task actually moving me closer to my goal, or am I just doing it to feel like I'm doing something?"
Is it going to make me productive or just seem busy?
Work Smarter Not Just Harder
The key to escaping the "busy" trap is by shifting your focus from effort to leverage.
Instead of constantly doing more and more ... STOP and think about what you can do differently?
This means creating systems, automating or delegating repetitive tasks, and building assets that work for you long after you've created them.
For example let's go back to the online world again and a successful affiliate marketer isn’t just publishing a new blog post every day. Oh heck no, they're spending time on keyword research, optimizing old content for better SEO, and building an email list that turns their audience into a community.
This is a prime example of working smarter, not just harder.
Take Action Now
How do we apply this?
Start by auditing your time. You know I was brought to abide by the nine pillars of Project Management, one of those pillars is Time Management. Time is precious.
For a week, track where you're spending your hours. What you will find is that you are most likely spending a significant amount of your time on tasks with a low return on investment.
This is what people often refer to as "busywork."
Once you identify these, you can start delegating them, using tools to automate them, or simply eliminating them.
Do you know one of the most guilty tasks in busywork ... It is emails. Go through your emails and start deleting all these brands etc you have subscribed to that bring you no value!
This will help to free up your most valuable resource... Yes your precious time!
You can then start to use that time to focus on high-leverage activities like strategizing, building new products, or nurturing key relationships. In other words things that bring you value!
At the end of the day, we can think of hard work as being the engine, but it is your smart strategy that does the steering wand heads you in the direction that you need to go to succeed.
If you rely solely on effort with no clear plan then you are heading for burnout and financial doom.
Sustainable online income isn't built on a foundation of exhaustion... It's built on a foundation of smart, intentional and scalable decisions.
So my Thursday challenge to you is to stop being just busy and start being truly productive.
What’s one thing you're going to change to work smarter, not harder, this week? Let us know in the comments!
Images all generated on Gemini.
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