Speed can be such a value add.

Speed to respond to a customer. Speed to get an order out. Speed to hire and speed to fire.

But other times, I found that speed created an anxiety-filled environment of task completion, no matter the importance of the tasks.

Competing anything felt like a little dopamine hit. It felt good to just complete the next task. And for me, I wanted to complete tasks that didn’t necessarily add up to building a calm company.

If I think about my day being an empty glass in the morning, I aim to fill it up with completed tasks. Yet tasks have different weights to them. Some are large rocks, like hiring an A-player manager. Some are small grains of sand, like repetitively checking email.

I tend to start my day with all kinds of grains of sand type of tasks. Answering customer service tickets, reconciling accounts, recording receipts, paying bills, running payroll, handling state paperwork, scrolling social media, fixing the wi-fi, booking travel, etc.

I’d fill up that cup with so much sand that by the end of the day, the big important tasks wouldn’t be started and get pushed again to tomorrow.

We get addicted to tiny tasks that don’t move the needle long-term.

The harder tasks, the ones that really made a difference long-term, felt so daunting that I would always push them off.

Projects like hiring a really good manager, spending more time training and investing in people, having more direct conversations with staff that were falling behind, creating a better financial structure to plan for hiring a lot better, etc, should be first in the day.

I challenge us all to have one very important thing you need to get done for the day and start your day off with it.

Slow it down. Think about what truly makes a difference to get where you want to go.

And fill up your daily cup with the biggest rocks first.