Prioritization of tasks is a kind of compromise. We sort of answer ourselves the question "what needs to be done now, and what should be postponed?" or, simplifying, "what can be done well, and what is bad or nothing?". The correct question is: "Do I need to do this at all?"
The fulfillment of our goals depends not only on what we are going to do to achieve them but also on what we will not do. In other words, we commit ourselves to do things that lead us to the goal and refuse obligations that prevent it.
Understanding the goal allows you to draw a clear line between real work and employment. Real work requires the full use of skills and knowledge, it contains a challenge and forces you to get out of your comfort zone. It is difficult to work in this way, so the reactive brain actively resists and evades. He tends to keep us busy with any business that helps us to shirk real work.
Running around the office with papers in hand or generating a lot of meetings looks like work, although in fact, it is an imitation of a stormy activity - employment. But thinking about a debugging strategy is more like floating in the clouds, although it brings much more benefits than the emotional waving of printouts.
Forster gives the following signs of employment:
1. You are overloaded with simple work. Real work can be very difficult, but it does not make you feel like a "squirrel in a wheel".
2. You often do work that less competent colleagues or subordinates can do.
3. Really important things do not reach hands in any way.
4. You don't have enough time to stop and think. Real work is thought expressed in action. If you don't think so, it's hardly a real job.
5. You plan only for a very short time. This work assumes a wide planning horizon.
6. You constantly face the same problems. Real work requires well-established systems capable of supporting it.
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