Everyone wants to make the best use of their time. The first step to getting there is getting better at the tasks we're assigned, but the ultimate step, Seth Godin says, is to stop working on someone else's task list and work on your own contribution instead.
In Godin's productivity pyramid, you improve your productivity one step at a time, from improving your skills to delegating to investing in technology that makes you more effiicient and even inventing a new technology.
The last step is the most important one, though:
The final step, the one that that eludes so many of us:
Figure out better things to work on.
Make your own list, don't merely react to someone else's.
It turns out that the most productive thing we can do is to stop working on someone else's task list and figure out a more useful contribution instead. This is what separates great organizations from good ones, and extraordinary careers from frustrated ones.
It's good encouragement to getting going on your pet projects.
The productivity pyramid (give yourself a promotion) | Seth Godin
Photo by Matty Ring.