⚖️ Can do vs should do

Nothing stays valuable forever.

When I started my first business I spent almost all of my energy doing the things I thought I should do.

Failing that, I spent my energy on what I thought was the best thing to do. It was a rookie error.

I spent so much time trying to identify what was best, that I didn’t do as much as I could. An idea is great, but execution is where true value exists.

I found that sometimes it was important to accept doing something that is simply okay. Switching from doing the best to doing the easiest catapulted my business from struggling to successful.

Done is better than perfect, and the value of work degrades over time. The longer you leave a task, the less valuable it often becomes. But we all go through stages and phases, sometimes we really cannot bring ourself to do a certain task and that is okay. I use to fail to take into account the value of timeliness. I continued to push hard or mentally punish myself for not doing tasks that are no longer valuable.

This ties in to a point I have made it Work Smart Wednesday before, the tasks you should do will change at each stage of the business. This principle is fundamental to business, and why you often find that great founders make awful CEOs (and vice versa!).

What tasks SHOULD you do? This article, and tool, will help you to define what is best for you to do right now. I strongly recommend checking it out.

The can vs should matrix

I shared this in my Work Smart Wednesday newsletter. Want the full set of related insights? You can read them here: https://worksmartwednesday.substack.com/p/work-smart-wednesday-august-14-2024

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