Do you often wonder if you hurt someone with your thoughtless deed or words. Do you feel you were overtly ruthless to someone who was close to you? If you are guilty, you need to read this!
Understanding the difference between Projects and Areas
Life can be divided into Projects and Areas. Projects have a deadline and the precise reason for the deadline is that we need to reach the market or introduce a new feature will help us keep out business alive or deliver the bang for the buck for our investors. In technical terms, a project delivers non-linear or exponential rewards (profits) or loss. So execution is the key. The Project needs two resources which are scarce a) Time (labour) and b)Resources (capital, technology, network, influence, knowhow, etc.). It is imperative that you treat the project as a do and die situation and be extremely ruthless in cutting down all the obstacles coming your way. Yes, you might sound like a dictator (Steve jobs), but then you will deliver fabulous ROI to your stake holders.
Areas on the other hand are not time bound.
We don’t say, I am going to be healthy till 60 and I don’t mind a hear attack killing me on 61. Areas need continues improvement. It could be a relationship or something sterile like your note-taking habits. The rewards here are linear. Every gesture and improvements in your micro-habits you do will help.
Let me give you an Analogy.
A guy I know, took his girl friend on a helicopter ride on her birthday, but the lady ditched him in a few months. Here the guy had done something outlandish knowing his background. He is not a millionaire. He was overtly ruthless in his charm. It back fired. He could have used sometime to understand the motivation and inclinations of the woman he was courting. That would have meant, he could have ditched her or maybe they could have got along well and got married, who knows?
So moral of this blogpost is - Be ruthless when it is a project with non-linear rewards and be extremely sensitive and caring when you are dealing with areas of your life.
A note of caution, keep the number of projects to a bare minimum, perhaps two or three. I feel there is tendency for people to convert everything into a project.
There is a thin line between being Firm and Ruthless
Now you might argue that I never want to be Ruthless, but I am being firm when people try to cross a certain boundary in an area I care about. That is a valid argument but not in the scope of this page right now. So perhaps I will dwell on it later.
- Photo by Adam Nemeroff on Unsplash