High-leverage activities: how to identify your energy multipliers

Authors

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

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• Moving the needle may imply a corresponding level of hard work; which is not the case with high-leverage activities.

• High-leverage activities are energy multipliers

• Document your daily activities. The first step is to get an idea of the way you currently spend your time and energy. We very often overestimate or underestimate the time we spend on certain activities. Time seems to contract when we’re having fun, and to expand for boring tasks. But time perception doesn’t correlate with leverage. Spend a few days tracking how you spend your work days. You can even install a time-tracking app to help with accuracy. Highlight the tasks you feel best suited for. Better yet: focus on the tasks only you can do. Because of your unique set of skills, interests, and connections, some tasks will be both easier and more enjoyable to you than to somebody else — as well as better performed by you in some cases. For instance, someone on your team may be better suited to create and design a business presentation; another team member may be the strongest person for cold emailing and conducting initial meetings; but you may be the best person for the final negotiation. Choose your levers. First, be selective. While high-leverage activities lead to outsized results compared to the time and energy investment, you still only have a limited number of hours available to you. Ideally, try to keep your list of high-leverage activities to 2-3 items at most. Then, make sure to commit to these levers: let your team know about your focus areas; delegate tasks you are not the best suited for; automate repetitive and energy-draining activities; hire contractors for what cannot be automated.

• the expression “moving the needle” has become one of these overused bits of business jargon you will hear in many organisations. It is used to describe work with a noticeable impact.

• While it makes sense for a massive organisation to pursue many “needle-moving” activities, it can be exhaustive and counterproductive for an individual to follow such a strategy.

• This is the basic principle of leverage: using a lever amplifies your input to provide a greater output. Good levers work as energy multipliers.

• Based on skills, experience, network, and many other factors, everyone’s levers are different. What they have in common, when activated, is their ability to turn a relatively smaller amount of time and energy into outsized results.

• Here are ten examples of high-leverage activities you could experiment with: Automating part of your work Creating and publishing original content Joining a public speaking club Taking a writing workshop Mastering a critical tool Building metacognitive processes Learning a new language (including how to code) Looking for a great coach or a great mentor Pushing back on unnecessary (-ly long) meetings Investing in personal and professional relationships

• As investor George Soros wrote in his book The Age of Fallibility: “It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.”

• Instead of blindly choosing levers to activate in your life and work, reclaim your time and energy by identifying your own personal levers.

• High-leverage activities are not about making more time or using more energy; instead, the aim is to better optimise your resources to focus on work that goes beyond moving the needle.

• Document your daily activities.

• The first step is to get an idea of the way you currently spend your time and energy. We very often overestimate or underestimate the time we spend on certain activities.

• Highlight the tasks you are best suited for.

• Better yet: focus on the tasks only you can do. Because of your unique set of skills, interests, and connections, some tasks will be both easier and more enjoyable to you than to somebody else—as well as better performed by you in some cases.

• Choose your levers.

• First, be selective. While high-leverage activities lead to outsized results compared to the time and energy investment, you still only have a limited number of hours available to you.

• try to keep your list of high-leverage activities to 2-3 items at most.

• make sure to commit to these levers: let your team know about your focus areas; delegate tasks you are not the best suited for; automate repetitive and energy-draining activities; hire contractors for what cannot be automated.

• Remember: hard work is not necessarily high-leverage work. Do not measure your productivity based on time and energy—time in particular is not a measure of productivity.