I have worked more than ever before in my life during this spring. Especially April and May were off the charts hectic.
I had an opportunity ahead of me. We partnered with ArcticRex (shoutout) to offer training on AI, agentic and engineering. I had the trainings in my head and the training outlines on napkin in April but a full agentic training delivery system was not done.
We had ambition to make it happen and make it fast. That in turn just means putting a pin on calendar and putting your head down.
Focus. I set aside everything else. No lunches with my connections. Not a big deal. But I also had to set aside my newsletter. At start it felt like a week or few. Now it has been probably 3 months since the last edition. This has felt like I have had to cut down on stuff that I really should be doing as core activity.
Not writing felt like a big dent on what my company does.
What is core anyhow
This period on recent focus has forced me to reflect on my own business and what I want. I’ve had to face that the laissez-faire and happy-go-lucky does not mix well with making big things happen on very short time.
I’ve been quite happy making the big progress in the short time. But the cost on the other activities nags me. I then wonder that what is this all about.
They say focus is hard. That’s right as focus at times feels like sacrifice. Sacrifice in turn is something we don’t want to do. So: focus feels bad.
I stick to Geoffrey Moore’s definition of Core. It is the set of activities that creates your future competitiveness. It is the set of activities that forms your differentiation. Said this way, any business as usual is mostly non-core. It is quite clear that not all is core in what you do.
Choices choices. Core forces you think where you put your main effort. Core is what you want to have more of.
In my own way: I found some of my core with the crunch.
Renewal is letting go
Renewal means taking on new stuff. But my head is finite. My calendar is finite. This brings a memory to me. It is the story of whiteboard and my wise boss.
I was young and managing a very strategic and big enough an initiative. I had a zillion big things going on at the same time. Busy as ever. I noticed I can’t do a good job at all of the things I was managing.
I was stressing out. So: I went to see my boss. I told what I was experiencing and seeing in front of me.
My boss said: Antti, see the whiteboard (it was empty). Write down the things you need to do in priority order.
I wrote what I had on my plate - roughly in priority order as I saw the situation.
My boss: Draw a line at what you can do.
I knew what he meant. Kind of. A bit more conversation and I got the feeling the world does not stop if the activities below the line are not done.
The activities below the line never got done. The world did not stop. I focused on what mattered the most. I had time for the most impactful stuff.
Renewal takes your main effort. Main effort takes time. You will need to let go off even great activities to really make a dent. Renewal is letting go.
—
PS: https://training.arcticrex.com/ is what I focused on. DM me if you wish to be a beta user. You have the opportunity to take one of these paths if you pledge your feedback.