Seth's Blog : Busy-ness and leverage

Busy-ness and leverage

When I made breakfast this morning, I didn’t begin by making the blender. Someone else, a team with more skills, resources and scale, built the blender. I simply bought it.

That seems obvious–no one expects a from-scratch baker to make their own baking powder.

And yet, our projects are rarely fine tuned around leverage.

Begin with this question: “What are you hiring yourself to do?”

Are you making that choice because your labor is cheap and convenient, or because it’s the place of maximum leverage? It’s often easier to be busy than it is to be productive.

Busy is a morally superior distraction. Busy gets us off the hook. Busy is a great place to hide.

On the other hand, productive can be scary. When you’re buying someone else’s skill and time, you’re making a different sort of commitment.

Your job might not be to do your job. Your job might be to make the decisions and commitments needed to lead other people who do your (former) job.

The calculation is simple: If the commercial project is worth doing, what’s the most direct, cheapest and fastest way to get it done well?

There’s nothing wrong with hiring yourself to do things you enjoy. And it’s imperative that when you embrace leverage to get projects done, you produce work you’re proud of–shipping junk, at scale, is not the point.

But my guess is that most of us settle for a pattern of leverage that we’re used to, a pace that we’ve become accustomed to, a day filled with tasks we think we’re good at. I’ve talked to people all over the world–entrepreneurs, freelancers, employees and bosses–and most of them are sure that they’re leveraging just the right amount. Even though it’s different for everyone…

The make or buy choice is one we face all day, every day, and rarely consider.

If you’re serious about the project, it’s time to give yourself a promotion, and to hire yourself to do work that’s yours and yours alone to contribute. It’s almost certain that there’s someone cheaper, faster and yes, better at the other work than you are.

One our best days, what we actually make is decisions.

You might need to invest some time and energy to get the skills you need to find this leverage. To be smart about the tools you use and the people you hire. That’s an investment worth making.

Find the resources you need, and figure out how to work with them. Then hire someone else to make a blender.