Work takes time

When you get really good at something, you can fall into the delusion that good work doesn’t take much time. 

I’ve written over 900 blogs on this website, and along the way I’ve published some bangers that only took me about five minutes to write. Sometimes this leads me to a delusion that I can just crack open the computer for a few minutes and have something compelling published in no time. 

I’ve seen friends and colleagues fall into the same trap. Knowledge workers who charge based on value sometimes think they can cough up value in no time at all. Sometimes this is the case, but not enough to depend on it. Creating value takes time. Good work always takes time. It seems like whenever I go into a writing session thinking “this won’t take long” I end up wrestling with the piece for close to an hour. 

This is why time blocking has been such a helpful strategy for me. I write down the important things I know I need to accomplish that day, then I estimate how long that might take, and map it to an hourly calendar. (Check out my system here.) If you say to yourself, or somebody else, “I will do this,” the next question should be “when?”

If creating good work is the goal, then we should be more open to allocating more time to achieve the goal. Sure, we can get a rush from delivering in a rush, but if we want to elevate the craft, we should be moving the schedule around, buying ourselves more time to do better work.