Quit Spending Too Much Time on Chickenshit

The only productivity rule you need

Have you heard of the bicycle shed story?

There was a nuclear power company and in that company, a committee decided upon all matters. One day a meeting was organised to discuss two things- the building of a costly million dollar nuclear reactor and a bicycle shed for employees. The committee spent most of the time discussing the merits and demerits of the bicycle shed. They only spent the last ten minutes discussing the nuclear reactor.

The bicycle shed effect is a hypothetical example created to explain Parkinson’s Law of Triviality. It states that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be inversely proportional to the sum of money involved in it.

In other words, we love focussing on trivial stuff.

I feel this law applies not only to time spent on items of economic importance. It is equally true for how much time we spend on things critical to our personal success.

We tend to spend a disproportionate time on trivial things, or “chickenshit” as compared to the time we spend on the important, or what I call as “realshit”.

Have you seen this happening at your office or even in your home?

Once I had a lengthy argument with my wife over which colour should be the curtains of the bedroom be. But we hardly spent as much time on our investment decisions.

What is Chickenshit?

What exactly is chickenshit in your life? Stuff that does not matter much. Are you spending more than necessary time on those things?

It is often easy to justify spending time on chickenshit. It is easy to get caught up in trivialities. It is on the other hand extremely difficult for us to focus on things that matter.

There are several reasons for that. Chickenshit is easy to think about and does not need us to exercise much of our brains. It needs next to no effort to become an expert on chickenshit. It makes us feel good about our knowledge of these matters.

I have a relative who loves recounting COVID stats and jargon like ‘flattening the curve” or “ case fatality rate”. But when I asked him if he has got medical insurance, he said he is still ‘weighing the options”.

It also feels more productive. What would likely make you feel more productive? Answering 20 emails or writing that one report that you know your boss would be happy to see finally?

Here are the key differences between chickenshit and realshit?

How to get out of Chicken Shit

To get out of the trap of doing loads of chickenshit, you need to first list down what all is chickenshit in your life.

I write down all the chickenshit stuff in my life daily. Most of it involved emails, calls, browsing online and other such chores.

Most people know it commonly as a “To-do” list.

Then I write down one realshit I need to finish that day. Sometimes it can be three, but usually, it is only one or two things.

If it is more than that then it means it is not realshit- it is chickenshit masquerading as realshit.

Then I finish realshit of the day before noon. No matter what. Only after that do I tackle chickenshit for the rest of the day.

The best way to do realshit is to work only half a day on it. You cannot work more than that amount of time on it. It takes effort and concentration to do realshit.

You cannot eliminate chickenshit but you can reduce it and try to give it only so much time, energy and focus that it deserves.

Also, give it only the last fumes of your energy and the day. Not the best portion of your energy and day.

Because if you start the day with chickenshit, you will never get to do realshit that day.

One good way to stop you from doing that is to ask the below question every time you start something. “ Who the hell cares for this ?” If the answer is “ not me” then drop it like a hot potato.

Sometimes people can pull you into chickenshit, theirs or yours. At that time you cannot ask the above question ad verbatim (it would not sound nice).

You can then ask them “ Is this important enough to focus on right now?” When I ask this question almost always people back off by mumbling a variant of ‘no’.

Don’t fall into the trap of wasting your time and energy on something just because it is easy to do, pleasant to do, interesting to do or simply you are being asked to do it by others.

Instead, focus on stuff that helps you make steady progress in your goals. Do the realshit.