Four Ways People Waste Time
Barnard's diagnostic: wrong things, missing right things, right things done wrong, and never learning.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
Alan Barnard identifies four distinct ways people and businesses waste time. First, doing the wrong things: the 80% that produces almost no results. Second, not doing the right things: failing to invest in the few high-upside activities that could reach the goal. Third, doing the right things the wrong way: attempting them tired, multitasking, or without coaching so they never reach excellence. Fourth, failing to learn from experience, which causes endless repetition of the first three. Because the goal shapes the process, the same activity can be right or wrong depending on the goal you've set.
Origin
Hardy references researcher Alan Barnard, who studies impossible goals and constraint theory, and cites this four-part model in 10x Is Easier Than 2x.
Core principles
- 01The goal shapes the process, so 'the right things' are defined relative to your goal.
- 02Doing the wrong things (the 80%) produces almost none of your results.
- 03Not doing the right things means you're not investing in the few high-upside activities.
- 04Doing right things the wrong way (tired, multitasking, uncoached) squanders them.
- 05Not learning from experience causes you to repeat the first three errors indefinitely.
How to run it
- 1
Stop doing the wrong things
Identify the 80% of activities creating almost zero results and stop investing time, energy, and resources in them.
Pro tip Ask: how much of my last seven days was spent on the 80% that didn't move the needle?
- 2
Start doing the right things
Spend more time finding and investing in the few activities, opportunities, and people that could actually reach the impossible goal.
Watch out If you're going for an impossible goal, most of what you do now won't get you there, so you must actively search for new pathways.
- 3
Do the right things the right way
Give high-leverage work your best hours, single-tasking, in flow, with the right coaching and support so you get dramatically better.
Pro tip Design your day so the right thing is the main thing you do, not something squeezed in when tired.
Watch out Doing the right thing occasionally, tired or distracted, wastes it.
- 4
Learn from experience
Review and extract lessons so you don't repeat errors one through three week after week.
Pro tip Lessons are repeated until they're learned.
In the wild
Hardy describes spending 5 to 10 hours a week on his priority book but doing it wrong: at the end of the day when tired, multitasking, surfing social, not in flow, and without the right coaching.
→ Illustrates category three, doing the right thing the wrong way, which fails to build mastery.
Common mistakes
Confusing 'wrong things' with 'not doing right things'
They sound identical but differ: the first is cutting low-upside activity, the second is failing to invest in and search for the high-upside activity. Both are separate wastes and must be addressed separately.
Is it for you?
Best for
Entrepreneurs and professionals doing a weekly or periodic self-audit of where their time actually goes.
Not ideal for
Those without a clear goal, since every category is defined relative to a goal.
From the transcript
“there are four crucial ways that people waste time”
“lessons are repeated until they're learned”
From the episode
Benjamin Hardy: 10x Is Easier Than 2x, How Dreaming Bigger Will Transform You and Your Business
Benjamin Hardy