Teaching the monkey how to sing

Day 296 / 366

I came across a really cool concept a few days back. Suppose you were tasked to make a monkey stand up on a pedestal and sing. Would you first focus on building the pedestal or would your time be better spent teaching the monkey how to sing?

Most teams, companies, and corporates would start with building the pedestal first. They will have multiple meetings about the designs of the pedestal, they will plan out how and when they will build it. They will have regular sync ups where they would congratulate each other about their progress in building the pedestal.

But they are missing the point. The tough part is not the pedestal. Anyone can build that. What’s not certain is how to make the monkey sing. This is where their time should be going. People get so caught up in just making any kind of progress that they forget whether what they are doing is of any significance or not.

Whether you are working on a work project or a personal one, remember to think about what the most important part of that project is and focus on that. Don’t waste your time with the other stuff. If you want to make notes for your exams, the main part is reading and finding the important points, not deciding which pen or which register to use. Don’t just make progress for the sake of it. Make sure that the efforts you put actually matter.