Find the little solutions
Sometimes the best thing you can do is find the smallest pain point for yourself or your team, and fix it. We spend a lot of time trying to solve big problems, but getting a quick win that actually makes people's lives better can often be the most impactful use of your time. Think about your day to day life. What's something you do regularly that would be great if it worked just a little bit better?
Sometimes the best thing you can do is find the smallest pain point for yourself or your team, and fix it. We spend a lot of time trying to solve big problems, but getting a quick win that actually makes people's lives better can often be the most impactful use of your time. Think about your day to day life. What's something you do regularly that would be great if it worked just a little bit better?
Solving one small pain point that affects ten people is going to save just as much time as a problem ten times as big that only affects one person. Things that are actually the most impactful to people can seem minor at first. One of the most useful things I did during my college engineering program was set up a remote connection on the media computer hooked up to the tv in our apartment. This was before services like Plex existed to manage media. It meant people could play a movie from the couch instead of getting up, or change music from anywhere in the house. Over several years the amount of time and effort this saved everyone who lived in or visited that apartment was probably bigger than anything I contributed to on a college internship.
Figuring out how to solve small problems also gets you in the mindset of coming with solutions not problems. It's easy to point out when something is wrong. It's harder to have a fix ready to go. But being able to provide a solution instead of just complaints about a problem is one of the best ways to earn good will and cement your reputation as a person who can handle things.
I'm not saying you should stop doing the big important work. But looking to see the individual trees in the forest can sometimes lead to a quick win that legitimately improves your life or the work your team is doing. You get a psychological boost from the accomplishment, and completing one small thing can often proliferate into completing a lot more things.
What small thing in your life could you fix right now?
I've intentionally chosen not to support comments on this site. If you feel a strong need to discuss something, you can use the social sharing links above to write your own comment. If this post has sparked any big ideas, either positive or negative, I encourage you to write your own post and share it on your own website. Feel free to drop me a link in the contact section, and I'll add links here to interesting responses.