Jeff Bezos famously said that if you can get the amount of work that you love doing to about 50% of the work you do, that’s incredible. But, he continues, even if you get that high, you’ll probably never get much higher. He concludes, pointing out, that everything comes with overhead.
We think of overhead as annoying, but necessary expenses we must carry to support doing business. Rarely are these things that contribute directly to making products or providing services. And nearly every business leader wants to eliminate as much overhead as possible.
But everything in life comes with overhead. Want a clean house? You must set aside time that could be spent on something more fun to clean. Or you must set aside money to pay for a cleaning service (and let’s be honest, you still must set aside time to clean up for the maid…). Want to have more money, you must create and follow a budget, preferably with some savings targets.
I would argue that the key is to find the work that comes with overhead you’re willing to pay. If you can’t eliminate it, how can you make the overhead interesting and attractive enough that you’re willing to carry that “expense”? Jerry Seinfeld calls this the torture you’re willing to endure to produce great work.
And if you can’t (or even if you can) identify that overhead, a great tip to set you on the right path: the work you do when you’re procrastinating is probably the work you should always do forever.
Everything comes with overhead…what’s the overhead you’re willing to pay?
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