Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com.
Episode 1622:
Carl Pullein breaks down the concept of core work, the essential tasks that drive real progress in your career and personal goals. He explains how distractions and busywork often masquerade as productivity, preventing meaningful achievement. By identifying and focusing on your core work, you can maximize efficiency, reduce being overwhelmed, and create lasting impact.
Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.carlpullein.com/blog/what-doing-your-core-work-actually-means/4/11/2020
Quotes to ponder:
"This is the work that drives you forward, that contributes to your long-term goals and objectives."
"When you work on your core work, you feel energised and alive because you are doing work that really matters to you."
"If you allow yourself to be distracted by other people’s emergencies, emails, and meetings, you will never have time to do your core work."
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, What Doing Your Core Work Actually Means by Carl Pullein of carlpullein.com. Throughout my working life, I've worked as a hotel duty manager, a car salesperson, a lawyer, and a teacher. Quite a variety of occupations, and a common thread throughout my working life is I've always prioritized my core work first.
[00:00:24] You see, no matter what work you do, there will always be emergencies, those little things that come up unexpectedly that will throw you off your plan for the day. I suspect starting my working life in hotels was one of the best educational experiences I could have wished for. Whether you worked in reception, the restaurant, the kitchen, or the bar, every day would throw up some sort of emergency, and more often than not, it would not be a single emergency, but a cascade of emergencies one after the other.
[00:00:54] The first thing you learn is never panic. Panicking will leave you exhausted physically and emotionally, and you will likely make the wrong decisions. Instead, you stop and decide how best to resolve the emergency. Do you need to do something, or do you inform the duty manager? And if you can do something, do it. After all, the customer comes first. That's the golden rule in hotels. Knowing an emergency will happen, when I started my shift, I always began the same way.
[00:01:22] When I worked in the bar, my first task was always to make sure we had the right stock on the shelves and in the fridges. If something was low or unavailable, you just knew a VIP would come in and want to order it when the bar was full of customers. So I would do a quick stock take, and if I needed anything, tonic water, ginger ale, or Chivas Regal Royal Salute, I would call down to stores and ask them to send up the required stock. I did that in my first 15 minutes of coming onto shift.
[00:01:49] If I was doing the day shift, I would ask the chef if there was anything on the menu out of stock. Knowing this before I began my shift helped me prevent any problems with disappointed customers. And if I was doing the day shift, I would also do the required shelf and fridge cleaning first. Leaving that until later in the day meant it would not happen. When I went into car sales, I soon figured out that the best way to improve my sales was to contact customers who had bought a new car three years ago.
[00:02:17] In the UK, as in many countries, cars less than three years old do not need a government safety certificate. The hassle of booking your car in for a test and the worry that something expensive needed replacing caused many customers to think about changing their car at the three-year mark. So I would get the printout from admin every week, and each morning, before anything else, I would call the customers to see if I could interest them in changing their car.
[00:02:42] Next up, part of a salesperson's job was to check the cars on the forecourt to make sure they were clean and had the right information in the windows. As this was part of my job, that's what I would do next. Getting these core tasks done first meant I had the flexibility later in the day to deal with any emergencies that came up. Customers who were not happy with the car I had sold them, problems with orders not being delivered from the factory on time, and delays getting a car through its PDI, pre-delivery inspection. They always came up.
[00:03:11] And when I began working as a lawyer, I soon found out I needed to review cases that were coming up in the next month. If I didn't do those reviews, something would be missing, and that would create a lot of emergencies. A big part of my work as a lawyer was making sure the right legal documents came in on time and to chase other lawyers if they were being slow. So that's what I did first. Make sure all my current cases were up to date and things were arriving. If they were not, either send the required letter or make the necessary phone calls.
[00:03:40] Had I left that work to later in the day, the crises of the day would take over and my core work would never get done. In the Time Sector course, I stress the importance of identifying your core work, the work that you are paid to do. Most of the emergencies that get thrown at us do not form part of your core work unless you work in customer service. So handling emergencies is extra work, and it is that extra work that drains you. It stops you from doing the job you were hired to do.
[00:04:07] So finding ways to reduce the risk of emergencies occurring in the first place will help you to stay on top of your work. Once you know what your core work is, the tasks that will give you the biggest impact on your work, you can then prioritize those tasks before you get stuck doing something else. Knowing what you need to do each day before you start will keep you focused on that core work and prevent you being distracted by other, noisier voices and urgencies that will pull you away from those core tasks.
[00:04:35] And for the most part, those emergencies can wait an hour or so. I've found that if I get an emergency email or phone call, all I need is to acknowledge the contact and say, I'll look into it and get back to you later today. 99% of the time, the fact that the person with the emergency knows someone is taking care of it is enough. That task will then go into my inbox and I will continue to get my core work done. Once my core work is done, I can then turn my attention to the crisis and give it 100% attention and focus.
[00:05:05] That's a much better mindset to be in instead of worrying about when you will have time to do the work you're paid to do. That's when panic and stress sets in and that leads to overwhelm and exhaustion. So if you want to gain control of your day, to be able to make sure you get your most important work done, then take some time to list out your core work, the work that you were hired to do. Prioritize that every day and do it first. Once that's done, you will find yourself in a much better place to handle anything else being thrown at you.
[00:05:38] You just listened to the post titled, What Doing Your Core Work Actually Means, by Carl Pullen of carlpullen.com And thanks to Carl, whose last name, by the way, is spelled P-U-L-L-Pull, E-I-N, Pullen. And I have his website linked in this episode's description for you. Now, Carl is a renowned productivity and time management coach, and he's helped thousands of people around the world get better at managing their time and become more productive
[00:06:05] using technology that they carry around with them every day. You can check out his podcast, which is called The Working With Podcast. And he's also written three books on productivity and time management. And he's got a couple courses too. They're called Time and Life Mastery and Your Digital Life. His purpose is to help people learn how to manage their time so they can enjoy their lives and build a life they're truly proud of. And be sure to come by carlpullen.com to show him some support. There you can see more about him, plus check out his podcast,
[00:06:35] his coaching, courses, webinars, books, downloads. You name it, he's got it. So again, that's carlpullen.com, and I have that linked in this episode's description. But that should do it for today. Hope you have a great rest of your day, and I will be back here tomorrow with you. So I'll see you there, where your optimal life awaits. So you're going to have a great rest of your day. Okay. Thank you.