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Keep A work, give away the rest
The four grades
A work is what you are better at than most people, what gives you energy and puts you in flow, and what you may be known for. B work is what you do pretty well without being the best at it, easy to get through but with no flow. C work is average, a little clunky, and a little embarrassing. D work is what you are worse at than most people: slower, more mistakes, and draining.
Where people get stuck
The same grid sorts social energy. A people are the ones you feel like yourself with, and D people drain you and push your boundaries. The B column is where smart people get tripped up, because they can coast on B work for a long time while having little on their A list.
Spending the day
The goal is a day spent on A work, leveling up B work where a tool or a skill could turn it into A work, and giving away most C and D work. On teams, partnering with people who have the same strengths is a common mistake. Working with people whose strengths differ covers the gaps. When D work has to get done, one team handles it with a D work day: order a favorite lunch, play music, start at 10 AM, and grind through it together.
How did researchers first study flow?
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described flow as the state that arises when a task's challenge matches a person's skill, with clear goals and immediate feedback. He studied it by giving people pagers that beeped at random moments, then asking what they were doing and how they felt. Many reported flow more often at work than during leisure. Csikszentmihalyi and Judith LeFevre called this finding the paradox of work in 1989.
Why can teams of top performers struggle?
In the 1970s the British researcher Meredith Belbin watched teams of managers at Henley compete in a management game. Teams made up of the highest scorers on mental ability tests, which he called Apollo teams, often finished poorly. He concluded that successful teams needed a mix of roles, such as idea generators, organizers, and finishers. He went on to define nine team roles.
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