All highlighting is my own.
This summer, we moved into a new house. Moving is a lot of work. As part of moving out of our old house, we got rid of a lot of junk that we had accumulated over the years. We ended up working with the amazing Dave O’Rourke of Spaceback. As Dave and I were loading a huge junk pile into his truck, he said something that really stuck with me — he said: “in this business, you can’t waste any footsteps”. Meaning, there’s a lot to do, lots of things to lift and move, and you need to be smart and efficient with your energy.
As I am now moving items around our house, and carting empty moving boxes and miscellaneous trash out, Dave’s words have been sticking with me. If I’m going to the basement, grab a box to take to the trash. If I’m going up to the second floor, grab a bag or a box or an item that needs to go there. Going back to the first floor? Grab something that needs to go there. No wasted footsteps.
This is good advice for moving a bunch of stuff around, but it’s also good advice in general. And it’s been on my mind, as of course moving to a new house means that you tend to fall behind on other things (like work and email). So the same approach of no wasted footsteps could (and should) be applied to digital life. Get the thing done that you need to get done right then and there, don’t waste any footsteps walking around empty handed. The folks that I work with that seem to be most productive and efficient seem to take this approach, and I’m going to try to keep it front and center myself.
