OK, so what’s a Finish Quotient? It’s a ratio I just made up – the ratio of the number of tasks you “finish” to the number of tasks you take up. Obviously, the ideal ratio is 1. Or, is it really? We’ll discuss that a wee bit later. It can include tasks at any granularity, professional or personal. The deal though is, be honest to yourself!
Why is this quotient important? Because in some sense, it’s a measure of how efficient and reliable you are! It’s a measure of whether you are spending your time doing useful stuff, or whether you are one of those people who do have a lot of enthusiasm at the beginning, but quickly switch on to something else, without completing your earlier task, wasting a lot of time, effort and money in the bargain. Like someone who pursues guitar one day, then table, then kite flying! A jack of all trades, but a master of none. Kick starting a dozen things every week, but completing few. But more dangerously, you might be someone who people cannot rely on to do what you are asked! Because while you start off on a great note, a few hours later, you have left it hanging around and moved on to something else…
Why do we behave this way? Sometimes, we are just careless or insensitive, sometimes it’s because we have never really understood the criticality of the task we have been assigned, or simply do not believe in it. Sometimes it’s because the task was just a means to get to something else, and as soon as the other objectives are met, we lose interest.
Is it always important to complete what we start? No, of course not! Many times, it’s more prudent to stop and stop quickly! Visionaries, leaders, innovators can never really always complete what they start – simply because their growth is in mistakes, and it’s important to quickly stop a mistake when you recognize it. The challenge, here, is to make sure you stop as soon as you can. Far too many people I know continue having a bath because “paani toh waise bhi garam kiya hai”. You wasted the electricity, and now you are also wasting the water!
So here’s another quotient you can start thinking about – Saved Wasted Efforts. It’s the ratio of the “wasted” efforts you saved by taking quick action to stop a task to the total “wasted” efforts planned for the task. Remember, you cannot use this ratio to justify not completing work – it’s only applicable to “wasted” efforts :)
Take a few mins to look into your near past, and I am sure you’ll know what your quotients are. And I am sure you can get much better at both!
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4 comments:
The thing you're correct about is "The deal though is, be honest to yourself!". Only an individual can correctly measure his/her own FQ.
An FQ of "1" would necessarily mean very low expectations from oneself (Level 3/Lower on Maslow's Pyramid) as if you can finish every task you set in motion, you are perhaps asking too less of yourself.
Interesting thoughts...
Finish Quotient is a fancy measure. I many a times feel starting right things is more important than completing 10 wrong things. Do we have any such measure which helps us evaluate what we have started is the most important thing to start at given point in time. I think having such a measure combined with Finish Quotient and the wasted effort quotient will gurantee effectivness .... What say?
Kunal, you are right, sometimes it's more important to do right things than finish many wrong things. Which is also why I said, you need to learn to stop the wrong things as quickly as possible, saving more wastage of your time and effort.
By Finish Quotient, though, I meant looking at task completion - and in that sense, closing a wrong task might add to your numbers too :)
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