It can be helpful to group output activities that take your time two ways:
Quick burn activities.
This is treading water. Putting out a social media post about your lunch or the latest trend. Sending a helpful ‘tid bit’ to your followers or clients. Completing a report that’s due or completing some ephemeral admin.
These tasks feel good; it’s busy-work that appears to be taking you places. Sadly these tasks won’t take you anywhere long term- it’s a bit like eating a complex carb; it burns quick and makes you sweat.
There is another category of tasks that don’t feel as satiating in the moment, but it’s the long arc they create over time that gives them the value.
Compounding activities.
This is creating content that contributes to your over all artistic voice. Outlining a book you will write. Creating a bible or guide that dictates how you complete a report. Creating a system to complete the admin that will come in over the years. These activities can be spotted easily because their results will last and remain relevant in perpetuity.
Don’t shovel your time into a black hole of fast burning activities.
Spend your time wisely on the tasks that stack over time.
Contribute to your over all arc. Create systems. Add a brick to your wall and build it to last. Write a word of your narrative.
AI prompt: make a line drawing picture of a man planting a forest of seeds in rows, we see him planting one and as they stretch further into the distance they get taller into trees. The closer to him they are, they are mounds, then sprouts, then little trees until far away they are massive
