Over-working and under-delivering?

​In NGOs we are overworking. We are so much in the habit of working long hours that we don’t stop to examine whether the work we are doing is actually necessary or impactful.

I recently heard about a senior person working very long hours to copy and paste hundreds of cells from one database into another. Wow! Did they not stop to consider if there was an easier way? (which there definitely was, by the way!) How many hours of staff time (and therefore NGO money) are we wasting at work that could be done much more efficiently? Added to this, how many hours are we wasting on work that hasn’t any positive impact on the world? Doing something because “it’s always been done this way” or “that’s what I was told to do”?

​There are many lessons to learn here. But the key lessons are 1. Stop and consider if your work could be done more efficiently (especially grunt work), and 2. Take time out regularly to reflect on whether your current activities are addressing the changes that you want to achieve. And if they are not, then change them!