ROI

Who has two thumbs and likes a little bit of math? This guy right here…Un-mathy people hold on tight!

I’m not really into stocks, but I know a couple things about the market. One stat that traders look at is “return on investment.” ROI is simply the benefit (return) of an investment divided by the cost of the investment. Don’t worry, I didn’t bring you here to talk about stocks.

I want to be good at what I do, so it comes naturally to evaluate the results of the investment I make at work. I’m constantly faced with the realities of my skill set and the lack of time to accomplish the things I really want to accomplish. Often it seems like there aren’t enough hours in a day, and that I have a limited number of tools in the shed. I often find myself asking these questions: “How do I maximize every opportunity? How do I squeeze out the biggest result for my efforts?”

Most of the time I think it’s pretty simple. I try put my greatest effort into things that I know will have the greatest return, i.e. I know what I’m good at and I try to spend most of my time doing that. I don’t cheat the things I care about the most by spending my limited time on things I do poorly. Now I realize everybody has to do things they aren’t good at some of the time, but that’s why I love working with a team. My team can help pick up the slack for my shortcomings, and hopefully I’ll pick up theirs.

Take a step back and try to get a decent perspective of the work you do. Evaluate how you spend your time, and try to find ways to spend more time doing the things you do the best.