I once learned a valuable lesson - never do well a task that you don't want to do again.
The situation started out innocently. A task for the project I was working on needed to get done. I disliked the task but grudgingly did it for the benefit of the team. I did my best to do the task well with the expectation that I would be rewarded with more enjoyable work. Instead, I was asked to keep doing it. I protested unsuccessfully and was soon miserable. I couldn't understand how acting selflessly and doing a good job led to such "punishment".
I discovered that when you do any job well the benefiters want you to keep doing it. If they're confident you'll produce good results, they would rather encourage you than find a replacement (who may not do as well). I eventually realized that I shouldn't have done a good job in the first place.
Initially, I found this insight disturbing. As a child, I was taught to always do my best at everything. As I grew up, I tried to do my best at school, sports, hobbies, and part-time jobs. Gradually, "always doing my best" became a core attribute of my self-image. Therefore, the notion of consciously doing less than my best just seemed wrong.
Then I made a discovery - some of my role models consciously do or did less than their best to avoid undesirable work.
For example, the legendary physicist Richard Feynman discusses "actively acting irresponsible" in this BBC interview. He also cautioned against administrative roles in this letter to Stephen Wolfram. Donald Knuth and Neal Stephenson are well known for being "bad" at correspondence. On a somewhat related note, Paul Graham warns in this essay against distracting thoughts and activities. More personally, some of my mentors have privately admitted to performing badly at tasks that they don't want to do.
From these examples I've formulated the following three guidelines:
- Say "no" to any undesirable tasks.
- If unavoidable, only do an adequate job.
- Focus all remaining time on excelling at the work you most want to do.
Following guidelines 1 and 2 will hopefully provide more time for pursuing guideline 3. The ideal result is to be so highly valued for doing work you enjoy that you won't get asked to do anything else - the opportunity cost for distracting you will be too high.
For myself, I expect a lot of time and practice will be required to put these guidelines into consistent application. After all, a self-image can be hard to change. Thankfully, I have role models to encourage me.
