What is the most important part of your career?
I’ve read quite a few books about productivity that talk about concepts such as mastery and flow: how to deep focus and get more done. In my career, I want to write clear papers with good arguments and be an expert in certain subjects. I want to be able to present and publish and eventually finish a dissertation.
However, at the opposite end of whatever work you do, there is someone else.
So the point of productivity may not be about accomplishing something and becoming the expert–it’s about affecting others. Maybe productivity isn’t really about mastery and flow. Productivity can be about connection and relationships instead.
Love is so much more important than expertise. Think about being a parent: it doesn’t really matter if you are an expert on parenting. It matters more that you love your kids.
And maybe that’s applicable to more areas than we think it is. You can easily see how it would matter in something like teaching or social work.
But what about something like writing and design work or policy work? How can prioritizing love and relationships make a difference there?
It seems like when we are creating something we are aimed at this product. But the product does not exist in a vacuum. The product is used by people. And so every project and product is also part of a relationship, between the creator and the user.
It can be hard to see that connection, but I think it makes the products so much better if a creator can see the relationships that surround what they create.
Heather Hoyt 