Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

It's not. "Do More Great Work" is a workbook-style book designed to help us do more innovative, satisfying work, one small chunk at a time. This is the kind of book that's perfect for busy people, because it's designed to be picked up and put down five minutes at a time. It's short, it's powerful, and we think it's full of highly useful exercises and tips that can revolutionize our work. If we're ready and willing to change.

Who should read this book?

Well, anyone, at any level in an organization will learn some valuable strategies from this book. You learn how to discover your own great work, and what that really means to you. You learn how to manage a heavy workload, and how to generate really valuable, innovative ideas quickly.

If you're frustrated or dissatisfied with the work you're doing, or you feel you could be doing greater work than you're doing now, then this is the book for you.

The author, Michael Stanier, was named Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006. He's the founder and senior partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations make the leap from good work, to great work.

So, keep listening to find out how to quantify the great work you're doing right now, how to use metaphors to do more great work, and how to discover what's truly irritating you about the work you're doing now.

The book starts out with a very short but intriguing Foreword. And it's here the author really hits on the problem that so many of us are experiencing.

Basically, we've turned into a society that equates busyness with success. After all, we think, if we're busy we must be doing something right. The problem is that all this busyness isn't necessarily fulfilling. The majority of the time, it's actually quite draining. We're working hard but not getting anywhere.

This is why we need to transform our days so we're doing work that's inspired. Great work is uplifting, innovative, and really fills you with joy. Have you ever done work that is so fun and engaging that it felt effortless? You just didn't notice the time passing, right?

If this sounds familiar, then you were doing great work at the time. Of course, great work can also be incredibly difficult, like scaling Everest with an outrageously heavy pack.

But, the author says, great work is meaningful and rewarding. And, this book shows you how to do more of it.

The book is divided into seven parts. Within these seven parts are 15 short exercises, called maps, designed to help you uncover your own great work, and transform your days so you can start doing more.

As you heard earlier, this book isn't full of wordy text, designed to be read from cover to cover. Instead, it's meant to be digested in short chunks. As in, five minutes or less.

When you read, you'll want to have a pen and paper with you, so you can take notes and do the exercises. This is a book that makes you stop, consider, think, and then move forward. You have to get involved if you want to make a change in your life. But don't worry; the exercises are actually quite fun and intuitive – it won't feel like homework.

So, how can we start doing more great work during the day?

Well, the author starts the book at a practical place, and that's with a map helping us figure out where we are right now. His reasoning is that we can't reach a destination if we don't know where we're starting from. And, it only makes sense.

This first exercise is really easy. All you have to do is to draw a circle. Next, you need to divide the circle into three sections. You have to think about how much bad work, good work, and great work you're doing on a daily basis, and then divide the circle up to reflect those proportions.

Next, you need to write down two examples of each type of work you're doing for each segment.

For instance, you might be spending 40 percent of your time doing bad work. Bad work is draining, frustrating or monotonous. To you, bad work might be your daily staff meetings, and the weekly team update reports you have to compile.

The author stresses that it's unrealistic to expect to do great work 100 percent of the time. But we do need a healthy balance of good work and great work. Once you've divided up the work you're currently doing, what do you think your ideal mix would be?

Another map we thought was really inspiring was map three. This map helps us see what we really look like when we're at our best.

The author says he loves using metaphors for these types of exercises. And he tells a very short story to help illustrate how this is helpful.

When he was working in marketing, he was hired to discover the true essence of a brand, which happened to be a high-priced vodka. But how do you boil down the essence of vodka, even the expensive kind? It all tastes pretty much the same.

Well, the author realized that if he used metaphors to describe the vodka, as he was tasting it, he could better discover the essence.

For instance, to him the vodka was like a couple talking, not a group dancing. It was Mediterranean, not Scandinavian. It was bold, not pastel.

Of course, none of these metaphors truly have anything to do with how the vodka tasted. But by assigning pictures to the vodka, by describing what it was and, more importantly, what it wasn't, the author was better able to pin down the true vibe of the brand.

We thought this was a really innovative way to look at a problem. Of course, we're about to use this same descriptive process on ourselves, but we thought this technique could also be used by leaders and managers to come up with creative solutions to issues they may face in their organizations.

So, how can you use metaphors to do more great work? We have to start with remembering a time when we were at our very best. This is when we were most authentic, and in the zone.

Next, we need to write down twenty or thirty words that describe how we were at this time. Were we creative? Powerful? Taking charge? Don't think hard about this. Just write down whatever comes to mind.

Now, narrow that list down to the 10 words that really seem to fit.

Next, we're going to the other side of the equation, the "not that" column. Start by picking one of the words you've already decided on. Let's say that word is joyful. Now we need to find the word that is the safe, good-but-not-great behavior we feel when we're not feeling joyful. It might not be as extreme as the word depressed, so let's say that word is ho-hum.

Our goal here is to create a list that describes how we are at our best, and how we're not.

So we might say, when I'm at my best I'm changing the world, not thinking that only business matters. At my best I'm working in groups, not working solo.

The author says we can gain insight from this list by using it daily. When we're feeling like something we don't want to be, like ho-hum, what can we do to change our mindset to get to ho-hum's opposite, which is joyful?

Another really powerful map is map six, which helps us identify the aggravations in our lives. Why does this matter when it comes to great work?

Well, because many of us spend a great deal of time doing aggravating, ho-hum work. It's work we tolerate. But perhaps we don't need to.

The map here is highly visual, but we'll do our best to describe it. Picture the ripples you see when you throw a pebble into a pond. They start small, and radiate outwards.

That's exactly what map six looks like. We're at the very center of these ripples. So we need to start identifying our aggravations in a very small way. This first ripple is our desk.

To start, look at or imagine your desk. What is annoying about your desk? What would you like to change to make it more comfortable or appealing?

Write down at least two things that annoy you about your desk. Try to be as clear as possible, and detail what needs to be different.

Next think about your office. What annoys you about your office? What do you want to change?

The ripples get bigger and bigger as we go. We look at our workload, our team, our division, our organization, on up to our world.

The author tells us to start making changes to do great work. You may not see the connection between changing your desk or office and doing great work, but his point is that you simply never know when one change will spark another. Often, starting with the very small will lead to major changes throughout the ripples.

The author says that usually, great work falls in the middle circles. This, he says, is where most of our opportunities lie waiting.

We thought this was a very useful way to look at a problem that can seem almost overwhelming at times. After all, if you're asked what annoys you about your work, sometimes it can be hard to pin down the real issue. But by starting very small and working your way outwards, it's easier to find what may be the root cause of your frustrations.

For every one of the maps in the book, the author also includes very short, real-life examples of how each map can help you change. These are useful to read because they help us see how these maps really can change our mindset and spur us on to doing great work.

Now, when it comes to actually identifying and doing our great work, the choices can be overwhelming. So the author says we need to define a great work project, which is the purpose of map eight.

Of course, we couldn't cover every map up to this point. But many of them help us define some important elements of a great work project. Now it's time to put all that together so we can define what we truly want to be doing.

What should be our criteria for judging all these ideas for great work?

The author gives us a long list of options. For instance, our great work could be easy to do, it might have a big impact, and it's something we want to do. The grid-like map for narrowing our choices is really useful: it helps us lay out our ideas, and judge the ones we think are best.

We really like this map because it helps put logical reasons to our intuitive feelings. For instance, maybe deep down you've felt restless in your job. You love the company, but you feel as if you could be contributing much more. You just don't know how.

This particular map can help you realize that you really want to help develop a new product for your company. This idea, for you, is really exciting and seems to fit. But you don't know this is what you truly wanted to do until you work through the book to get to this map.

We have to admit, we were really surprised by this book. It was so small that we simply didn't see how it could be that useful. But we're happy to be proven wrong. "Do More Great Work" is a really innovative guide that can truly help us all get past our busy work and start doing work that really matters to us.

Each exercise is short, relevant and insightful. And the author's promise that we can do them all in five minutes or less is spot-on. Of course, some of them you'll want to go back to and think about later on, but they're all easy and intuitive.

In short, we believe this book will help you revolutionize your workday and start doing more work that makes you happy. We were impressed by the exercises, and saw several that could be used in organizations to solve team or project problems. If you're ready for meaningful change in your work and your life, "Do More Great Work" will help get you on the right path.

"Do More Great Work," by Michael Bungay Stanier, is published by Workman Publishing.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.