How to Define Your Core Work

This week, we’re looking at how to define your core work and how that translates into what you do each day. 

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Episode 276 | Script

Hello and welcome to episode 276 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host for this show.

In the Time Sector Course, I introduce the concept of “core work”. The work you are employed to do or perhaps another way to look at it, the things you are responsible for at work. It’s your core work that you will be evaluated on by your employer, and if you are self-employed it is the work that generates your income. 

If you were never to define what this part of your work is, you would find yourself caught up in trivialities masquerading as important work. Those petty disagreements between colleagues, most emails and messages and water cooler gossip. 

However, defining what your core work is one part of the process. There is another, more important part to understanding your core work, which is what this week’s question is all about. This question also came up in a recent workshop I did. Defining your core work is quite different from knowing how that definition operates at a task level. Today, I hope to illuminate this important step for you.

So, with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Linda. Linda asks, Hi Carl, I am a Senior Vice President for a small pharmaceutical company. I took your Time Sector Course and have got stuck with my core work. I think I know what that is, but I don’t know how that works day to day. Could you help me with this?

Hi Linda, Thank you for your question. 

Let’s start with why it’s important to identify your core work. Most of our time management and productivity issues evolve from having too much to do and not enough time to do it. This creates backlogs and that leads to you feeling overwhelmed and anxious about how much to feel you have to do. 

Yet, there are different types of tasks we need to do. There are the absolute, the discretionary, and the time wasters. If we do not identify what our absolutes are we end up spending too much time on the discretionary and time wasting tasks. 

Spending some time identifying your absolute must do tasks means you can then allocate sufficient time to get these done each week. However, in order to identify what these tasks are, we need to know what we are specifically employed to do. 

For example, if you are a salesperson, you primary roll is to sell your company’s products or services. This means your core work is any activity that will potentially lead to a sale. This could be calling prospects, meeting with existing customers and asking for referrals. 

Once you know this, you can define what these activities mean at a task level. Calling prospects, for instance, could mean you dedicate one hour each morning to call potential customers and try to arrange appointments. You could also, set aside a hour on a Friday afternoon to contact your existing customers to make appointments to meet with them the following week. 

A salesperson core work is not filling out activity reports for their sales manager or sitting in sales meetings. None of these activities risk leading to a sale. However, these might be important, to your sales manager, and you will need time to do them, but they should not take priority over your sales related tasks. 

It’s as Brian Tracy and Jim Rohn preached—majors and minors. Major time is being in front of your customer. Minor time is sitting in an office chatting with your colleagues. 

Now for you Linda, your roll is a leadership roll. Your core work is likely to be centred around supporting your team so they can do their jobs with as little interruption as possible. Your roll is not to micro-manage your team, your roll is to clear obstacles so they can get on and do their jobs. This will inevitably involve meetings with your team—although not too many so as not to interrupt their work.

I’m reminded of how Red Bull Racing’s Team Principle, Christian Horner, organises his work. Christina Horner is not only the Team Principle, he’s also the CEO of the company. In a recent video Red Bull put out we were given an insight into how he divides his time. During a race weekend, he is the Team Principle and will be track-side with the rest of his team. He’s dealing with media responsibilities, leading team briefings and managing race strategy. 

When he returns to the team’s base on a Monday or Tuesday, he’s the CEO. His role and core work has changed. Here he will have meetings with his key people to make sure everything is running as it should be and if it isn’t he will discuss strategies to get things moving in the right direction. Christian Horner’s role as the CEO is to keep a focus on the company’s goals and to be guide his team towards achieving their goals. 

Christian Horner’s core work as a CEO is to listen to his team, ask question and help to remove blocks to successfully completing projects and goals. His tasks will come from these meetings. He may need to discuss with the board to increase funding for different areas, or he may need to call a key supplier to speed up the delivery of a key component. His core work is to assist his team in solving problems so they can achieve their goals and targets. 

A leader’s core work is generally two-fold. To support their team and to report to the board of directors. To support their team, that will involve talking with the key people. So arranging regular meetings with these people is a task. Similarly, serving the board is a core work task. What does the board want? Quite often, information for the board is consistent. Reports, for instance may need to be sent to the board each month. Collecting the information and delivering these reports will be core work tasks. When and how will you do that? 

Now an issue I frequently come across is a person identifying their core work, but then not distilling that down to a task level. For instance, I create content. I consider that to be a part of my core work. Yet, just saying I create content is not enough. What does that look like at a task level? For me, that means writing a blog post, two newsletters, recording this podcast and filming two YouTube videos each week. The tasks here are writing, recording and filming. Now I know that, the only question remaining is when will I do that each week. 

Now I’ve been creating this content for a long time, I know how long each piece takes, so all I need do now is block time out on my calendar for creating content and make sure the tasks are in my task manager. 

So, to give you an example of how this looks, I have two hours blocked out Monday and Tuesday morning for writing. That is sufficient time to get my writing commitments completed. I have three hours blocked out on Friday morning for recording and filming. That takes care of my podcast and YouTube videos. 

Core work is non-negotiable, it must be done. This is why once you know how long you need (and you will soon learn how long your core work will take) you make sure you have sufficient time blocked out on your calendar each week for doing it.

If I include all the writing, recording and editing, I need around twelve hours each week to do my core work. When you distil your work down to its core level, you will find to complete it requires considerably less time than you think. You soon realise you have plenty of time left over for meetings and other work. By blocking out time each week for your core work, you know before the week begins you always have sufficient time for this important work. 

Architects and designers need time to do their creative work and discuss projects with clients. Architects may also need to discuss materials with suppliers. However, the core work—the work that ultimately pays their income—will be the design work. If they have not set aside enough time for doing that work, everything else will be irrelevant. 

If we look an example of a hotel general manager, their core work is to ensure the hotel is profitable, and the highest standards are maintained. Describing core work like that is not helpful at a task level. What does ensuring the hotel is profitable look like at a task level? That could be to regularly meet with the hotel’s sales and marketing team to discuss strategy. What about maintaining the hotel’s standards? That would involve walking around the hotel each day inspecting rooms, food service and cleanliness. 

I once worked with a general manager who did this every morning before his management meeting. If he spotted anything below standard he would discuss this with the relevant departmental manager in the management meeting. This was not done as a telling off session. It was about highlighting issues with the relevant manager. This method ensured the management team were all focused on the same thing. No manager wanted to be called out in the meeting. 

This particular manager went on to have a highly successful career rising to becoming Operations Director of the hotel group. 

While leadership roles are different from managerial roles in many ways, the key with leadership is to empower and trust your team will do their jobs to the best of their abilities. As a leader, your job is serve your team and help them do that. It’s not to get in their way or do their jobs for them—if you need to do that, why are you employing them in the first place. I always think of leadership core work as communicating with their team and guiding them to successfully completing their projects. Meetings helps, but can often get in the way of doing the work. Perhaps you could learn from my former general manager and make it a core work principle to do a walk round of your department each morning virtually or in person. 

So there you go, Linda. I hope that has helped. It’s likely you have identified the abstract part of your ore work. All you need do is answer the question; what does that look like at a task level? 

Thank you for your question and thank you to you too for listening. It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.