Executive leadership coach Sara Sabin explains why ‘dopamine-hit tasks’ could be sabotaging your business’ growth, and how to refocus on the important actions.
In a business culture that glorifies instant gratification, we are becoming hooked on the emotional highs of small, quick victories, often at the expense of the deeper growth, long term success and meaningful achievement.
I call these “dopamine-hit” tasks: those things you do in your business that are quick, easy, and make you feel like you’re achieving something in the moment (even if you’re not).
Some examples of dopamine-driven tasks in the workplace include:
- Continuously checking emails and messages
- Focusing on selling “small” because it’s easier, rather than doing the work to make big sales
- Focusing on “urgent” over the long term “important” tasks – you get a short term hit from putting
- out another workplace “fire”
- Back-to-back non-strategic meetings
- Seeking frequent symbolic rewards, for example, likes on socials, which don’t translate to
- revenue
- Spending time on tasks that feel “comfortable” with no evidence that they will have an impact on growth
These things often have little tangible outcome or result. They often don’t increase revenue, profit, or performance and are just distractions from doing the tasks that actually would contribute towards the achievement of your strategic goals.
Why these tasks are hard to break away from
The brain learns and builds neural pathways through repetition, so the more of these dopamine-driven tasks you do, the more your brain rewires itself to repeat those actions again.
As you become more addicted to tasks that provide instant gratification, you’ll also have less motivation for those “longer term tasks” that actually move the needle.
In sum, it’s all too easy to become addicted to familiar but ultimately unhelpful patterns of behaviour.
How to stop
So, how do you stop yourself from doing those quick, easy, “comfortable” tasks just for the dopamine hit?
To get out of this cycle, a good place to start is to apply the Pareto Principle. This states that 20 per cent of your activities generate 80 per cent of your results. The first problem is that a lot of people don’t know what tasks generate the results they want.
Understand what drives your big goals
The first step is to reconnect with the bigger picture vision of what you’re trying to achieve and then, to objectively review all the tasks that you currently do on a day-to-day basis. What you’ll probably find is that some things have a negligible impact, some things are harmful to you achieving what you want (for example, constantly checking emails because it affects your focus), and a small proportion of the things you do make a positive difference.
It can be a blow to the ego to admit that most of the things that you’re spending your time on don’t
generate results. But taking the time to really dig deep, challenge the tasks you’re doing and focusing on what generates ROI will accelerate you far more in the long run than continuing to stay busy for the sake of it.
Bring dopamine hits to those high-impact tasks
Once you have that list of tasks, create a reward system around completing those tasks. For example, a large project or goal would be broken down into small tasks that have clear, achievable
targets. Each time you complete a small step along the path, it creates a dopamine boost. The
celebration of the small things that contribute to the long-term goals keeps dopamine levels high, so that you are motivated to keep going.
As a leader, recognition is key to reinforce positive behaviours and habits. Continuously recognising your team for focusing on the right tasks that are aligned with the vision and key priorities, and drive results, reinforces the “reward” for your team of tackling those longer-term metrics.
And last of all, remember that busy =/= productive. Busyness is acclaimed in the modern workplace, but not all busyness is created equally. It may serve your ego to say “I’m so busy” but it’s important to put thought into whether that busyness is productive or just chasing a feeling that you’re doing something, therefore it must be good.
