Happy Friday!

The Weekend Upgrade that follows is adapted from my upcoming book, The Rhythms of Productivity. Sign up to receive a free PDF preview and regular updates as the book nears publication!

There are no small parts

The theatre industry is filled with roles. Obviously actors play roles, but they aren’t the only ones.

My usual role is music director, and I know it intimately. I collaborate with directors and choreographers, stage managers and assistant stage managers, sound designers and technicians, lighting designers and board operators, costume designers and dressers, set designers, props masters, dance captains, rehearsal pianists, and every other role involved in a theatrical production. We know who does what, who to defer to, who to go to with questions, and who is in charge depending on where we are in the rehearsal and performance process.

When everyone performs their clearly-defined role, the work that needs to get done is done correctly.

All the world’s a stage…

We are defined by the roles we play in our lives. If we leave them vague, we become a theatre company where no one understands how they fit into the success of the production.

But if we define our roles, we can align our work with the big picture of our lives. This ensures the action we take is the right action—serving the needs of the roles we play.

💡 Define the Roles you play in your life 💡

👆 That’s your weekend upgrade.

Why Roles? Why not Goals?

Aligning my action with the roles I play in my life and work is more valuable than setting a variety of goals. Here’s why.

(1) Roles are more stable than goals.

If I define myself as an “Engaged Family Man,” that role is going to persist beyond the next six months. Goals, on the other hand, tend to drift. It’s simpler for me to recognize the appropriate action when considering the roles I play than it is to generate action with a goal that I’m not even sure will be relevant in a few months.

(2) Roles are more flexible than goals.

Now hang on. Isn’t this the opposite of “roles are more stable” that I just said? How can roles be both more stable and more flexible?

If I include “Productivity Thought Leader & Consultant” as a role, I can direct many projects toward that role, not just at one specific goal. And having the “Productivity Thought Leader & Consultant” role reminds me to keep feeding that role with action.

Goals, especially those of the vaunted SMART variety (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound), tend to restrict more action than they facilitate. SMART goals sound great, but it’s the action toward those goals that matters. Your projects are what should carry most of the specificity, measurability, etc. As we take action, other opportunities present themselves, and adherence to an overly-specific goal can actually restrict us rather than enable us.

Leading with roles prevents this problem. I get the best of both worlds: a clearly defined, specific understanding of a big-picture category of my life, with the flexibility to direct various types of action toward fulfilling that role.

(3) Roles are easier to articulate than goals.

It’s relatively easy to pick roles that define the work I do and the life I lead. It’s significantly more challenging to articulate one specific goal (particularly if it’s “SMART”). If I define my roles, action becomes clearer, and I can set those SMART parameters at the level of the project.

What are the roles in my life?

To help you understand how to find the roles in your life, I’ll demonstrate some of mine. These are eight of my fifteen roles, the ones I found most useful for illustration purposes.

Engaged Family Man

I am a husband, a father, and a brother. All work that is tied to my family dreams and obligations is aligned with this role. It is all too easy to de-prioritize family when work gets complicated. By keeping this role front and center, I make it easier to focus intentional action on my loved ones.

Productivity Thought Leader & Consultant

All the projects and tasks related to my courses and one-on-one consulting are tied to this role. The main action within this role right now is writing my book, The Rhythms of Productivity. Note that this role is active, but also aspirational. I’m definitely a productivity consultant, but “thought leader” is up for debate. I want my actions in this role to move the needle ever closer to thought leader.

St. Luke Director of Liturgical Music

All my work at church, with the adult and children’s choirs, other musicians, and any planning actions fit within this role. I have no major aspirations here—the role ensures I continue to be active with this work, but I’m not aiming to fill it with additional action because I’m happy with where I am.

Professional Musician

Music directing musicals, putting together arrangements for performers, conducting or playing piano for concerts, and other music and music performance work all fit under this role.

Composer

Why isn’t this part of my Professional Musician role? Two reasons. First, it’s a different mindset for me. It’s a “creative art” rather than a “performing art”—which aren’t completely separate things, of course, but it’s a useful distinction for me.

The second reason is more depressing: this has become more aspirational than real. As my Productivity Thought Leader & Consultant role has grown, this is one area that contracted to make room. I absolutely want composing to be part of my life. But the lack of current projects means I need to direct more action here if I want Composer to continue to be a role I play.

Professional Writer

Actions can be tied to more than one role, though don’t do that too much or your roles will get too blurry to be useful. The Rhythms of Productivity is part of my Professional Writer role in addition to the Productivity Thought Leader and Consultant role.

Also there is my novel-in-progress Time Worn. Having this role in my system helps me give Time Worn the attention it requires.

Tana Ambassador

All my various Tana teaching content and outreach falls into this role. This is a role that is easy for me to lose track of, because it becomes intermingled with my Productivity Thought Leader & Consult role. I sometimes think I’m doing Tana Ambassador work when I’m not. The role ensures this important work doesn’t slip off my radar.

Household Handyman

This is a role I currently play, but not one I want to keep playing. There are plenty of active projects associated with Household Handyman, but I want there to be fewer in the future. I’m not planning to move my family into a yurt, but rather to outsource more work to professionals rather than doing it myself.

What are the roles in your life?

The roles in your life will take a while to calibrate, but defining them is worth the effort. You’ll define the first three or four easily, but I encourage you to dig deeper. A thorough breakdown of the roles you play in your work and life will clarify your action for years to come.

Use my list as a guide. Yours will be different, maybe even entirely different. The roles may differ, but the usefulness of roles as a concept is universal.

What do I do next?

(1) Take 2 minutes and answer this question: What’s one thing I learned in this newsletter that I can put into practice right away?

By committing to a specific action, you make it much more likely you’ll do it.

(2) Take an hour and list the roles you play in your life.

Do they all have action associated with them? If not, why not? Is that really a role you play? Do you need to feed that role more action?

If this was valuable for you:

Share the newsletter with someone you think would also get value from it! https://rjn.st/weekend-upgrade-newsletters​

Until next time, friends:

Know your roles, and you can be sure your work is the right work.

R.J.
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P.S. In addition to my upcoming book, I also launched a new product today: Tana for Managers. If you oversee a team and you use Tana, consider checking it out!

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