How to Start Making Real Progress: Growth Tasks vs. Maintenance Tasks

If you’re reading this at the time of publication, it’s still early (ish) January. As we ride the wave of New Year energy, a lot of people are brainstorming new ideas, creating new projects, and dreaming up all sorts of great things–concert programs, ideas for stage performances, or a new art show to create. Or maybe it’s a book, a recording, podcast, or a career shift. 

But like a New Year’s Resolution to hit the gym at 5 am every day, or to start that new diet–you know, the one that is for SURE going to work, most of those new ideas will fall to the wayside by, well, around now. The 2nd Friday in January is known as “Quitter’s Day” as most people give up before they even make it to the middle of the 1st month! 

Why do we quit? 

We quit either because we’re bored, or because we get what seems like a better idea. Either way, we’re quitting because we’re not making any progress, and we’re not making progress because we’re taking the wrong actions. 

What are the wrong answers? 

It’s….complicated. 

You see, the wrong answers are the same as the right answers, just in different proportions. Let me explain. 

In any endeavor, there are two types of tasks. Growth Tasks and Maintenance Tasks. Overdo either one and progress stalls out. Get them in the right balance? BINGO. There’s no stopping you. 

Okay, so what the heck are Growth Tasks? Growth Tasks are anything that increases or improves your current situation. Could be revenue (increasing your prices, or enrolling new students/clients) or increasing your reach (writing a book, starting a podcast or blog, creating a new workshop) It could be sending a presentation proposal to a conference, or programming and rounding up new rep for a recital. 

 

Growth Tasks are anything that will CHANGE what or how you are currently doing things. 

 

 

Maintenance Tasks, on the other hand, involve anything where the only thing that changes is the content within it, it’s a recurring thing that happens regularly. Students you teach every week, the daily practicing of your craft, creating lesson plans for a regular class, recording a new podcast episode. 

I would also put “rocking chair” tasks in this bucket. Rocking chair tasks are the things we do that make us FEEL like we’re working hard, but at the end of the day, we’re not any further along than when we started. Like a rocking chair, we’re constantly moving, but we’re not going anywhere. These tasks include: spending an hour deciding which font to use. Spending an entire day making your planner look pretty. Designing a new logo (for days). Scrolling on social media without actually posting anything yourself. 

I’ll add this–a lot of times rocking chair tasks can be helpful. Sometimes we need or want a new logo. But as long as we recognize that designing a new logo doesn’t create growth or progress. It’s just a logo, after all. It’s okay.  

Growth Tasks generally get all the hype, but trust me, we need those maintenance tasks. I turned my 6-year-old blog into a brand-new podcast–got everything into place, and launched it. That (on the whole) was a Growth Task. Not only has my work grown, but I’ve grown as a person. My skill set has grown, my audience has grown, and therefore, my revenue has grown. 

BUT

Now that it’s out there. It’s mostly a matter of maintenance tasks. I need to write a new episode each week. Record it, send it to my wonderful editor (shoutout to Red House Productions, by the way–they are seriously the best!) create show notes, social media graphics, etc. 

 

Every week. 

 

And those are Maintenance tasks because they are repetitive tasks–only the content within them changes. 

If I were to reach out to a potential sponsor, or ad agency? That would be a growth task. 

 

 

 

One issue I often see artists struggle with–and one of the main reasons people end up coming to me for coaching, is that they get stuck. They wake up one day and realize that they are doing exactly the same thing they’ve been doing for a couple of decades. Same gigs, same students, same schools, same venues, same colleagues, same coffee shop for pre-rehearsal caffeination, same bar for after-work cocktails, same everything.

And while it all felt wonderful and exciting when they were fresh out of school 20 years ago, the patina has worn off a bit. Now, It just feels like a hamster wheel they can’t get off of.  

Sometimes it’s because the kids that came along and took up time and attention for 20 years have gone off to college and parents are faced with the fact that while their kids have transformed into adults, they themselves haven’t grown at all. 

Sometimes it’s just a glimmer of a thought that hits them as they pull into the parking lot….Jesus, I’m still here? After all these years? 

And sometimes, it’s because they see someone ELSE doing something new, and they suddenly think “Maybe I could too?” 

 

 

It’s easy to get stuck in our routines–especially when we have young kids or aging parents (or both!) to care for. Finding time for Growth can seem like a luxury you can’t afford right now. 

But Growth is what keeps us content. Learning new skills releases dopamine, which keeps our brains active, guarding against neurological decline, and NOT learning new skills leads to boredom and ennui–both of which have been shown not only to lead to anxiety and depression but then later develop into heart disease. 

 

Being stuck in a rut not only feels lousy, it can kill you. 

 

So let’s get to some Growth Tasks, shall we? 

We’ve seen what happens if you keep yourself solely in Maintenance Task Mode, But here’s the other side of that coin. Without maintenance tasks, you’re just constantly chasing the next idea. And then the next, and the next. you have an idea, get excited about it, and do it once, then you get bored before you even do it a second time, and declare that you have a BETTER idea. 

New ideas are amazing, but they need time. They need (and deserve!) a period of maintenance in order to settle in, find their groove, and finally get some traction. That maintenance time also gives you a chance to figure out what works, and what doesn’t, and eventually automate them–which we’ll come back to in a minute. 

Think of your new idea like a new student. They call you up and say “Will you work with me?” And you agree. A new student! So much potential! This is going to be awesome! 

And they sign up–exciting!

And they make their first payment–VERY Exciting! 

And they have their first lesson–Amazing! 

 

And then nothing about it is new anymore. Same student, same day and time, same payment. What if you just ditched them, and tried to get a NEW student? Because a NEW student would be exciting. 

You might get away with it the first few times, but eventually, you’re going to get a reputation for being a flake, AND, you’ll never have anything to show for your efforts. No proud teacher moments when your student wins a competition or is offered that coveted scholarship, never getting to the point where you can charge premium rates because you’re the Go-To instructor in your area. No bonds or wedding invitations to your former students’ big life events. 

 

None of it. 

 

The temptation to do nothing but Growth Tasks is also called “shiny-object syndrome” when the new project is what is exciting to you, the creation or the ideation of it, but once it’s done, you don’t have any interest in maintaining it. 

I see this a lot with clients who have ADHD or other neuro-divergencies. Their brains are on fire with new ideas all the time–they tend to be incredibly creative. But the day-to-day tedium of maintaining that work can feel hard for them–putting automations and systems in place–or even hiring that part of the process out can be the deciding factor in whether a new project is successful or not. 

If you can get yourself to repeat it even a few times, you can set up templates, and write out a workflow, so that the rinse-and-repeat aspect of the work is simplified for you. Or, find someone on Upwork or Fiverr to do it for you. That way, you can focus on the growth part, and know that the maintenance is still happening. 

 

The goal is to have a beautiful balance of both Growth Tasks and Maintenance Tasks. 

 

 

When you have a balance of the two, there are parts of your week that are dedicated to maintenance: Your practice or rehearsal time, teaching your lessons or classes each week, writing your newsletter, or recording your podcast–whatever those recurring actions are for you.

Other parts of your week are dedicated to growing some aspect of your work–the time you spend updating your LinkedIn profile, creating a new workshop or event, or pitching an idea. Booking a venue for a new show or performance, submitting resumes or applications, taking a course, or masterclass, or showing up to a webinar to learn a new skill. 

It creates a beautiful balance that allows you to make real progress towards your goals, and solidify and fine-tune things along the way. 

For those of you who are noticing that they hover over on the Maintenance-task side, I want you to remember that Growth doesn’t have to mean getting out of your comfort zone. It CAN, and that’s an important part of your growth as a human being, but in terms of growing the scope of your work, it doesn’t need to be scary. 

If you find yourself making excuses for why you can’t do something new, check out my blog post called the “No-Yes Spectrum.” It’ll give you some exercises to see past any fears or anxieties you might have around them. Giving you a “Yes, if…” possibility, instead of a “no, because” default excuse. 

If we’re constantly creating and doing Growth tasks, we can quickly burn out from exhaustion. It creates an environment of chaos, and no one around us knows exactly what we’re doing. But if we avoid those Growth-based actions altogether, out of fear, laziness, or lack of momentum, we get stuck. Humans need to grow, and it’s far more enjoyable to do it before you find that your current circumstances suddenly feel like an ill-fitting suit. 

Here’s my challenge for you: As you look at any new projects or ideas you’re launching this year, make a list of the parts of them that are growth tasks, and then make a list of the maintenance tasks that will be required to keep them going. Because there is truly no progress without growth, but there’s no growth without continued maintenance either. 

Wishing you an amazing year,

Cheers!

Kate

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P.P.S. Did you know that Tales from The Lane has a Podcast version out now? You can listen via your favorite podcast app!