7 Habits of
Marginally Effective People

Sure, you've seen them -- myriads of books, seminars, tapes on how to be successful, having it all, being "highly effective." But as we approach the new millennium, many Americans are asking themselves, "Why bother?" Why bust your butt for the max, when you could just amble along and still enjoy a fine standard of living. Why, with inheritance, winning the lottery, or just one really good personal injury lawsuit, you could easily outpace those so-called movers and shakers. In fact, if you could just cut back on those futile work efforts, you could focus more time on entering sweepstakes and doing all of the other thinks to assure your success.

So, to that end, the Web brings you the key habits of Marginally Effective People. By practicing these principles, you will be able to just barely get by without getting fired, saving countless ours of labor!

1. Be Non-Active

If you are to be a true Marginally Effective Person, the first thing to remember is that nothing is your responsibility. After all, if they really wanted something to get done, they'd have assigned it to someone who gets paid more, right? Your instincts have been right all along!

At the same time, being non-active means that nothing is your fault. What an empowering thought this is! If only everyone could accept that everything is someone else's fault, we could all throw off the weight of guilt, achieving new heights in self esteem. Just think of it! Everything is someone else's fault! I am blameless in all things!

So, you may ask, whose fault is everything? That really doesn't matter to you as a marginally effective person, just as long as you know it isn't you. However, just in case you were curious, almost everything is almost always your boss's fault.

2. Begin With Quitting in Mind

Did you ever notice that the last 5% of any task seems to involve 40 or 50% of the work? Experts call this the "law of diminishing returns." To you, the Marginally Effective Person, it means that you appear to be almost finished while really doing only half of the work! Think of the possibilities! You can credit for a job marginally done without ever actually finishing. It is exactly this time-honored thinking that gave us Venus de Milo (like you really thought she ever had arms), Stonehenge (it was actually just a foundation for a shopping mall that was never finished), New Age music, steak tartare, and Liberal Arts bachelor's degrees. One well respected art historian has definitively determined that Picasso's cubist period actually represents a period of depression when he never finished anything.

So, when embarking on any task, be alert for your first opportunity to quit. Skipping steps like proofreading, QA, review, approvals, and filing can really help you on the way to your goal.

3. Easy Things First

When it comes to being marginally effective, establishing priorities is vital. How do you manage your time? The answer is to do the easy things first (and only, if possible).

Imagine that the box in Figure 1 represents the work you have to do. As a Marginally Effective Person, your first evaluation of this area should be to divide the work into "Things That Will Get Me Fired if I Don't Do Them" (Area 1) and "Things That Won't Get Me Fired if I Don't Do Them" (Area 2). Now simply clear everything in Area 2 from your mind. There is no reason for you to bother with anything if it doesn't put your job in jeopardy.

Now, let's deal with the tasks that remain in Area 1. You can separate these tasks on two axes, one representing how easy a task is, and one representing how long it will take. Adding this information to Area 1 (Figure 1) allows us to divide our tasks into four categories:

• A: Easy things that can be done fast
• B: Hard things that can be done fast
• C: Easy things that take a long time
• D: Hard things that take a long time.

Obviously, as a Marginally Effective Person, you immediately see why you want to sort tasks into easy and hard, but why worry about the amount of time involved? After all, if you do things that take a long time, you seldom have to show results. But things that can be done fast allow you to get credit for doing something without spending much time. Let me show you with an example. Imagine 100 hours spent on the job. One worker selects short tasks, and accomplishes 100 1-hour tasks in her 100 hours. Another worker spends all 100 hours on a single, very lengthy assignment. Who would you rather be at bonus time? The worker with 100 completed tasks to show, or the poor dumb schmuck who only did one thing? So it is obvious that the Marginally Effective Person should maximize his endeavors in Area A, Easy Things That Can Be Done Fast, and stalwartly squirm out of activities in Area D, Hard Things That Take a Long Time. "But if everyone follows these rules, who will do the hard work?" you ask. That's where Habit 4 comes in!

4. Think "Why Me?"

Sure, you see a lot of things around you that need to be done. But why in the hell should you do them? Studies have shown that 97% of everything that needs to be done, gets done whether YOU do it or not! In fact, even that fount of American wisdom, Mark Twain, said, "Never learn to do anything. If you don't, you will always be able to get someone else to do it for you."

"This sounds great," you say, "but how can I succeed?" It's simple, really. Just don't do it. Some people find that complaining a lot while not doing it helps, but this will depend on you individual situation. The important thing is that you remember to think, "Why me?"

5. First Pretend You Don't Understand

This combined principle will effectively manage your marginally effective interpersonal communications. What good does it do to pretend you don't understand? It is the most powerful protection you can buy! No matter what you screw up, your all-purpose excuse is that you "didn't understand." When given instructions, wince a lot and ask only peripheral questions. (Examples: Isn't Elvis from there? Should I start this before or after lunch? How many tables do you want in the final report? Does this have anything to do with that mess in the copy room? Where did you get that tie? Shouldn't you be giving this job to Tom?) This puts the onus back on your boss (see Habit #1), since it was obvious that you couldn’t handle the assignment in the first place.

6 AND 7

By applying the principles of marginal effectiveness, we can easily show that we don’t really need to complete items 6 and 7. 5 will keep us from getting fired. The program is working already!