School is a training ground for task-based thinking.

“Will this be on the test?”

You finish your homework and then you can go out and play.

This is one reason educators are flummoxed by chatGPT–it upsets the calibrated balance of effort in the task of homework and essays. The essay was not the point, the effort was.

Schooling is organized this way because most industrial work is. Cottage industries, piecework and many freelancers work on tasks.

If tech helps you finish your task faster, the time saved is yours. Take the rest of the day off (at least until the boss recalibrates the task expectations.)

But important work is project work.

Projects have component tasks associated with them, but they all contribute to something bigger, something that feels unlimited.

Serving the next customer at McDonald’s is a task, but building the brand into a worldwide chain is a project.

Cooking spaghetti is a task, but hospitality is a project.

Projects seek to do something that might feel insurmountable, and projects often have competition. If you finish some tasks with time to spare, put that productivity to work doing something else that serves the customer. If you don’t, we might not get another chance, because someone else will.

Sometimes, people say, “they’re not paying me enough to care.” What they mean is that the industrialist has chosen them to do tasks, and going beyond tasks isn’t part of the deal. On the other hand, when we sign up for a project, the terms of the deal have to be deeper and more human than trading effort for money.

Art is a project. Connection, community building, counseling–all of these are projects. When our work is project-focused, we’re not a cog in a vast machine. Instead, we’re a contributor with agency, someone who is working with and for the agenda we’ve agreed to.

Bad bosses try to have it both ways. They are stingy with agency, authority and compensation, and insatiable when it comes to effort. But smart leaders understand that given the chance, most of us would love the chance to be seen, to contribute and to be part of something.

Go find a project.