Fake work: the tasks that make you feel productive

Fake work is anything that makes you feel like you're moving forward without ever putting you in front of a customer. It's dangerous precisely because it feels good: it gets finished, it's visible, and nobody can say no to it.

The most common forms

• Redoing the logo, colours or homepage before you have ten customers
• Reorganising your tools: Notion, CRM, task boards
• Doing "research": reading, listening, comparing methods
• Adding a feature nobody asked for
• Preparing a perfect launch instead of talking to five people

None of these tasks is useless in itself. The problem is when they take the place of the only thing that brings money in: a conversation with someone who could pay.

The three-question test

Before starting a task, ask yourself:

1. 1Does it put me in touch with a customer or prospect today?
2. 2Can it produce a number tonight (a reply, a call, a sale)?
3. 3If I skip it this week, will a customer notice?

Three "no" answers: it's fake work. You can still do it, but after your action of the day, never instead of it.

Replace it with a market-facing action

The simplest rule: every working day, one action that puts you in front of the market. A message sent, a follow-up, an offer, a call. Thirty minutes maximum.

The rest of the day can go to the product, design or organisation. But the market-facing action comes first, in the morning, before the day fills up.

What it changes

After one week, you have five real exchanges and five numbers. You know what works, what's stuck, and what your prospects actually say. No logo redesign would have given you that.