The one thing

It’s very clever and the whole idea is brilliant. Basically, what you do is you wake up in the morning and ask yourself the focusing question which is ‘What is ONE THING I can do right now such that by doing it, EVERYTHING ELSE becomes easier or irrelevant’.

Wow.

The first time I read that it made no sense, but then the second time I just has a sudden moment of realization. There is always going to be one thing that when you really think about it is more important than all of the others.

If you just spend a few minutes thinking about it, you can narrow down an entire to-do list to ONE thing that makes all of the other things easier. Of course, the one thing will be different as time goes on, and every time you complete your one thing form a to do list, there will be another…

But that’s not a problem.

Once you know how to focus on one thing at a time and how to pick the most IMPORTANT thing, everything else just… happens.

If you’re a young man and you want to get a new job, what’s your one thing?

First, think about the type of job you want.

Then what?

Probably make sure you have a great CV.

Then after that, sign up to loads of job search engines, and so on…

But lots of people mix things up and will apply for any and every job, while at the same time thinking about what they want to do, balancing interviews from the jobs they applied for a week before, (while forgetting WHICH job they applied for as well!) and also wanting to tweak their CV.

You’ve got to streamline.

I owned 35 websites at one point, and I was trying to make ALL of them work as businesses. It was too much! Even in my full time agency job I was trying to balance about 5 other projects on the side on the weekends and in the evenings!

Attention and mental energy is actually a resource and it DOES run out! It’s easy to think that you can just focus on things all day long but you can’t. Your brain is like a muscle, and because I can’t really remember where I found this out, you’re going to have to take my word for it, but there have been studies done proving this!

You can prove it to yourself, actually.

Try and focus on things all day long 7 days a week, with no breaks. You’ll find that at the very best, you’re just not as effective towards the end of the days, and towards the end of the week.

Your attention is not unlimited.

Focus on what you need to focus on early on in the day.

The first 2-3 hours of your day from the moment you wake up are usually your most productive hours! There are some people who are more productive at night, sure but for most of us it’s the mornings!

Even if you don’t think you’re a morning person, that doesn’t mean you’re not most effective in the mornings. If you really make an effort to try and get up at a decent time and work, you’ll find that you’re able to get a fair amount done. It’s now 10AM and I’ve done more work on my own sites in an hour than I’ve done in the last 2 weeks.

And it’s not because I’m lazy, it’s just because I work better in the mornings. I get things done and I can focus.

I can’t really do that in the evenings, because at that time, especially after the gym or dinner I just want to chill out and listen to piano music in the bath! (I don’t even care that people know that, it’s very relaxing!)

So I think you’ve got to really look at your week and think about the things you want to get done, and then try and schedule in little time blocks in the mornings, to get that shit done!