Jun 7, 2015
There’s an old Russian Proverb that says “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one."
This is the way life can feel for people like us. We’re idea people and we have ideas popping into our head all the time. We want to catch every single one of them and we end up catching nothing.
This week, you’ve heard me talk about this resource quite a few times. It’s a book called The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
I just finished it up today and I can tell you, this book was MADE for people who listen to this show: Mindset - Productivity - Self-DIscipline - Purpose
These are all major heading in this book.
The authors do a great job of illustrating why it’s vital we focus on and FINISH The ONE Thing in our life at this moment which will make all other things unnecessary or a lot easier.
The Domino Effect
Gary and Jay talk about the Domino Effect. In fact, today I saw a video where someone illustrated this perfectly.
You have a MASSIVE goal, but you just have to finish the ONE thing that’s most important right now. When you know over that domino, by finishing that one thing, it will help knock over the even bigger domino that’s next. Then by finishing or knocking down that domino, we help knock over the next bigger one.
Watch the Domino Effect Video.
You’ll see how knocking over one TINY domino, you cause a chain of
events which knocks over a massive domino in the end.
Pereto Your Tasks
If you go back to this past Tuesdays episode (#126) How to Pereto Your Way to Productivity, you’ll hear about he method Jay and Gary use to focus our attention on the tasks that are most important.
They use a tool I used as a development engineer in the semi-conductor industry. The Pereto Effect.
- 80% of your outcomes are caused by 20% of your inputs.
- 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers
The 80-20 rule.
Why Discipline is Important
The authors scared me initially because they said “Discipline wasn’t important.” Well, I thought they said that.
They share why so many of us can’t sustain our discipline. Because we’re trying to be disciplined in too many areas.
Maintain your discipline in ONE area, until that area becomes a HABIT.
Once something is a habit, it is a lot less taxing on our discipline. Then we can use that energy on another area we’d like to make into a habit.
The Focusing Question.
This isn’t just a book of theory, there are real tools you can put into play right now. Like the Focusing Question.
The question you need to ask yourself in order to figure out what you should be focusing on RIGHT now.
It’s in Chapter 10 of the book…
This book is a book YOU would benefit from reading right now.
I listened to it on Audiobook and I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve implementing the processes they outline and I’m feeling a lot more clarity about what I should be doing right now. Like this Podcast… my ONE thing for today.