The LEGO® Productivity Secret You Didn't Know Existed
Do you remember building with LEGO® when you were a kid? Do you remember any lessons? I bet you read this headline and said: "No one gave ME no LEGO® productivity secret!"
Here's why . . .
There's this strange notion that taking on big challenges is how people achieve big things.
Of course, this is ridiculous.
People who are shooting to be the next Google, Facebook, or Apple are thinking big--but they're not thinking of the practical approach to getting there.
Stop thinking it's "will power."
Stop thinking it's your ability to execute.
Stop thinking you don't have the right shoes, camera, laptop, pen, climbing rope, bicycle, car engine, or professional network.
Almost no one started with all that.
No one builds a huge, 1000 piece LEGO® castle by looking at the box and making it happen with just some good ol' fashioned elbow grease.
They use instructions that break the build down into small, achievable chunks.
It's not about huge willpower. It's about writing your own LEGO® instructions and breaking things down into actionable and achievable pieces.
It's less about you committing to some huge goal and it's more about making a small commitment to a reasonable goal.
Exercise is another really good example.
"The hard part about going to the gym is putting your shorts on."
- Chris' Dad
Thanks, dad.
It's less about facing some huge challenge and it's more about tricking yourself into smaller challenges.
It's these smaller challenges, when pieced together, that make the whole LEGO® build.
Okay, so how do we pull out this LEGO® productivity secret from all this?
Understand: Achieving what you want is not about going after the whole big picture, it's about building repeatable systems, made up of small achievable tasks, that make you happy when you complete them.
Successful people are not magical.
Successful people are a combination of protocol and opportunity.
2 Minute Action:
What is a goal you have?
Let's just say it's running a marathon.
How do you go from couch to 26.2?
- Register for the race.
- Lookup a training plan.
- Find someone who will run with you even when it's cold and raining outside.
These are all things you can do today, pretty quickly.
You don't have to run 26.2 miles right now. In fact, that's a terrible idea. You'll hurt yourself and never want to try again.
No matter what your goal is, I challenge you to find something you can do to move forward in 2 minutes or less.
When you string together all of these small actions, you arrive at your protocol or system for getting things done.
That's the LEGO® productivity secret.
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The Most Fundamental Lesson Of Productivity You Can Learn From Apple
Right now, Apple is spending money building "Apple Numbers."For all you non-Mac users, this is the pre-loaded spreadsheet tool you get when you buy a Mac.How many people use it?How many people rely on Apple Numbers? The truth is that we didn't buy the Mac because it was great at spreadsheets. We bought it because of the experience of using it over other computers.So why bother building all the rest?This isn't how these companies BUILT their brands in the first place. They built their brands by focusing, relentlessly, on the single most important features to THEIR customers--and no one else's.This is an important lesson to remember as we focus on what we want in our lives. Everything we do costs time and money.It's up to you how you spend it.We can only be productive when we put those resources into what matters; everything else is a distraction. Apple is wasting resources going after segments of the market that are useless to capture. If Apple really wanted to, they could be the best spreadsheet developers in the world, but they're not, they're Apple. As Apple's stakeholders grasp more influence over the direction of the company, the company's alignment with customers begins to fade.What made them successful was the attention to the needs of the market without being distracted by what companies like Microsoft were building or saying. It turned out, Apple's customers had different needs than Microsoft's customers, and they were able to carve out a huge market segment with which they could align.Boom. Product/Market fit.By focusing on what consumers actually responded to, Apple was able to build a cash cow brand without anyone seeing it coming.You only have a limited amount of time and resources to make your impact.Being productive doesn't mean working 100 hours a week. It means deciding what's important and having the discipline to stick to it and pull back when you get distracted.Don't be Apple Numbers. Be Apple.
2 Minute Action
Make a list of three things that make you feel alive.What activities give you energy?What things drain you?Now take the last two weeks of your calendar. How many hours were at work? How many were outside? How many were with others?Look carefully at your time audit and compare it to your list.Are you focusing on the right things, or will you look back at a life lived untrue to yourself and interests?