Don't Do More And Don't Do Less, Here's Why

If you're like me, you probably think a lot about doing more.

How can I increase my output?How can I check off more tasks?How can I reduce friction so I can get more done?

And here's the part where I'm about to start talking about doing less.

Right? This is where I go into a tirade about how we should be focusing on doing fewer things, better.

The truth is, that might be true for some of us.

For others, you might just really love the feeling of checking stuff off your list.And that might change depending on where you are in your career or life.

It might be true for a while and then not true later on.

And vice-versa.The most important thing here is just knowing what makes you happy.If you're like me, feeling like I'm making the world a better place is the feeling of happiness.So it's not really checking off boxes, for me--it's seeing real-world results that I impacted.

2 Minute Action

Write down a list of 5 times you felt most alive.Write down a list of 5 times you felt most dead.Boom.Now you know what kind of experiences to integrate into your life.

Use This Difficult Constraint To Your Advantage

I was reminded, yesterday, of the life changing effect of urgency.You know the feeling, it’s FOMO.

• Buy now, only 43 left!
• Limited Edition only available for the next 24 hours!
• Order in the next 15 minutes and we’ll throw in the Chop Chopper and the Double Chop Chopper free!

You’ve seen all of these before.But why?It’s not because there was an error at the factory and only 50 units were made.And it’s not because the limited edition models will expire and be in some violation of FDA regulation.They can make more units. They can expand the sale.

The punchline?

When things are important AND urgent, we take action.When things are important and NOT urgent, we mere humans are pretty inconsistent and bad at taking action.I’m not just talking about buying behavior.

I’m talking about just about every other aspect of life.

Its important to exercise, sure, we can agree on that. But since our bodies aren’t falling apart, it’s not urgent enough for us to have the motivation to go to the gym.It’s easier to just go tomorrow, when you’ll be more motivated.It's important to take your car in for a checkup, but if nothing is broken, why bother spending the money to bring it in?It’s important to us to learn that new language, but since we’re not going to travel for another 9 months, we can start practicing next week when we’re less busy.You can see where I’m going with this.Action often requires both importance and urgency, but especially urgency.Understand that you have a lot of control over the urgency part. It’s a seriously useful tool.You have the choice to use it to your advantage!

2 Minute Action:

What’s something you’ve been meaning to do?How can you add urgency?Here are some examples:Schedule a 5k run with a friend. Put a simple, weekly training schedule together and tell them not to let you off the hook.Place a “reverse bet.” Write a check to a trustworthy friend for $1,000. If you bail on your goal/deadline, tell them they are allowed to cash the check.Carve out a block of time on your calendar for that project you want to finish. Let it be sacred and schedule other things around it.

Make This Mistake And Be Stuck forever

As soon as you wake up, you’re thinking about everything you’ve got to do.But even when you put your to-do list together, you get blindsided by firey hot crises.Phone calls come in, old tasks resurface, and you feel like you’re being pulled in a million directions at once.At the end of the day, you feel like you did a TON of work, but you can’t really point to any “checked” boxes.This is called “Fire of the Day” management style and it’s a great way to ensure burnout, anxiety, and unhappiness.If you’re struggling to keep up with tasks, remember that reacting is not going to help.Its how you choose to respond (not just react) that will keep you focused.Reacting to every phone call and every email will ensure that you stay a slave to urgency—but you’re smarter than that.Tasks can be important and urgent, that’s called a crisis.But tasks can also be urgent and not important, in which case you’d be better off delegating them to someone else on your team or not doing them at all.Conflatig urgency and importance is one of the most common mistakes I see when diagnosing “Fire of the Day” management style.Recognize the difference and you’ll be able to focus on what’s important without being a slave to every burning hot urgency that comes flying at you.If you want a useful tool for helping you with this, check out the Eisenhower Decisions matrix. I share this tool with everyone I work with and point to it all the time.

2 Minute Action:

Create a quick to-do list (spend 1 minute on this).Spend the next minute assigning a number to each task.Once you have your numbers you’ve got a prioritized list of things to do.Go get ‘em.