Do Only One Thing Everyday
Sometimes do two things
I used to work for a guy who emphasized doing one, maybe two things everyday. We would have a meeting every morning during which we would plan whatever our big thing for the day was.
When the time came, we would execute. Maybe, if everything went really well, we would do a second thing that day. On some magical days, we would do a third or even a fourth thing. Doing a fifth thing in a single day was unheard of.
Any rational person may now wonder what it is that I’m talking about. What exactly is a thing? Put simply, a thing is the main actionable task you’re trying to accomplish on any given day.
Many of us set lofty goals. In our hustle culture dystopia, the more you accomplish during your waking hours, the greater your value as a human being. These hours should be extended as long as possible, impairing judgement as long as you can tell everyone you’ve ever met (and those who you’ve yet to meet) that you wake up at four every morning. I like to think that I’ve overcome this way of thinking (mostly).
My old boss would take a step back and ask the golden questions: What is the one thing I could do today that will move whatever I’m doing along? Instead of wasting all day on busy-work nonsense, we would focus on just one thing.
Would said thing take the entirety of the day to complete? Probably not. Would said thing make you feel more productive than other things? It depends. Nonetheless, the thing in question will move other things along the most. Said thing was the most high-impact activity.
I’m working on a billion projects right now (okay, five if we count them up). I used to plan these out meticulously. For each project I’d write down the next five to ten steps that I perceived to be necessary in order to move them along. While this seemed like the right thing to do (it’s what many self-appointed productivity experts claim is best), it becomes totally overwhelming, especially when you have a diversified set of goals.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t get very much done. My mind would instead experience a loop of anxious thinking. Not the result I was hoping for.
That’s when, recently, I returned to the idea of only one thing. Now, every evening (or morning, I’m only human), I make a list of each of my five projects and only mark one task for each.
The task is selected based on what I thing will move the project the furthest that day. That’s it. There’s nothing more to this. I’ve never been more productive.
Consistency is the pièce de résistance to a fulfilling life.
Potential objections:
Only one thing? There are 16 waking hours everyday (20 hours if you hate yourself enough). What am I supposed to do all day?
Enjoy your life. For many of us, myself included, it’s very difficult simply to be. I have a joke amongst my friends that the meaning of life is simply არის (aris, the Georgian word for is). What I mean by this is that we must learn to sit with ourselves, to be in the moment.
Another point I’d like to make is that while we have a lot of hours in the day, we’re not running at peak performance all day.
I, for example, am a morning person. My most productive hours are from eight in the morning until noon (it’s about ten in the morning as I write this article). Unless there’s an urgent deadline, I do the vast majority of my work before noon. I’m still working in the afternoon, but not as hard.
If you’re a night person, your productive time is likely going to be later in the day. That’s fine. The point is that whatever needs to get done needs to be getting done at peak hours.
If I only do one task daily, my competition will destroy me.
While this seems to be the case, I don’t think that most of the people claiming to work 16 hours everyday are actually being productive during all of those hours. Apart from the genetic freaks among us (let’s be honest, you’ve either got it or you don’t), most of us cannot sustain such a schedule.
What I’m promoting is a sustainable approach to a productive life. Instead of a seasonal sprint followed by burnout (there will be a future article about this), my approach can be maintained consistently for many years. Consistency is the pièce de résistance to a fulfilling life.
Every thing is made up of many little things. Where do I draw the line?
My view is that a thing should take up approximately 3 or 4 hours of undivided attention. If you’re feeling scandalous, do one thing, have lunch, do a second thing.
This article didn’t take me three hours to write; I’ve only been sitting here for about thirty minutes. That was my thing for the purpose of my writing, one of five of my projects.
Tomorrow I will edit this article and insert the images, but for today, since I have plenty of energy, I’m going to now tackle my one thing for project number two. That should be enough to do until lunch.
This week won’t be the standard one-thing-a-day model as there’s an exhibition in the gallery on Thursday, so that has to be sorted.
Until next week.