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Ever notice how hard it can be to take your own advice?
For years, I’ve praised the book “The ONE Thing” for its powerful lesson on focusing on what truly matters in the moment. Here’s a favorite takeaway:
“Until my ONE Thing is done — everything else is a distraction.”
Last week my ONE Thing was completing the onboarding process for a speaker management agency I’m considering.
I was making steady progress but I hit a snag when more details were needed about previous speaking engagements and other information that I didn’t know off the top of my head.
And by, “I hit a snag,” I really mean, “I actually had to put in some effort.”
But instead of pushing through with boring admin work, I paused and started working on my book proposal.
Is the book proposal important? Absolutely. But it’s not the ONE Thing I needed to focus on at the time.
I just wanted to escape the discomfort of admin work and shifted to creative work instead.
Then this thought ran through my mind:
“Finishing the book proposal will take at least a month, but I can complete the speaker onboarding process in less than a day. The sooner I finish onboarding, the sooner I can get on stage. My goal is to land a big book deal, and speaking on stages will make me more marketable.”
After realizing my own hypocrisy and misalignment, I went back to working on the speaker management onboarding.
It only took me thirty minutes to finish, and now I can continue working on my book proposal without feeling distracted or guilty.
So sure, I should have taken my own advice sooner, but this is also a good reminder of why that advice is so valuable.
If you want to try it out, ask yourself the focusing question from the book:
“What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
For me, that ONE Thing is landing a book deal with a major publishing house. Here’s why:
Over the next several years I’d like to send the majority of my time writing about the transformative power of resilience and speaking about it on stage as well.
Landing a book deal will be a huge step, but it’s often easier to get a larger book deal if you speak on stages often.
So even though I wanted to get back to writing my book proposal, in this situation completing that onboarding process was the ONE Thing to focus on.
Your goals may be different, but the process is the same. Identify the ONE Thing that will make everything else easier or unnecessary.
Then, break it down into smaller chunks.
- What’s the one thing I should do this quarter?
- What’s the one thing I should do this month?
- What’s the one thing I should do this week?
- What’s the one thing I should do today?
- What’s the one thing I should do right now?
And keep this in mind:
“Until my ONE Thing is done — everything else is a distraction.”
Terry’s Recommendation Zone
When it’s time for me to lock in on the ONE Thing, I leverage the Pomodoro Technique by working in focused 50-minute intervals with a 10-minute break in between. This method helps maintain productivity and prevent burnout by breaking tasks into manageable chunks. I can typically complete all my major tasks for the day by going through this process three times, which is a total of three hours. You can learn more about the technique in this short YouTube video.
That’s it for me. So what’s the one thing you should be working on, and what distractions do you need to look out for?
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