Over the holidays, I always reread the book The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. I read a lot and I read quickly. It’s one of my gifts. If I find a book helpful, I go back and reread it. This is one those books. Keller gives a fast way of prioritizing your day and your life that lines up with you goals. When I was in college, I was introduced to the Franklin Planner. I fell in love with the pretty pages and the binder and I carried it everywhere like it was my bible. In fact, when the then Mayer of Kansas City, Emanual Cleaver saw me carrying my “bible” into our architecture office he said, “now that’s a good woman, she carries the good book with her everywhere she goes.” I did not correct him.
The Franklin Planner later the Franklin Covey planner is an excellent tool for managing your daily tasks, values, and roles but I struggled to connect my daily tasks to my bigger goals.
The One Thing that Recharged my Motivation
Everyday, you ask yourself a “focusing question” what is the one thing… the focusing question is, “what’s the one thing that I can do today that by doing so makes everything else easier or even unnecessary.” It sounds so easy but it really works.
I love what he describes as the “domino effect.” Basically, our life’s events are like a series of dominoes and that starting the first one can set a series of dominoes into motion. Also that each domino can topple a domino that is 50% larger than the one before. Think back over your past, can you think of one life event that set a series of life events into motion. For me it was a cold day in Missouri that I sent a bunch of resumes to what I considered my dream jobs in Miami. That led to working for Royal Caribbean as a designer.
“Knowing why you are doing something provides the inspiration and motivation to give extra perspiration needed to persevere when things go south.”
If you are like me and come down with a case Entrepreneurial ADD, I highly encourage to pick up the book, The One Thing it will help you line up your dominoes and focus on your one thing.
