In the most recent episode of My First Million with Ali Abdaal, Shaan Puri explains how he is able to define his workday as a success 13 minutes and 45 seconds into the podcast. He says,
“What’s one thing where if you just have one outcome of the day the whole day is a success? Whether you did anything else or not? Is there such a thing? And if there’s not, you’re sort of like hunting mice. You’re just like nibbling on little stuff and don’t have anything that super impactful that you are striving towards. If you have one impactful thing, then that one thing should be enough for the day. Imagine doing the one most important thing for 365 days out of the year. You would outpace all the productivity nerds out there.”
How Ali Abdaal Made 2 Million Dollars in One Week (#530)
It’s not easy identifying the most important task to work on for a particular day, especially if your company is very young and you may not have a great understanding about what the most important thing is to do. So it’s fair to say that identifying the most important task for the day is a skill that must be practiced over and over again in order to become better at it.
So take 5 minutes at the beginning of each day and write down one task that you think is the most important for that day. Then, write down all of the other less important tasks you think need to be completed for that day. At the end of the day, or throughout your work, check off all the tasks you completed and take a minute to see how you feel.
Do you feel like you accomplished something great that day? Do you feel like you did something that moves you one step closer to a bigger goal?
If the answer is yes, or a little bit, then you’re on the right track. If the answer is no, then use some time in the 5 minutes the next morning to rethink your top priority task.
I know this strategy is not perfect, but I think that it is very helpful to think about your tasks for the day before jumping straight into work. Priorities change all of the time and if you finish most days feeling like you are making progress towards a goal, chances are you will be excited to start working the next day.
Get After It!\
-Austin
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