How To Have Your Most Productive Year
One Principle To Supercharge Your Productivity
You’re at your desk and you feel overwhelmed by all the things you have to do. The temptation to find solace in your social media feed is even more overwhelming.
Can you relate? Me too.
To solve this continual dilemma, you go hunting for productivity hacks that promise so much but so often underwhelm and disappoint us. And then we find ourselves in a deeper hole than before.
So many people live buried under their work. But what if there was a way we could get on top of it all and finally find a way of being consistently productive?
Several years ago, I felt overwhelmed by all of it—like you may feel right now. I had so many ideas but became repeatedly frustrated that I couldn't execute my incredible intentions! Then I came across a principle that changed it all for me. Today, I want to share this with you.
The Principle: The Rule of 5
I was reading a John Maxwell book (if you haven't heard of Maxwell, stop everything and go to Amazon right now and order "The 5 Levels of Leadership"— and thank me later), and he shared a principle that has changed my leadership more than anything else.
This is the principle: Identify the five most important things you should do every day and spend the rest of your life doing them.
This is the law of consistency. It's what a leader does daily, not occasionally, that makes the difference. In fact, the most productive leaders do consistently what others only do occasionally.
John Maxwell calls this principle "The Rule of 5." The beauty of this principle is that it can be customised to your own everyday leadership context. You can also apply this principle to more areas than just your leadership responsibilities. You can have a Rule of 5 for your relationships, finances, and countless other areas.
Here are three action steps:
1) Brain-dump some ideas for what your version of the ‘Rule of 5’ could be.
2) Test them out and make tweaks until you find the right combination.
3) Schedule your Rule of 5 into your calendar and then plan your weekly schedule around your 5 things.
4) Bonus point: Develop a “Second Brain” system around your Rule of 5.
I use Notion for this. If you would like to know more about building a “Second Brain, read “Building A Second Brain” by Tiago Forte. The basic idea here is to have a way of arranging your most important work. For example, do you have an organised system for writing content? Do you have an organised place you go to find your active projects? What about your personal growth? Do you have a way of finding what you highlighted in that book? This is what having a “Second Brain” is all about.
One more thing...
The main hurdle I had with implementing the Rule of 5 was coming up with the right combination for me.
At first I just copied John Maxwells’ list but I quickly realised that I’m not him. I needed to go on my own journey to discover my five! The same is true for you!
As of today, I have practiced the same 5 things everyday for over a year and I am now beginning to see overwhelming progress in my productivity.
Here’s the thing about consistency: consistency compounds
My Rule of 5
It may be helpful if I shared with you my Rule of 5.
Feel free to get back to me if you have any questions. There’s so much more I could write but that is for another day.
Five things I do every day:
Create content.
Think.
Invest in my growth.
Work on a “mission critical project” (MC
Execute.
My five things are bespoke to me. That’s the beauty of this principle. It is transferable.
So, what could be your 5 things?
The mission you are leading and the work you are doing is far too important for you to be unproductive.
I would love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to drop any questions you have in the comments and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Thanks for your time. Here's to your most productive year yet!
Jonny
