One of my all time favourite books is by Leo Babauta, the author of the Zen Habits blog and it’s called:
“The Power of Less”.
It’s probably one of the simplest and best books on personal productivity available. Not because it has the most complex processes for productivity, but because it gets to the root of the problem of the modern day world being too distracted, over communicated and unfocused.
Here are some of the coolest ideas in the book:
- ONE: Set Limits
By setting limits to anything you force the mind to come up with ways to get the result that you want within the confines of that limit. For example, the best way to get your email done in 25 minutes a day is to set a countdown timer to 25 minutes, with a hard rule that no matter what happens at the end of this 25 minutes I don’t get to look at email again until tomorrow. That will immediately get the vast majority of your email done in the given time frame. - TWO: The One Goal System.
I’ve been teaching this in my “Dreams to Destiny” annual workshop for years. It’s the idea that we can set dozens of goals in just a few minutes, but it often takes hundreds of hours to achieve any one of those goals. So the best way to focus the mind is to look through all of our goals and select the top ONE that we’re going to focus on for the coming time period. - THREE: The Simple Projects List.
Make a list of all of the projects you have to work on. Now put them all aside and pick three that you’re going to work on right now in the coming month or quarter. The big idea here is that you don’t touch any of the other projects (for now) and you don’t add any project to this list until all three projects are absolutely complete. When one project is finished, you don’t add another to your top three projects list. Instead you work on the other two, until you’re down to one and then you complete all three. The big emphasis of this book is on carefully choosing the work we set ourselves and completely finishing it before moving on. - FOUR: Your Most Important Tasks (MITs)
At the start of each day, decide on three most important tasks that you’re going to get done today no matter what. Ideally they should connect to your Simple Projects list and/ or your One Goal. After you set them, get them done as early as possible in the day. - FIVE: Eliminate Commitments
The fewer commitments you have, the more relaxed, focused, and productive you’re likely to be. Have a look at your calendar and tasks and re-assess all the commitments you’ve made. Now, be brutally honest: which ones are you not totally excited about doing. Are you willing to make the phone call or send a simple message to get yourself out of it? The idea is to spend the vast majority of your time on a handful of commitments that you’re whole-heartedly committed to. For me, that boils down to writing, coaching, Quran, JiuJitsu and spending time with family and friends. Anything else I can get out of… I probably will. - SIX: Face the Fear and Resistance.
This is covered more in the Zen Habits blog generally than in this book specifically. However, one of Leo’s big teachings is that when resistance to doing the work comes up, instead of forcing yourself to do the work (which often fails and leaves you feeling like a failure), or ignoring the resistance and giving into distraction… you simply face the resistance by sitting with it. I teach a much more specific and clear method of exactly how I recommend you to do this in my coaching programs. It’s called the “Inner Salam Method” and it often leads you to feel light, happy and ready to dive into whatever work you’ve been tempted to avoid.
If you want to achieve much more in your life by being a lot more focused and by tapping into the Power of Less, then a great first step might be to get started coaching with me.
In our first session, you’ll decide what your biggest goal is, which projects to focus on and which ones you can drop… And how to face the fear and resistance and other traps that were cleverly designed by the ego to keep you small and safe by sabotaging your goals.
If you’re ready for less draining distraction and more simple, powerful productivity, let’s get started:
