By Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
Whether training others to build the competencies needed to improve their work results or focusing on hitting your own objectives, one critical question always comes up: How can I get more done in the time I have?
The pursuit of productivity has become ever more elusive as everyone feels the double crunch of heavier workloads and the increased speed and distraction brought on by our technology-fueled, always-on work culture. In this environment, the question should not be how to accomplish everything; but rather, how to make sure the most important things have enough time to get done.
This new definition of productivity is at the heart of one of the most common misunderstandings about what it means to be successful—that everything matters equally. While equality is a worthy ideal pursued in the name of justice and human rights, in the world of achievement, everything does not matter equally. In the world of true productivity, equality is a lie. Understanding this is the foundation of making the right decisions about how to produce your best work, and for training programs intended to help employees improve their own results.
So, how do you decide? When you have a lot to get done in the day, how do you decide what to do first? Today, it seems there is more and more piled on that we believe “simply must get done.” Overbooked, overextended, and overcommitted until “in the weeds” overwhelmingly becomes our collective condition.
That’s when the battle for the right of way gets fierce and frantic. Lacking a clear formula for making decisions, we get reactive and fall back on familiar, comfortable ways to decide what to do. As a result, we haphazardly select approaches that undermine our success. Pinballing through our day like a confused character in a B-horror movie, we end up running up the stairs instead of out the front door. The best decision gets traded for any decision, and what should be progress simply becomes a trap.
When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity often is unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.
As Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” Knocking out a hundred tasks for whatever the reason is a poor substitute for doing even one task that’s meaningful. Not everything matters equally, and success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play it on a daily basis.
So, with so many things you could do, how do you decide what matters most at any given moment on any given day?
Just follow Pareto’s lead.
In the 19th century, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto had written a mathematical model for income distribution in Italy that stated that 80 percent of the land was owned by 20 percent of the people. Wealth was not evenly distributed. Pareto’s Principle, as it later became known, refers to the “vital few and the trivial many.” Richard Koch, in his book, “The 80/20 Principle,” defined it about as well as anyone: “The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards.” In other words, in the world of success, things aren’t equal. A small number of causes creates most of the results. Just the right input creates most of the output. Selected effort creates almost all of the rewards.
Pareto points us in a very clear direction: The majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do. Extraordinary results are disproportionately created by fewer actions than most realize. The great insight from Pareto’s Principle is that not everything matters equally; some things matter more than others—a lot more. A to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto’s Principle to it (download the PDF of Figure 1 at the end of this article).
The 80/20 Principle should be one of the most important guiding success rules in your own career, and in the careers of those you train. But there’s a catch. Pareto doesn’t go far enough. You must go further. Go small by identifying the 20 percent, and then go even smaller by finding the vital few of the vital few. You actually can take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing. No matter the task, mission, or goal, start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE. The imperative ONE. The ONE Thing.
The inequality of effort for results is everywhere if you simply look for it. There always will be just a few things that matter more than the rest, and out of those, one will matter most. A few tips:
- Go small. Don’t focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters most to drive your day.
- Go extreme. Once you’ve figured out what actually matters, keep asking what matters most until there is only one thing left. That core activity goes at the top of your success list.
- Say no. Whether you say, “Later,” or “Never,” the point is to say, “Not now,” to anything else you could do until your most important work is done.
- Don’t get trapped in the “check-off” game. If we believe things don’t matter equally, we must act accordingly. We can’t fall prey to the notion that everything has to be done, that checking things off our list is what success is all about. We can’t be trapped in a game of “check off” that never produces a winner. The truth is that things don’t matter equally and success is found in doing what matters most.
Sometimes it’s the first thing you do. Sometimes it’s the only thing you do. Regardless, doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.
Excerpt from “THE ONE THING: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan (Bard Press, April 2013). For more information, visit www.the1thing.com.
Professionally, Gary Keller’s ONE Thing is teaching. As co-founder and chairman of the board, he built Keller Williams Realty International from a single office in Austin, TX, to the largest real estate company in the U.S. by using his skills as a teacher, trainer, and coach. An Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and finalist for Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Keller an influential leaders in the real estate industry and has authored bestselling books “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent,” “The Millionaire Real Estate Investor,” and “SHIFT: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times.”
Jay Papasan is the executive editor and vice president of Publishing at Keller Williams Realty International and president of Rellek Publishing. Professionally, Papasan’s ONE Thing is writing. During his years at HarperCollins in New York, he worked on bestselling titles such as “Body-for-Life” by Bill Phillips and “Go for the Goal” by Mia Hamm. More recently, in the 10 years he’s worked with Gary Keller, Papasan has coauthored 10 award-winning or bestselling titles, including the “Millionaire Real Estate” series.
