“The 1 Thing” Principle: Recentering and Resetting Priorities
I had the great opportunity last week to spend more time with our America’s Support team as their manager was out of the office. While my office is right around the corner from them, and I see many of them on a regular basis, the America’s Support manager is usually the helping hand in case of Management direction.
During this week, multiple people talked to me about their stress level, and the amount of time they were investing into their work. On top of extra hours spent trying to reach an unknowable and untenable “stopping point” there was a shared feeling of uncertainty in the tasks, they focused on. This included questions or statements like such:
- What do I do first?
- Which task do you think is most important?
- I’m so overloaded I can’t get it all done in one day!
- I feel lost…
I know these feelings. I have felt them myself. The secret I don’t tend to tell people, is that I often feel this burden of conflicting sensibilities leaving me… Rudderless. So what can one driftwood captain say to the wandering sailor who beaches their self upon your desk?
The one thing people are most liberal with is their advice.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld
I sat there listening to them and the words of my mentor came into my head. Truth be told I should have been quicker to remember them. After all, I knew from first hand experience, the emotional duress that my team members were under, and the amount of work they took home.
I gave them this advice, and I’d love for you to read it and give feedback:
- Get a paper and make a list of all the activities and tasks, and items personal or otherwise that you need to accomplish.
- Prioritize that list, Marking which are urgent, or important, and which are not.
- Pick one thing from the list that you want to get done, and repeat this every morning..
- Focus on getting that ONE THING completed, then focus on another item on the list… ad infinitum.
The HARDEST, YET MOST IMPORTANT PART is to remember the following advice.
“No matter how much you may or may not have accomplished beyond the ONE THING….Learn to be happy having only accomplished something today.“
That one thing could be as simple as getting your teeth brushed. Does it have anything to do with that report that needs to be done on Friday, or the school project you have due in two weeks? Not necessarily.
BUT THAT ISN’T THE POINT!
The point is to get something done, and to learn to set realistic expectations OF yourself, FOR yourself, and BY yourself. This is definitely an approach where less is more. Focus on trying to be happy that you got the ONE THING that you promised yourself you would get done. This does not mean only do one thing, but to set a simple goal and accomplish it. and start with a single focus towards completing this goal. Then you can work on other tasks for the rest of the day.
It is amazing to find out how many people find this principle so difficult. I sure did. We are always weighing what they have to do, against the supposed expectation of others. It is hard to let go.
Remember that the point of the exercise isn’t to do ONLY ONE THING, it is to set a goal to get that ONE THING accomplished today. not great for really big over-arching projects, but it works really well if your project is so complex that it gets overwhelming.
You matter. Your sanity matters. Your family time matters. You are capable. You are amazing people who deserve to reduce the stress from the work we voluntarily take home, that should be left at work.
Kevin Steele
Learn to be ok with the one thing, and what you will find is that what you can accomplish afterward is amazing. Now to take my own advice. Remove myself from work related behaviors, and go kiss my wife. Here I am at the end of the day, and I still have MY ONE THING left to do. Wish me luck!
My name is Kevin Steele and I am very new to the LinkedIn Publishing world.
I have some very non-industry-standard ideas and mentalities. I’ve lived all over the world from Saudi Arabia to South Carolina. I work in Technical Support and IT Services industry and don’t see that changing anytime soon. (Maybe I’m crazy)
I love meeting new people, and I’m so glad you took the time to read this message. If what I wrote made you stop and think, I want to know – Good or Bad! If you have a spin on my post, please feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments section below.
Connect with me on LinkedIn and together we can improve the world.
This article was originally published on Linkedin on September 2017.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/1-thing-principle-recentering-resetting-priorities-kevin-steele/