Habits - Start your day with fighting the top priority Dragon first
Fight the Dragon First
I am a massive nerd. One of the things I love most about science fiction is how every story revolves around a hero doing something incredible. Luke Skywalker (Starwars) blows up the Death Star. Frodo trecks across Mordor to drop the ring in a volcano. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) goes full Rambo mode on a bunch of teenagers to save her sister against impossible odds.
By comparison, our lives are dominated by a to-do list filled with things like, go grocery shopping, or walk the dog, or pay the bills. As a result, this can start to make you feel like you’re the hero of a really lame story.
I’ve discovered something pretty incredible recently.
We can make things feel more or less epic simply by the words we use to describe it.
For instance, if you want to motivate a child to do something they wouldn’t normally want to do, you’ve just got to reframe it as an adventure. So instead of, “we need to find your coat so we can leave”, reframe it as, “we need to go on a quest to find your mythical missing jacket so we can go on an adventure to the grocery store”. So this works incredibly well on children. But you’re not you’re not so gullible, right? Wrong. You are nothing but a big kid and the same principle applies. We can alter our behaviors simply by changing the words we use to describe the actions we need to take. For me, reframing things so that they feel epic is incredibly effective for improving my productivity. A really powerful reframe is in how I think about the one thing. The one thing is a concept that’s all about determining what is that singular most important task that if you were to complete it, it would move you towards your goal the fastest. I’ve started calling my one thing the daily dragon. Something about the idea of fighting a dragon is just so much more motivating to me than a simple to-do list item. It might not be the same for you. But maybe give it a shot.
Here’s the thing about the daily dragon.
It’s never going to get any smaller or weaker than it is at this very moment. So delaying isn’t going to do you any favors. In fact, you’re probably delaying the inevitable by wasting time and energy fighting all the smaller monsters in your life. All you are really doing is, tiring yourself out which is going to make your battle with the daily dragon harder than it needs to be. So to get out of a rut and get your life back on track, wake up in the morning when you said you would, define what winning the day looks like, and then go fight the biggest, baddest dragon as early as you possibly can. Just get it out of the way. Then get on with the rest of your epic life.
Start with your top priority for the day
Spend the first part of your working day tackling your top priority. It’s when your energy has been restored through a good night’s sleep and you are able to give the work your best self. Most of us would agree that as the day goes on, the risk of being pulled into other people’s priorities or being distracted by intervening events only increases. Starting the day with what matters to you is how you give it your best self and mitigate the risk of losing the opportunity to focus on it.
Start the Day with Critical Work
- from the article “Top 10 Elon Musk Productivity Secrets for Insane Success”
This could mean, dealing with important emails that you need to address in order to unblock other people’s work and progress.
Be very careful to filter anything that is not deemed critical, focusing on only the most important items.
In Elon Musk’s words at the USC Commencement Speech:
“Focus on signal over noise. Don’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t actually make things better.”
Application in daily life
Find your most important task (MIT) for the day and tackle it first. Your MIT should be the one thing that creates the most impact on your work.
What’s your most important task? Use the 80/20 rule to help you figure it out and get in the habit of doing it before moving to anything else.