18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

Reducing your forward momentum is the first step to freeing yourself from the beliefs, habits, feelings, and busyness that may be limiting you.

There’s a method of long-distance running that’s becoming popular called the Run-Walk method; every few minutes of running is followed by a minute of walking. What’s interesting is that people aren’t just using this method to train, they’re using it to race. And what’s even more interesting is that they’re beating their old run-the-entire-distance

if you’re a manager, your first duty is to do no harm. A friend of mine, Kendall Wright, once told me that a manager’s job is to remove the obstacles that prevent people from making their maximum contribution. That’s as good a definition as I’ve ever heard.

There is a much cheaper, easier way to place a person—you or anyone—in a position to succeed. Ask one question: What do you do in your spare time?

A daily plan helped me tremendously. I structured my day so it supported me in becoming the kind of consultant I wanted to become. That meant making explicit decisions, ahead of time, about where I would spend my time and where I wouldn’t. It meant lists and to-dos—but not too many—and a calendar that truly reflected who I was and what I was trying

I’m doing the right things with the right people in the right way to make the most of who I am.

To get the right things done, choosing what to ignore is as important as choosing where to focus.

But I wasn’t the person who needed to use it. Here’s what I figured out: My perfect is not their perfect. They don’t have a perfect. In fact, there is no they. There are two thousand individuals, each of whom wants something a little different. The more perfect I think it is, the less willing I’ll be to let anyone change it. The only way to make it

Spend a few minutes at the end of each day thinking about what you learned and with whom you should connect. These minutes are the key to making tomorrow even better than today.