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

But the joke is on us late people. Because being late causes the exact things we’re trying to avoid: inefficiency and counterproductivity. Not just for the people who are waiting, but for the people who are late. Because nothing is more productive and efficient than transition time. It’s not just our time to travel. It’s our time to think and to pl

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

Who am I if you take away my work? That’s a question to which we’d better have a solid answer. And yet many of us don’t. Fortunately, once we realize this we can do something about it.

Fifth, I had tremendous patience for things I felt were useful and enjoyable.

When an unsettling event occurs, pause before reacting. In that pause, ask yourself a single question: What is the outcome I want? Then, instead of reacting to the event, react to the outcome. In other words, stop reacting to the past and start reacting to the future. If someone yells at you, pause before yelling back. Then ask yourself what outcom

I recently happened upon a short article, “Top Five Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware, who spent many years nursing people who had gone home to die. Their most common regret? “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Their second most common? “I wish I didn’t work so hard.” There are two way

The most challenging aspect of any coaching assignment isn’t helping someone change—that’s comparatively easy. The hard part is getting the people around the person to change their perception of him. Because once we form an opinion, we resist changing it.

When you say no, mean it, and you won’t needlessly lose your time.

You’ll have an immediate, instinctive reaction. Maybe you desperately need the money to stay profitable. Maybe you believe that contracts should never be broken. Maybe you don’t trust your client; you think he’s taking advantage of you. But before you act instinctively, pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself the three questions. What’s the outcome you’

The time to judge your successes or failures is never.