The One Habit That Multiplies Everything Else I Do

Sep 4

5 min read

It isn't a productivity app, and it isn't a perfect system. It's ten minutes on Sunday and ten minutes every morning, deciding what actually earns my attention before the day decides for me.

Everyday before I let myself look at anything else, I open OmniFocus. I've used that app for over a decade now, long enough that the habit runs on its own steam. I'm not opening it to see what's due. I'm opening it to decide what the whole week is actually going to be about, because if I don't make that call on Sunday, Monday will make it for me, and Monday always picks the loudest thing, not the most important one.

Every day of the week works the same way. I check the list, I pick out what's genuinely must-do, and I make sure those things get handled. That's the entire system. It's not fancy, and I'm not about to tell you it’s even something I do perfectly. But it's the one habit that makes everything else I do actually add up to something.

Every morning I open OmniFocus and look at what's on my plate, and out of everything sitting there, I pick the highest-priority, must-do items and make sure those get done before anything else gets my attention. Not everything on the list. Just the handful that actually can't slide, the things that really move the needle.

I keep coming back to the same idea I wrote about in How One Leveraging Tool Cut Overhead and Multiplied Revenue: the right tool does more for you than another hour of hustle ever will. My daily list is exactly that kind of tool. Unglamorous, and it works.

The list doesn't tell me what to do. It tells me what I don't have to think about yet.

What's the one task on your list today that actually has to happen, no matter what else goes sideways?

Each Sunday I look ahead at the whole week and figure out the real priorities, then make sure those get scheduled first, before anything else claims the time. Whatever isn't the highest priority might get pushed to another day, and I've made peace with that. If it wasn't the most important thing to begin with, pushing it isn't a failure. It's just accurate.

Some tasks sit on my list for weeks, moved forward again and again, and that used to bother me until I realized that was the system working exactly the way it's supposed to, not breaking down. When something finally becomes important enough, it gets my immediate attention. Until then, it can wait its turn.

A task that keeps getting pushed isn't falling through the cracks. It's telling you the truth about how important it actually is.

If you looked at your own list honestly, which task has been pushed five times even though it's genuinely urgent, and which one's been pushed five times because it was never really a priority at all?

The other half of staying focused has nothing to do with the list itself. It's about leveraging as much of it as I can to delegate tasks that don't require my specific skills or time, and making a judgment call, task by task, on whether something actually has to be done by me, by a particular point in time, or even at all.

I wrote a longer version of this argument in Why Leverage, Not Hustle, Is the Real Key to Success, and it's the same principle here. If you're carrying a list full of tasks that aren’t really yours to carry, check out my free Owner Diagnostic. It takes about three minutes and shows you exactly how much of an operator vs owner you are in your own business.

Prioritizing decides what gets my time. Leveraging is deciding what doesn't need to be mine to do.

How much of today's list is actually yours to do, and how much of it is sitting there because you never asked who else could?

Here's where I'll be honest with you, because I'm not perfect at this either. I don't necessarily block specific time periods to handle my tasks, even though I think it's a genuinely good idea, and I do plan on using it more and more. The trap is real: fill your calendar with appointments and meetings and never protect the time to actually do the work, and you're in a bind. You've used the whole day on meetings, and the projects that needed your focused attention didn't get any of it. Or you end up burning the midnight oil to get those tasks done.

The strategy I recommend, even though I don't fully follow it myself, is to look at your high-priority tasks first, block off enough time to actually handle them, and then let the rest of the calendar fill with appointments and meetings, not the other way around. I've written before about what it takes to hold on to your focus when everything is competing for it, in "How to Preserve Your Sanity During Chaos." Time blocking would genuinely reduce my stress. I know that. I'm working on it.

A calendar full of meetings and a to-do list nobody worked on isn't a productive week. It's just a busy one.

Before you accept your next meeting, do you already know when the actual work is going to get done, or are you just hoping you'll find the time later?

This Week’s Exercise

This Sunday, or tonight if Sunday's already gone, write down the three highest-priority things that must happen this week, before you do anything else.
Every morning, open your list and pick your must-do tasks first, before email, before Slack, before whatever shows up loudest.
Evaluate the tasks that have been sitting on your list for weeks. Decide honestly: is it a priority you've been avoiding, or is it just not a priority, and can you let it wait or let it go?
Block one chunk of time this week for your single highest-priority project, before a single meeting gets added to your days.

Final Thoughts

I'm not going to tell you I do this perfectly. I don't block my calendar the way I know I should, and there are tasks on my list right now that have been pushed more times than I'd like to admit. But every Sunday, I still open that list and decide what the coming week is actually about, what needs my attention most. And every morning I do it again for that one day. That's the whole habit. Not a hack, not an app, just deciding on purpose what earns my attention before the day decides for me.

This week, before you open your inbox, open your list instead, and decide what's actually non-negotiable. Everything else can wait its turn.

To your success,

Ral West

Livin’ the Dream