From Busy to Effective with One Question

ByJowi Witt

We are caught in everyday to-do lists.
Some days feel like a golden cage.

There are just enough urgent tasks on the list that you don’t immediately quit.

I have also tried many fancy, long to-do lists.
And the day had just started —
and I was already chasing after it.

I was running behind on every task.

As soon as I deliver & finish my first activity on time.
I already ran behind the rest.

Even all the productivity hacks can’t help you.
They are all good and well until something changes your wild set-up.

The train is delayed.
No matter how efficient you are, once you lost time somewhere, you can’t catch back up.

Studying Forestry has definitely helped me with my long term thinking.

I had to zoom out of the moment.

We had to make decisions which tree to cut down and which to keep.

The Question became as following: Which one Tree do I need to support today
so that it can keep growing better for the next 10 years
​without needing more help?

That was the simple question that I had to answer for each tree. The ones that needed to be cut down – where the ones with less chance of growing well and were in the way of a more healthy tree.

I started noticing that not every problem that exists today is actually going to be there tomorrow.

The author of The One Thing has summarized this into one powerful question:

What one thing can I do today that would make all my other problems go away?

Now my to-do list started to shrink.

The better I got with asking this question,
the faster I got to narrow down my next one thing to work on.

This question is now the replacement of my to-do list.

I focus on this one thing and get it done.

This has not made me efficient,
but effective.

I work until I’m done.
The work is more difficult —
but effective.

Keep Reading

  • It All Comes Back to Communication

    ByJowi Witt

    Greetings Reader, Over the weekend I had a few chats with a friend on the effects of AI. We will be in for a ride. Sure the opportunities are endless. It will get stronger and better, but it also feels like we’re losing more and more the human touch. I’m trying to figure out how to talk about business without touching the subject of AI. The development is just so much faster than I anticipated. I’ve been in this space now since the launch of GPT 3,5. And it’s been a wild ride. I can promise…

  • The Three Models That Help You Move Fast

    ByJowi Witt

    Greetings Reader, Last night I spoke with a lot of Founders at a local event. There is one pattern that kept coming up. I’m planning this. I’m waiting on this. I haven’t gotten the feedback yet. All those statements are holding your business back. They will lock and keep you stuck, because you gave the power to act away. Over the past years I’ve tried to study the greed and there are three models that help you move fast. Urgency is the mover. Urgency means to just close the gap between…

  • The Fight Between Persuasion and Manipulation

    ByJowi Witt

    Greetings Reader, Recently I did a deep dive into the world of communication. There are generally two different skillsets to communication. One is the personal communication. Your journal to your dinner table conversation. When we enter the arena of public communications we have a lot of traditions. We have the historic school of the Orator – aka. Speaker. Over the centuries we have seen a specialization. The speaker was trained in propaganda. The Art of public persuasion. After the second…

  • The Hidden Truth Behind Consistency (not many know)

    ByJowi Witt

    The first advice people will hear is to be consistent. Post daily. Stick to your schedule. Be consistent. Most give this advice without giving you the understanding of why it matters. “When everybody is consistent, I’m not able to stand out.” That’s what I often hear as a response. “I need to focus on my quality, since everybody is focused on quantity.” This is also a false belief. Since you don’t even know what quantity is. So back to the advice to be consistent. Most people that try…

  • The Hidden Truth Behind Consistency (not many know)

    ByJowi Witt

    The first advice people will hear is to be consistent. Post daily. Stick to your schedule. Be consistent. Most give this advice without giving you the understanding of why it matters. “When everybody is consistent, I’m not able to stand out.” That’s what I often hear as a response. “I need to focus on my quality, since everybody is focused on quantity.” This is also a false belief. Since you don’t even know what quantity is. So back to the advice to be consistent. Most people that try…

  • You Won’t Have Time “Someday”

    ByJowi Witt

    I’ve thought about this a lot. We often take our life and the time we have for granted. How often do I catch myself with a thought of:“Someday I’ll do this” or“When I have time, I’ll get to it.” Those are statements that make us feel good because we didn’t say no to it — and we still believe that we will get there. But the reality is: We don’t magically get more time. And we also don’t know how much time we have left in our life. My mom dreamed of retirement. Yet God has called her home by…