How to Decide What to Do (and Actually Do It) | Letter to a Friend #17

Hey friend,

Well, I’m back again, this time only after 3 months or something. I have some good excuses, but they remain excuses nonetheless. If this was something I truly prioritized, I would have made the time for it.

Speaking of priorities, as I’m looking at the start of potentially my final semester at Babson College (I might go abroad), I have a lot of “priorities” listed out. Yet, apparently, the word “priority” is derived from the Latin term “prioritas”, meaning “first in rank, order, or dignity.” This means there can literally only be one priority - all else must fall second (I learned this from Greg McKeown on this episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, which I highly recommend).

This, combined with Warren Buffet’s famous “2 List” exercise (this whole article from James Clear on focus is great, too), has me thinking deeply about which of my ambitions to serve first. Is it my business? School? Relationships? Obviously, it is possible to make progress on multiple things over time, but I know there will be times this semester when I will have to make clear decisions on what I want to say “no” to in order to make space for what I want to say “yes” to. Therefore, it’s worthwhile to get very clear on what comes first and know the answer to the question: “What will I sacrifice?”

Here’s a prompt from McKeown to determine what to prioritize: What is the one thing that is essential for you to achieve over the next 2-3 years? To answer this, he recommends a four-part structure: Verb, population, outcome, date.

• Verb: What is it that you can uniquely contribute? What do you do better than anyone else?

• Population: Who are the most important people in your life/business?

• Outcome: What is the priority benefit to them?

• Date: By when will you achieve this?

This might seem only applicable to entrepreneurial endeavors, but it can truly be applied to any area of your life you wish to improve in. The key is to make this improvement essential, otherwise you and I both will keep finding excuses to push it off, one day at a time.

This is so important I made a video titled How to Achieve Your Goals With 20 Minutes a Day. It gives a specific and simple 3-step process which, I still believe over a year later, is ALL you need to worry about when starting something new. Pair that video with the exercises in this email and I guarantee you will begin that glorious sense of making progress on the things that matter most, which is crucial for any degree of life satisfaction.

And that’s that. This was a longer one, but I have quite a few weeks to make up for. This newsletter is important to me, but I’m still finding for myself where it lies on the list.

Until next time,

Much love,
Ryan

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