The Man Who Went Broke Giving Away a Fortune

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2020/09/15/exclusive-the-billionaire-who-wanted-to-die-brokeis-now-officially-broke/?utm_source=pocket-newtab#512685fb3a2a

 harles “Chuck” Feeney, 89, who cofounded airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers with Robert Miller in 1960, amassed billions while living a life of monklike frugality. As a philanthropist, he pioneered the idea of Giving While Living—spending most of your fortune on big, hands-on charity bets instead of funding a foundation upon death. Since you can't take it with you—why not give it all away, have control of where it goes and see the results with your own eyes? 

“We learned a lot. We would do some things differently, but I am very satisfied. I feel very good about completing this on my watch,” Feeney tells Forbes. “My thanks to all who joined us on this journey. And to those wondering about Giving While Living: Try it, you'll like it.”

 

Focus and speed

Just get in the cold water!

 

I'm actually doing an online course on focus, with focus challenges.  But I like this aspect of this essay

Quite the contrary. By focusing you can increase your speed because you’re fully immersed in the task at hand.

Peter Seishin Wohl of the Treetop Zen Center in Oakland, Maine tells a story about watching Soto Zen monks in Japan—who dedicate their lives to cultivating philosophical focus through meditation—cleaning a monastery. They work speedily, practically running as they dust. This demonstrates that slowness isn’t the goal of focus. “Zen has nothing to do with the speed at which we do things and everything to do with the intimacy with which we do things. And by intimacy I mean, not forming a separation between ourselves, our minds, and the activities we’re involved in,” 

If you do each task single-mindedly, you’ll get better and faster with practice. Doing one thing at a time is “magic” for productivity, according to Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. He explains in the Harvard Business Review that multi-tasking leads to burnout and produces poor quality work. It drains energy, perpetually drawing us away from the activity at hand, which we have to get back to.

The solution is simplicity, Schwartz suggests. Start something and do it until you finish, which can mean different things depending on the activity. Obviously, you can’t write a novel in a day. But you can segment your days so that you get a single thing done in each portion. “The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal,” Schwartz writes. 

Emotions fluctuate constantly. So, feelings aren’t reliable indicators of whether we’re doing something well or something useful. As such, productive people don’t let their feelings dictate their actions. They flip the script and let action dictate emotion, doing dull stuff which feels fun when it’s done. 

 

Why Hard Work Alone is Not Enough

https://medium.com/@melissachu/7-reasons-why-smart-hardworking-people-dont-become-successful-d4d3b6119cbc

“It’s difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you.” — Russell Brand

So instead of letting fears of “what if” or “I’m not good enough” keep you back from something new, think of how you want your life to look like years from now. Getting started beats waiting for something to happen anytime.

What will you do today to get closer to your success? What are some things that have been holding you back?

 

30 days to a smarter brain

 https://getpocket.com/explore/item/30-days-to-a-smarter-brain-how-to-rapidly-improve-how-you-think?utm_source=pocket-newtab

In 30 days or less, you can adopt some of these habits to boost your brain power, improve your mental clarity and build a better brain.

Exhaust Your Brain

Challenge yourself with a whole new experience.Do more of what exhausts your brain.Your brain needs exhaustion to grow.

Take up new, cognitively demanding activity — something new you’ve never done before: dancing, piano lessons, a foreign language — is more likely to boost brain processing speed, strengthen synapses, and expand or create functional networks.

“When you’re learning something new, and your brain is feeling like it wants to take a nap, that’s when you know you’re doing things that are growing your brain neurologically, not just maintaining it,” says Dr. Jennifer Jones, a psychologist, and expert in the science of success.

Every time you learn something, you create new connections, and the more connections you can maintain, the easier it will be to retain new information in the future.

Stop Feeding Your Comfort

Comfort provides a state of mental security.

When you’re comfortable and life is good, your brain can release chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which lead to happy feelings.

But in the long-term, comfort is bad for your brain.

Without mental stimulation dendrites, connections between brain neurons that keep information flowing, shrink or disappear altogether.

An active life increases dendrite networks and also increase the brain’s regenerating capacity, known as plasticity.

“Neglect of intense learning leads plasticity systems to waste away,” says Norman Doidge in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself.

Michael Merzenich, a pioneer of plasticity research, and author of Soft-wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life says that going beyond the familiar is essential to brain health.

“It’s the willingness to leave the comfort zone that is the key to keeping the brain new,” he says.

Seeking new experiences, learning new skills, and opening the door to new ideas inspire us and educate us in a way improves mental clarity.

Anything that makes you really comfortable is not really good for your brain

When you are inside your comfort zone you may be outside of the enhancement zone.”

“Your brain needs novelty to grow,” says Jones. Stepping out of your comfort zone literally stretches your brain by allowing the dendrites to become like big trees with full branches rather than little shrubs

Start Mind Focus Exercises

Embrace mindfulness.

There’s plenty of research that shows meditation increases the grey matter in your brain.

Meditation can increase the thickness of regions that control attention and process sensory signals from the outside world.

Yes, meditation makes your brain bigger (literally).

Meditation is the art of silencing the mind.

When the mind is silent, concentration is increased and we experience inner peace and more.

But concentration requires a great amount of effort and time.

In less time than it takes you to have lunch, you could be expanding your brain — literally.

Just like building muscles, you can beneficially build the strength and even the size of your brain in the healthiest and most natural of ways.

Meditation has been proven to benefit the brain.

“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology.

The problem is getting started.

It’s kind of like going to the gym. We all know we should do it, but ..

If you do decide to give it a try, you can use Headspace, an app that bills itself as “a gym membership for your mind.”

Your Brain Needs You to Read Every Day

Reading heightens brain connectivity.

Our brains change and develop in some fascinating ways when we read.

As you read these words, your brain is decoding a series of abstract symbols and synthesizing the results into complex ideas.

It’s an amazing process.

The reading brain can be likened to the real-time collaborative effort of a symphony orchestra, with various parts of the brain working together, like sections of instruments, to maximize our ability to decode the written text in front of us.

Reading rewires parts of your brain. Maryanne Wolf explains in her book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain:

Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we rearranged the very organization of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species. . . . Our ancestors’ invention could come about only because of the human brain’s extraordinary ability to make new connections among its existing structures, a process made possible by the brain’s ability to be reshaped by experience.

Reading involves several brain functions, including visual and auditory processes, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, and more.

The same neurological regions of the brain are stimulated by reading about something as by experiencing it.

According to the ongoing research at Haskins Laboratories for the Science of the Spoken and Written Word, reading, unlike watching or listening to media, gives the brain more time to stop, think, process, and imagine the narrative in from of us.

Reading every day can slow down late-life cognitive decline and keeps the brains healthier.

Start a Journaling Habit

Getting a full night of sleep, going for a run, maintaining a healthy diet, and keeping up with family and friends all have well-documented and significant impacts on overall cognitive function.

What’s even more important for your total well-being is journaling.

Journaling helps you prioritize, clarify thinking, and accomplish your most important tasks, over urgent busy work.

Numerous studies (of the scientifically rigorous variety) have shown that personal writing can help people better cope with stressful events, relieve anxiety, boost immune cell activity.

Judy Willis MD, a neurologist, and former classroom teacher explains, “The practice of writing can enhance the brain’s intake, processing, retaining, and retrieving of information… it promotes the brain’s attentive focus … boosts long-term memory, illuminates patterns, gives the brain time for reflection, and when well-guided, is a source of conceptual development and stimulus of the brain’s highest cognition.”

Don’t Sit Still

Sitting still all day, every day is dangerous.

Love it or hate it, physical activity can have potent effects on your brain and mood.

The brain is often described as being “like a muscle”. Its needs to be exercised for better performance.

Research shows that moving your body can improve your cognitive function.

What you do with your body impinges on your mental faculties.

Find something you enjoy, then get up and do it. And most importantly, make it a habit.

Build a better exercise routine, and maintain it.

Simple aerobic exercise such as walking 30–45 minutes of brisk walking, three times a week, can help fend off the mental wear and tear, and improve episodic memory and executive-control functions by about 20 percent, according to Art Kramer of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Take a Good and Undisturbed Sleep

A good sleep reduces both physical and mental stress.

The brain accomplishes reorganization of information during sleep.

Importantly, a short afternoon nap (called the power nap) serves as an energy booster for the brain

Scientists have known for decades that the brain requires sleep to consolidate learning and memory.

Far from being lazy, napping is scientifically proven to help improve concentration and boost productivity when you reach a brain power plateau.

Studies on napping suggest that it increases reaction speed and helps with learning — provided naps are no longer than 20 minutes.

Do Nothing for a Change

Doing nothing is a skill.

Busyness can be counterproductive.

It’s hard, we know, but doing nothing is a good way to refocus your brain and help you pay attention to the present time.

Spending time unplugged, disconnected, and in silence can improve your focus, productivity, and creativity.

“….learning to do nothing will help you retake control of your attention at other times, too. One trick: schedule “do nothing” time, like you’d schedule tasks. Just don’t expect others to understand when you decline some social event on the grounds that you’re busy not being busy”, says Oliver Burkeman.

Neuroscience also reveals that silence has nourishing benefits for your brain.

The neuroscientist Marcus Raichle says his best thinking happens in quiet places. For Raichle, silence was shorthand for thoughtful solitude.

The brain is actively internalizing and evaluating information during silence.

A study by Duke University regenerative biologist, Imke Kirste, found that two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory, involving the senses.

Exceptional creativity often happens in solitude.

Thomas Oppong is the founder of AllTopStartups and writes on science-based answers to problems in life about creativity, productivity, and self-improvement.

 

speed versus velocity

 https://fs.blog/2018/03/speed-velocity/

This is a key concept.  I want to work it into my First Do No Harm chapter, but even if not, it's a valuable and, dare I say, powerful frame.

improve clear thinking

I know about all of these, but they are a potent reminder.  I need to read this every day!

On smarm

 Posting this because I love it

100 hours

We've all heard of the 10,000 hours, but Godin makes the case that even 100 hours could be a game changer.

How to be a Successful Writer: redefine success

This is advice is clearly for fiction, but I liked the article anyway.
"

I said it was easy. And it is. It all boils down to this:

Write a lot. Read a lot. Take in stories however you can. Learn.

I never said it would be fast. It won’t be. Even if you’re an overnight success.

Give that list a solid try for a decade.

The One Sentence for Speaking/Writing

This echoes what Robert Caro said he does when writing a biography.  He has done all the research and then spends days trying to find what he's trying to say.  During that time, he's miserable. As it says below, that's the heavy lifting. In the case of Lyndon Johnson he said what he realized, and I'm going from memory, was to the effect that Johnson wanted to help the misery of the life he knew in rural Texas where he grew up.  It informed his entire career and that was the  "in" for Caro.

In a book on writing non-fiction I read she says she uses mind maps on anything that's giving her trouble and waits for the "aha" as the way in.

Create the Single Sentence

Once you've settled on your topic and decide where you stand, the next question to ask yourself is: Can I articulate my position, my stance, my big idea, in one sentence? In Huffington's case, after sifting through the data, she was able to distill her message into a single sentence: Only by renewing our relationship with sleep can we take back control of our lives.

Distilling your message into a single sentence will make your writing flow better, and make your key points easier to arrange. Think of the single sentence as a lighthouse guiding you through fog. If you become overwhelmed with an abundance of data or competing themes, the single sentence will help you stay on track.

It will help inform the choices you make regarding what information to keep and what to set aside in your speech. Any piece of data, story, or anecdote that doesn't jive with your single sentence will wind up sidetracking and diluting your message.

In his book Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln, former political speechwriter James C. Humes writes, "Whether you are going to a breakfast meeting with a potential investor, making a sales talk, or delivering a product presentation, you need to first come up with the key message you want to leave with your audience."

Let that key message be your North Star. If you can't state your idea in a single sentence, don't give up. Keep at it. For many speakers, this is the hardest part of their speech — and the most critical one.

If you do the heavy mental lifting upfront, it will be much easier to craft clear, compelling copy when you sit down to write. As Humes notes, "Make figuring out your bottom-line purpose (your big idea) your first priority."

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The poster of Japanese characters

The reason I'm linking to this is that I've always remembered Ferriss talking about finding this poster of Japanese characters.  I thought it was 1000 characters, but it is actually 1900 plus characters.  The story goes, that he was incredibly relieved to see the finite quantity of actual characters to learn.  (1900!!! interesting take away, Ferriss "what? is that hard?)
But it occurs to me that Immunology can be seen as a language.  All I need to do is learn the vocabulary.  It will be grunt work, but it can't be more than 1900 japanese characters.

emergent task planner

https://davidseah.com/node/the-emergent-task-planner/

From Carl Sagan how to tell baloney

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan-s-rules-for-bullshit-busting-and-critical-thinking?utm_source=pocket-newtab

But the kit, Sagan argues, isn’t merely a tool of science — rather, it contains invaluable tools of healthy skepticism that apply just as elegantly, and just as necessarily, to everyday life. By adopting the kit, we can all shield ourselves against clueless guile and deliberate manipulation. Sagan shares nine of these tools:

1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

In the arena

A quote I've heard over and over again, but it still is bracing.

Try it. But don't just read it to yourself — read it out loud. Stand tall. Stand proudly. Don't just say the words — feel the words:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out

how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The best way to be different is to do the things other people refuse to do.

The best way to life the life you want to live is to stop worrying about what other people think.

The best way to succeed is to outthink, out hustle, and outwork everyone else.

You may not be as experienced, as well funded, as well connected, or as talented... but you can always do more than other people are willing to do. Even when everything else seems stacked against you, effort and persistence can still be your competitive advantages — and they may be the only advantages you truly need.

Dare greatly. Know victory. Know defeat.

And every day, commit to living the life you want to live.

Deadlines and enthusiasm from the middle finger project

https://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/use-a-deadline-the-way-you-use-condoms-every-freaking-time-and-other-sales-lessons-you-need/

How to stop procrasinating michal korzonek

https://medium.com/@michal.korzonek/how-to-finally-stop-procrastinating-with-1-simple-journaling-methodology-6d7904337366

Stephen Wolfram on organization, using tech for work

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/

ryan holiday on writing

https://ryanholiday.net/the-strategies-that-helped-me-write-3-books-in-3-years/
But when it’s an internal, personal commitment, that’s when the excuses and the Resistance start to creep in. Which is is why I’m committed to doing at least two articles a week on Thought Catalog and Betabeat, plus my monthly reading list newsletter, plus copywriting I do for clients.
That means my estimated output per year, without counting my books, is at least 100,000 words … and probably much more. This has led to literally hundreds of articles across many sites. I’ve even written something like 200 Amazon reviews.
It’s like your rent — you never miss it because you have to pay it.

Ikegai Visualizing Progress

https://medium.com/better-humans/how-to-chart-a-new-course-for-your-life-with-3-simple-diagrams-e9cc6b59c49d

Index cards

https://forge.medium.com/the-incredible-creative-power-of-the-index-card-b799250033c9

Minimum amount for goals

Stories to fuel your mind.

Should You Target the Minimum?

Some goals call for a slow and steady approach, while others can be achieved in a quick sprint.

Scott Young

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Photo by Don Farrall / Getty Images .

Whenever you set a goal, create a new habit or make some plan for your life, there’s a few different ways you can go about it

The first way is to target the minimum output. The idea here is that you focus on always doing at least a little bit, so that overall, you’ll end up doing enough to make it count. Examples: meditating for ten minutes a day, taking the stairs at work to get in shape, learning a new word every day.

The second way is to target the average output. Here, you focus on setting a goal that you don’t always achieve, but if you reach it enough, you’ll end up making a big difference. Examples: write a new blog post every week, read two books a month, go to the gym 4x per week.

A final way is to focus on the maximum output. Invest your energy in surmounting a specific, intense threshold that will pull you to a new level. Examples: one-rep maximum, deliberate practice, aiming at setting a personal best.

A huge array of different suggestions from personal development flow into one of these three types, yet I’ve rarely seen them analyzed together. I’d like to do that, and try to see if there’s a way of thinking which can make sense of when you should expect each type to be more useful.

When Should You Focus on the Minimum?

To understand where each of these strategies succeeds (or underperforms) you need to compare them to the status-quo.

The status-quo in minimum-focused projects is zero. This is the default, and what will happen in the overwhelming majority of cases.

One habit I’ve focused on in this way was doing fifty push-ups every day. (Since Jan 1 been doing sun salutes, 30 pushups, 1 min plank, 50 heel lifts. Not amazing but better than nothing).Some people critiqued this as not being ideal for fitness. But it ignores the alternative—usually I would do no push-ups in a day, so some is certainly better than none. Doing the push-ups hasn’t stopped me from going to the gym, but keeping the habit has made me stronger.

Another way I’ve used this was doing reading practice for Chinese. I set a goal to do ten minutes per day. Again, the default here was zero. Most days I did no practice, so a ten minute goal, even if I never do more than this, is going to be an improvement.

The other reason to focus on a minimum is that it assumes the difficulty is in starting. When initiating a behavior or effort is the hardest step in the process, you want to set lower thresholds for effort so that you can make starting as easy as possible. (This is another reason that I sometimes do the Pareto technique cycling through tasks.  Just to start and do 25 minutes of something on the list, even if it isn't the ideal deliberate practice.)

Minimum-targeting works very well for establishing stable, long-term habits. It also works when the status-quo is very low or zero effort. Finally it makes sense when initiating effort is the hardest obstacle to overcome.

Sudden Genius and Breaking Down of Categories

I've been reading "Iconoclast"by Gregeory Berns,a valuable book for anyone interested in unlocking creativity.  While reading it this article came over the transom.
So LSD and trauma can cause disparate parts of the brain to talk to each other.  One would think that you could turn down the volume of the left side of your brain with meditation, but it doesn't seem to be so.  There may not be enough novelty or enough oomph to do it.
Berns recommends consciously confronting categories and listing them, adding in weird ones like stupid, or hot.  I would suggest that this is also a type of "reframing".  This is something I try to do a lot with ideas I'm working on.  To try to put the project in a totally different category.  Acupuncture as a sort of "self soothing" or as a mounting of a healing response or as a form of neuromodulation, or as a proxy for exercise, or as a stimulation of ancient primordial mimic pathways of fish.  etc....

The One Thing, Gary Keller

I listened to Ferriss' interview with Gary Keller, an extravagantly successful businessman.  He had a number of valuable maxims, that are so easy to say and so hard to do.  I got his ebook from the library called "The One Thing" and will put a few of his words of wisdom here.  I will say, one of the things that he mentioned was having "a big life".  I have to admit, that is something that draws me.  He also admitted to wanting to live to 100.  Something that is probably out of our control, but perhaps a worthwhile goal?
1.Domino effect. Extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous.  Similar to compounding effect.
2. In business.  What's your One Thing?
 3. Instead of discipline set habits.  This came up in "learning how to learn"also. That often it's just the initial part of setting a task of learning.  Once in it, it takes less.  Same with habits over time.  It turns out it takes 66 days.  Then the habit is, well, a habit and it takes very little discipline.  At least theoretically.
4. Singular discipline.  Michael Phelps 7 days a week, 6 hours a day or some such.  Makes life easier because it's simpler and you needn't be disciplined in everything.  Aim discipline at the right thing.
5. Will Power is limited.  Be aware of it and use it on your most important tasks.  Time your important tasks for when you have the most energy.
6.Work Life Balance  There will always be things left undone.  If you do the most important things, there still will be other things not done.  In work issues this means giving the most important thing all the time it demands. So it will necessarily be extremely out of balance in all other work demands. In work, go long.  Long times out of balance, in personal life, go short.  Don't let things stay out of balance for long. In personal life, nothing gets left behind.  In work, it demands it. Extraordinary results demand that you set a priority and act on it.  In work, there is always one thing that matters the most, and then everything else.  It is way out of balance. Personal life requires that you constantly keep the family, friends, integrity, health in sight.  If you drop work, it will bounce back. Any of the others will not. An extraordinary life is a counterbalancing one.
We are kept from our goals not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal. Robert Brault
The key to success is not in all the things we do but the handful of things we do well.

There is an art to clearing away the clutter and focusing on what matters most. It is simple and transferable.  It just requires courage to take a different approach
"Judge a man by his questions, not his answers." Voltaire
7. The focusing question.  What is the one thing I can do.  You ask what is the One Big Thing (Where am I going? What target should I aim for?) , and then what is my one thing right now (What is my one thing I must do right now to help me get there? )

How big your life can be and small must go to get there.
When you do this one thing, something else will happen.
The first domino.  What is that first domino. The answer's potential to change your life by doing the leveraged thing and avoiding distractions.
The focusing question asks you to find that one domino and focus on it exclusively until you knock it over.
Focusing question applies to all areas of life. He does in this order.
Spiritual
physical health
personal life
relationships
job
business
finance
People do not decide their futures.  They decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.
Ask Great Questions.  Like Great Goals they are big and specific. Stretch. Framed to be measurable so there is no wiggle room with what the results will look like.

Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now.  Who wins the battle between our future and present selves?

Chapter 11 Living for Productivity
The most successful people are the most productive people.  Time blocking is the way to focus on your most important thing and focus.  If you do this consistently, you are focussed.  Remember, like going to a movie.  Turn everything off and work.  Work for results. Focus and time block each and every day.

There is a lot more here about finding trends and stretching.  Benchmarking and trending.  Research to get to the minimum, then stretch.  This will require that you, in a way, become more.  Not a different person, but a stretched person.

Time block your time off.  Time block your one thing.  Time block planning.
He recommends blocking off 4 hours a day for your one thing...
time block one hour a week to assess your annual and monthly goals to make sure you're on track. Lining up the dominoes.
Perseverance is not a long race.  It is a series of short races one after the other. Momentum and motivation start to take over.
If you erase, you must replace.
The key is to fully internalize the domino fall that will happen when your one thing gets done. Remember everything else will become easier or unnecessary.
"until my one thing is done-everything else is a distraction!"  Put it where you can see it
and others can see it as well.
make it a mantra
When life intervenes, which it will, simply write down, brain dump the other tasks that need to be done and put them on a list. Put it out of sight and out of mind until its time comes.
build a bunker (avoid external disruptions)
store provisions
sweep for mines (disconnect wifi etc.)
enlist support
four hours!!!

Adopt the mindset of of someone seeking mastery.
Mastery is a commitment to becoming your best. So to achieve extraordinary results you must embrace the extraordinary effort it represents.
Be willing to be held accountable to doing everything you can to achieve your one thing.
Commitments
1. Follow the Path of Mastery
2. Move from e to P
3. Live the accountability cycle

When you've chosen to master the right thing, then pursuing mastery of it will make everything else easier or no longer necessary.
Mastery plays a key role in your domino run
10,000 hours
When working in your time block have the perspective of mastery.  Mastery pays dividends.
The path of mastering something is the combination of not only doing the best you can do at it, but also doing it the best IT can be done.
From entrepreneurial to Purposeful.
When you're going about your ONE thing, any ceiling of achievement must be challenged. and this requires a purposeful approach.
When masters hit a ceiling of achievement, they look for new models and systems, better ways to do things to push them through.
As you travel the path of mastery you'll find yourself continually challenged to do new things. the purposeful person follows the simple rule that "a different results requires doing something different."

Being purposeful is often about doing what comes "unnaturally", but when you're committed to achieveing extraordinary results, you simply do whatever it takes anyway.
By taking complete ownership of your outcomes by holding no one but yourself responsible for them is the most powerful thing you can do to drive your success.  Accountability is most likely the most important of the three commitments. Without it, your journey down the path to mastery will be cut short the moment you encounter a challenge.
Without accountability you can't hit through the ceilings.
Accountable people are results oriented and never defend actions, skill levels, models, systems, or relationships that just aren't getting the job done.
Accountable people achieve results others only dream of.
When life happens, you can be either the author of your life of the victim of it.
Highly successful people are clear about their role in the events of their life.  They don't rear reality.  They seek it, acknowledge it and own it.  They know this is the only way to uncover new solutions.
Don't give into the pressure to deal with all of life's other issues.  It's a thief!
The truth is, it's a package deal.  When you strive for greatness, chaos is guaranteed to show up.  In fact, other areas of your life may experience chaos in direct proportion to the time you put in on your ONE thing. It's important for you to acdept this instead of fighting it. Francis ford coppola warns us that "anything you build on a large scale of with intense passion invites chaos". Get used to it and get over it.
Only those who wil risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
TS Eliot
Avoid regret.
Live a life of no regrets.
"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain