Dr. John A. King identifies four misconceptions that derail leaders: treating all priorities equally instead of picking one, believing multitasking works when attention can only focus on one thing at a time, overestimating willpower as unlimited, and chasing a perfectly balanced life. He suggests time-blocking, scheduling hard tasks when willpower is highest, and viewing life as seasonal rather than evenly sliced.
Hi, I just wanted to have a chat through just a couple of things that I've found over time cause business leaders and executives to derail in their productivity. A question I found myself asking myself years ago, what was the one thing that I was working on? What was the one thing I was doing today that was going to prepare me and set me up for tomorrow? We've often heard the question, you know, well, what's that one thing you're working on? What's the thing you're working on? What is the one thing you're working on? What I found is it's not the one thing I'm working on, but the 4 or 5 things that keep me working on the one thing that end up derailing me or causing me to get off track or not achieve what I think I should achieve. So let's just have a look at a couple of things that derail us from our one thing that we're supposed to be working on. The first thing is that everything matters I think we're in a habit of prioritizing things, but we'll actually end up with 10 or 15 number one priorities. See, you can't have 10 or 15 number one priorities. You can only have one number one priority, and that's the thing you should be working on because that's the thing that you've worked out is the thing that you need to be focused on in order to get your success. The second lie or factor in derailing people from their success is multitasking. You can't multitask. You can't watch a movie on your iPhone and read an article on your iPad simultaneously. You're either looking at your phone or reading your iPad. You can't do it. You need to be focused on whatever you're watching here or focused on whatever you're reading here. To say that you can is just delusional. So the whole concept of multitasking is, in a sense, delusional. You're either going to be focused on the budgets in front of you or the emails. You're either going to be focused on the project outline or the text messages coming through. It'll only be one or the other. So the whole concept of being able to multitask is just erroneous. What you have to do is block out time to do those things. Block out time for your email. Block out time for your recreation. Block out time for your reading, but block out time for your one thing. And once you're on your one thing, focus on your one thing. The other thing that I think derails people is that it's just a matter of willpower. I've got enough willpower to punch it through. I think willpower is limited. I think if you just think of it logically, I'm going to have— personally, I'm going to have greater inner strength and ability in the morning than I will in the afternoon, greater creativity in the morning than I will in the afternoon. So if I leave essential tasks to the afternoon, when it comes to that, I'm not going to have as much willpower as I would in the morning. So I think it's best if we just are real with ourselves and understand there's limits to everything. That even though I'm strong of will and discipline, I'm not going to have the same energy to get to what I need to get to at different parts of the day or under different circumstances. So when it comes to applying your willpower to get a task done, set yourself up for a win. Don't set yourself up to lose. So set yourself up to do what you need to do in the times that you need to do it. Probably the last thing is the concept of a balanced life. You know, I often hear people talk, you know, they've got, they've got their family, then they've got their friends and they've got their hobby, then they've got their faith, then they've got their work, then they've got their study. And I all have to have equal proportions for all of those things in my life as a pie. And it's just, again, it's just not true. You will have seasons in your life where you just need to focus on work. You've taken on a new job, a new project, a new client. You just need to bust it out 18 hours a day. But then there's going to be times in your life where you're going to be able to just focus on your family. There's going to be seasons in your life where you'll be able to focus on your education. Now, there are things and elements that need to run through that consistently. Your faith needs to run through it consistently. Your education needs to run through it. Your physical exercise needs to run through it. The time with your family needs to run through it consistently. So there's those consistent things. Be comfortable with the fact that the pie is flexible. Sometimes something's going to get 70% and sometimes everything's going to have an equal share. Sometimes something else is going to get 90% and everything else is just going to have to wait, including things like your workout. Or you're going to get your workout in, but it's 35, 40 minutes in and out, boom, and you're out the door. So the whole concept of a balanced life, I think, is really restrictive. Because life is much more like a river than a pie. It flows. And if you flow with life, you'll find yourself much more relaxed and much less stressed. So just to recap for you, here are some things that I find seem to get in the way of us being successful. Number 1 is everything is equal. Everything matters equally. Number 2, that multitasking is actually achievable, which I just don't think it is. Number 3 is that willpower is a resource that we have an abundance of. And number 4 is a balanced life, that you've got to live everything in equilibrium. So there's some thoughts on things that I've seen over time that have stopped people from being successful.
