A short Optimize One video by Brian Johnson about using time blocks (deep work) to focus on the single most important daily task. He references Gary Keller’s The One Thing and Stephen King’s consistency advice, describes his AM deep work ritual, and pitches his Optimize membership and Philosopher’s Notes product as tools for applying distilled book wisdom.
You're watching an Optimize One with Brian Johnson. Unlock the full Optimize experience and join over 10,000 premium members at Optimize Me. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. So, continuing our theme of making today and every day a masterpiece day, let's take a quick look at time blocks. Gary Keller wrote the One Thing, one of my favorite books. He also created the largest real estate agency in the world. In his great little book, he tells us how important it is to ruthlessly focus on what's most important, the key activities that drive the real results. He takes the 8020 principle to the extreme and has you continue drilling down on the most important things until you get to the one thing that drives the whole show. And then he has you ruthlessly focus on what you need to do today to make that one thing a reality. Knocking over the next domino in a chain of dominoes that inevitably leads to the outcome you're looking for. Just figuring out what your one thing is over the long run and today obviously takes a lot of deep work. Gary tells us we need to create time blocks during our day. He calls them the number one power tool of time management. The rules turn off all your distractions for a set amount of time and you focus on whatever you decided is the most important thing. Then we make a habit of doing that every single day. For me, my number one creative thing is a ruthless consistency on what I call my AM deep work time block. It's the time after I get up, before the family gets up, that I use to to do that day's most important work. In fact, I worked on this +1 at 5:51am While the family was asleep. We were on a mini vacation and I could hear the ocean waves as I typed away on my iPhone. Now, at the time, I was excited for the family to get up and have another great day, feeling complete that I've already crushed it that day. And yes, that's just another little way that I'm a little weird, but I'm in good company. In on Writing, Stephen King tells us he never misses a day of writing. There's something magical about that consistency. So I love my Deep Work time blocks. How about you? When's your best time to go deep? Schedule it. Shut the doors, turn off all distractions, make it a sacred ritual, then aggregate and compound those tiny little gains over an extended period of time. Plus one style starting today. Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live. For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up. But if you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life so you can actualize your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on how to optimize your life and and pull out the big ideas that can really change your life. You know those sections you underline and asterisks and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those awesome ideas to other great books and helping you actually apply the wisdom to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I've distilled hundreds of great books into 20 minute super practical summaries. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in hour long Optimal Living 101 classes on everything from productivity, purpose and confidence to nutrition, goal setting and conquering procrastination. Helping you optimize every facet of your life so you can actualize your potential. You've got a personal trainer. I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools. That's what our Optimize membership program is all about. If you're feeling it, we'd love to have you join us.
