Four Frameworks for Elite Execution

optimization isn't about perfectly applying every strategy at once. It's about knowing which tool to pull from in your belt for the specific task and season you're in. Maybe you're a high-level operator in business and you're starting level zero with your health and you just need the momentum of the low-hanging fruit. Or maybe your work is jammed and you need to prioritize one avalanche task to free up your team and get out of the way. I challenge you to audit your current goals and ask yourself which of these frameworks is gonna serve you best right now. Welcome to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. I'm Josh Negron, and this show's all about sharing lessons, ideas, and strategies that sharpen your thinking, strengthen your habits, and push you to grow beyond comfort zones. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the show. We've all heard the standard productivity advice to eat the frog And tackle the hardest thing first. But if you look closely at elite performers, they don't actually rely on a single rigid method to get things done. Instead, they use a dynamic tool belt. Today, we're gonna be breaking down 4 frameworks of elite execution. We're gonna cover why grabbing the low-hanging fruit isn't a cop-out when you actually need to do the hardest thing first to kill procrastination, how to pinpoint the avalanche task that unblocks your entire workflow, and how to use interest-led attention to keep your daily growth from turning into a grind. Let's get to it. So I wanna be clear from the very beginning, I use all 4 of these for different purposes and recommend them to people for different uses. So it definitely isn't a one-size-fits-all or a progression in optimization where you'll finally reach a certain one that is the elite one compared to the others. That's definitely not how I look at this. So let's start with the one that could seem the most simple and probably get the most flack for being kind of elementary. And that is going for the lowest hanging fruit first. This is exactly what it sounds like. It's a type of execution where you identify what is gonna be the easiest thing for you to complete next and get it done. Now, you may read in some books or hear from some gurus or maybe some of your mentors of like, this is kind of elementary. Why wouldn't you select something that might have more impact? And I totally hear you, but I still think this execution method has its place. And you may even agree that yes, for people getting started, that it's a high-yield execution plan that can get the ball rolling and get momentum going. I totally get it, and I don't disagree with that. But I would also add that just because you have certain aspects of your life absolutely crushing doesn't mean all of them are. I think we can all think of people who are elite performers, millionaires, maybe even billionaires that have certain aspects of their lives 100% dialed in and they are crushing it the way the world labels success. However, their personal life may not look great, or one that's really easy to spot is their health. So a lot of times people will give everything to their job and absolutely leave their health on the wayside. And it's pretty easy to see and consequently pretty easy to point out and criticize as well. So I've run into high-functioning, successful people that have had to start relatively from square one compared to everything else in their life for things like health, personal life, maybe even spirituality. So I think that's really where this low-hanging fruit execution method is pretty helpful. When you're first getting started out, think about the first time you tried a diet, or maybe the 100th time you tried a diet and it didn't stick, right? Because there's so many challenges in the way. Sometimes people make these all-or-nothing statements. We've talked about that in previous episodes, like, I'm never eating dessert again. I'm like, guy, this is not the right way for you to go. The odds of success are relatively zero. So I think this execution method is super legit in helping you get momentum going and get some confidence brewing by simply identifying the choices that are the easiest to accomplish, get some success going, and start building that foundation of confidence. This kind of reminds me from a financial standpoint of Dave Ramsey's rules. Now, you'll find a lot of people who have a lot to say about what Dave Ramsey says. He's also a really contentious figure. He does that on purpose. That's kind of, that's kind of his jam. And it's, it's really great for engagement. One thing you'll notice he'll say is when people criticize his debt snowball, they'll say, well, that isn't the most efficient way to pay off debt. And he's like, nope, I totally get it from a numerical standpoint. I understand what you're saying about like identify the one with the highest interest rate. Why wouldn't you want to pay that off first? Because that's going to cost you less interest, blah, blah, blah. And he'll say, no, I totally get it. But he routinely says he's a fan of the method that gets the snowball rolling fastest. And he's like, I will set it, I will pay a little extra interest if we can get that snowball rolling faster. And when he says that, he specifically cites the psychological effect and the benefits that it has in keeping someone on track to continue executing. Because let's face it, if you completely abandon what you had committed to, whether that's financial freedom, better health, or whatever, if you quit, it's over. It doesn't matter what execution method you chose if you stop. So oftentimes this execution method can really be identified as like the easy way out, maybe not maximizing every single optimization opportunity. And again, I would argue that this is one that can be critical, particularly if you're trying to address something that you are admittedly a beginner or a novice level in. And this is a tactic that can be used with James Clear's habit stacking, for example, in his book Atomic Habits. We talk about that very often on this show, and that is where he has you combine something you want to do with something that you're already doing. That is a method way of applying something that's low-hanging You're like, I can do this because it could pair easily with something I'm already doing. And then it almost feels like I'm not doing anything additional, but as we know, daily anything, right? So, and this grows that momentum we've been talking about. Like I always tell anybody who's after some really audacious health and nutrition goals, our goal here is to find a sustainable lifestyle change rather than a temporary fad. So take an inventory. Is there something that you're currently working towards that maybe you're admittedly less experienced in and you could benefit from identifying some of the easiest things that you can do to help you move closer to that goal, closer to achieving more in that area? But admittedly, those things are relatively easy. And if they are easy, you can get 'em outta the way. And if they have minimal impact, keep going. And that brings us to the second execution method, and that is the hardest thing first. You may have heard it in the phrase eat the frog, which is kind of weird, But I guess eating a frog would be difficult. So that's gross. But the idea is do something difficult the first part of the day or have the first thing you do, say on your to-do list, for example, choose the hardest one first and get it out of the way because then everything else is easier at that point. Now, for my example, what I do daily is on the weekdays I do CrossFit. And I have to tell you that because I do it. That's the rule of CrossFit. You have to tell everyone you do it. So, and admittedly, the first couple of reasons I was doing it was for fitness and for the community. The mental aspect was the furthest thing from my mind when I started it 7, 8 years ago. But over time, I saw how it affected me mentally in the willingness to do hard things, to get things done, to not quit even when things get absolutely brutal. It's weird how physical feats like that can have tremendous benefits in all aspects of life. If you've ever done anything like that, you know how it translates. And if you're anything like me, It was kind of a surprise. If you follow people on morning routines, you have definitely heard of cold plunges. It's a thing. Yeah. So, and that's what they say too. Like, even if there aren't any health benefits, which there's some arguments about these days, you're still getting something extremely difficult out of the way early on. And then everything else seems somewhat easier compared to that. And there's a level of truth to that. It gives you a certain thread of confidence throughout the day that I think would be missing to a certain degree if you didn't do that. And maybe your morning routine doesn't quite look like that. That's okay. A lot of high achieving people have some sort of challenging fitness or activities in their morning routine, like a cold plunge or something like that, that challenges them in that way. If that's not your jam, then you can do it in your to-do list. So when you list things out and you have your itinerary for the day, identify the one thing that is the most difficult or the one that you least want to do, and then get it done. And this acts like a psychological anchor and really becomes where the rubber meets the road for Battling against procrastination. Because at the end of the day, the tasks that you least want to do and are the most difficult are likely the ones you're going to procrastinate on the most. So if you get them out of the way early, they're done. And arguably, it'll make you more productive for the rest of the day because you got those out of the way. And now these are like cruise control tasks and things you can just knock out. And we've all been there. We've all had a task that we didn't want to do or a conversation that we had to have but didn't want to. And there's all these things that you can just justify doing instead of that thing, no matter what. Just open up your emails or your text messages or maybe even your past due tasks in your to-do list. And listen, all those things have their place, but there's a reason why you need to get that one thing done. So get it done, eat the frog, get the hardest thing out of the way, and then tackle the rest. Not only is this a great productivity tool, it builds confidence and resilience in making it easier to tackle those things on a daily basis. Again, We talk about the importance of daily things so often here. And if you're doing that on a daily basis, tackling the hardest thing, that's gonna become second nature to you. And when you identify anything that needs done, you're gonna be automatically subconsciously looking for, okay, what's, what's the biggest thing? What's the most hairy goal here? Bam. Okay, let's do it. I would argue this also makes you a greater asset on your team, a greater employee, a greater leader. Hard things by definition are things that humans naturally avoid because we are hardwired to seek comfort. Not uncomfortability, and becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable is a skill that you have to develop. And this is part of what gets you there. So not only is this an execution tool, it is a character-building tool to increase your effectiveness as a valuable asset to those around you if you can identify those tasks and those items on a daily basis and get them done. And that leads us to our 3rd execution method, And it's called the 80/20 execution method. And that just involves identifying the tasks and priorities that are going to have the largest impact for you. So the 20% of items that are going to have 80% of the impact. And what a lot of people will tell you with this method is that sometimes those 20% items will have such a large impact that it can make some of the items on your list irrelevant, which is a pretty big deal. So the Navy SEALs have a saying, prioritize and execute. So there's a huge value to finding a method that works for you in listing out all of your daily activities, tasks, and goals that you want to accomplish for that day, whether that be pen and paper, or if it's an app for you in your calendar, to-do list, whatever it is, identify something that'll work for you that you can do, you guessed it, daily and review it every morning. And what helps you there is you can look at each task, look at each thing that you have to do and prioritize and execute. What is the most impactful thing that I can do? Not only the hardest thing. Now we're looking at what if I did it is going to have such an impact that could potentially make some of these other items irrelevant, which that's huge as far as optimization and productivity. After you identified the hardest thing and the things that are going to have the biggest impact, then the rest is still prioritizing and executing. And that's gonna look different depending on what's on everybody's list. But there's some things that naturally matter when you're looking at this. Due dates is one of them. So on due dates, if someone asks you to do something, what often happens is they don't give you a deadline. If you notice that you're given a task without a deadline, I encourage you just close the loop right there and ask the hard question, when do you need this by? It sounds rude because it's implied as soon as possible. But you'll be surprised. Sometimes they'll give you an answer of like, oh, well, I don't need that for a couple weeks. They were getting something off their to-do list to get you started on it so they can stop thinking about it. But if you didn't ask, now you're like, great, I have this extra thing on my plate I don't have time for, and I guess I'm gonna go ahead and do it. And we've all been there. You go ahead and give them your deliverables and they say, oh, I didn't expect this this soon. Okay. So just ask for clarity. Those of you who are asking for tasks, Just ask for it when you want it. But that's another episode. Gain that clarity because that will help you prioritize, execute, and schedule your calendar. In addition, another easy filter is what are tasks that you can delegate? What is something that others can do so that you can do only what you can do? Now, this really applies to my leaders because there's a difference between tasks that are ones that you and your employees can complete versus ones only you can complete. So if you start the day with 20 tasks and only get 10 of them done, could you have gotten all 20 done if you had delegated 10 that can be executed by someone else? That's an important question. So identify those tasks that can be delegated. Delegation's tough for any leader. You can read 700 books about it, but the bottom line is identify those, see if you can delegate those. And now we're left with the items that only we can do or couldn't delegate. And then you're looking at due dates, urgency, and then something I like to call the avalanche task. Now, this task is one that maybe isn't super urgent because whatever it is doesn't have a huge impact on something in that particular moment. However, think of it like the beginning of a workflow. You do that task and then maybe there's a waiting period or maybe there's an approval period or some sort of pause, but then after that period, it unlocks all these other tasks for you and maybe your employees to do. And those are things that essentially make you the bottleneck. So these avalanche tasks, I encourage you to identify those. What is one thing that I can, that I can do now that can get these future tasks on our plate sooner so that we can get another thing done and not leave it till later? Or is there someone down the line waiting on something that you need to complete and those kinds of things? So these are things that like are linchpins for tasks down the line. And so when you identify those, you also wanna get those done sooner because those are things that people are waiting on that are gonna unlock tasks down the line. And essentially you are the holdup in that scenario. You wanna identify those, know where they are so that you can gain an understanding of when you need to execute on. And then you just do this on repeat every single day. You go back to the list, start your day. What didn't you finish yesterday? A lot of to-do apps will allow you to filter those and bring those back to today. When you're in a paper notebook, you can look back what wasn't crossed off yesterday. Boom, you're going to write it on today and those kinds of things. So hardest tasks, due dates, delegated tasks, tasks you can and cannot delegate, ones that are going to have the biggest impact and might even make other tasks on your list obsolete. And what are those avalanche tasks? What are those tasks that you are potentially the bottleneck of if you keep them waiting? These are all pieces of this execution model to help you be more productive in a day. And finally, the last one in our framework is the interest-led daily attention execution model. And what does that even mean? That means if a habit is strictly a voluntary, non-required habit, that sometimes you just allow it to be interest-led. For example, because I commit myself to the 4 Gs every day, that's gratitude, goal, growth, and grace. The 3rd one being growth is committing yourself to at least 30 minutes of learning every single day from whatever medium. That being a book, a podcast, course, mentorship, continuing education, whatever. But for this one, I specifically have honed it in to be interest-led, which can change. This 3rd G is designed to stretch your brain and grow it on a daily basis. It doesn't specify what type of growth. It could be learning a new language, playing an instrument, and even those kinds of things. It's not traditionally something you think of when you're learning something new, and yet it's still accomplishing the same goal. Keeping your brain flexible, open to challenge, and taking advantage of all that fun neuroscience stuff. So as a result, my argument is have it be interest-led. There was a year that I committed myself to a goal of reading as many books as I possibly could, and I got over 30 read that year. And don't get me wrong, that was super impactful. And I'm not saying I didn't enjoy myself, but there were moments throughout the year where it was challenging to continue because I was kind of getting burnt out of that one medium, that one strain. So there's no law on this that commits you to having to stick to something for X amount of days, months, weeks, whatever. Now, the argument is similar to the interest rate argument earlier on the Financial Peace University scenario. Some people might say, well, you should learn what would have the biggest impact on your business or your side hustle or your personal life or whatever. And I don't necessarily disagree with that. But at some point when you're doing it on an absolute daily basis and all you're learning about is whatever's specific to your job I'm sorry, I don't think you're gonna stick with it. And if you do, you're elite and you should start a podcast. But until then, I think that interest-led can be really, really powerful because when you're interested in something, that's what makes it engaging. That's what makes you remember it. That's what makes you grow. So if you're just listening to someone drone on about some boring stuff about your work and your heart's not in it, I would argue you're not gonna get the benefit anyway. So is there a language that you've been wanting to learn? Is there an instrument that you'd love to play? I had a friend who was like, hey, I read one fiction book in between a few of my nonfictions every single time just to keep the habit fun. He's like, because if I chain too many nonfiction books together, he's like, I start to burn out. So I keep those fun books in there, keep it all spicy. Keep himself engaged and go back to the nonfiction books. The cool thing is, If you're learning one particular thing that you're interested in, there's multiple modalities as well. So you can engage in YouTube, you can engage in books about that topic, as well as even mentorship on that topic. So I recommend you allow your curiosity to fuel your growth in identifying what do you have interest in that will keep you engaged. And if you're reaching a point of burnout, it's time to switch. And then to close that out, the way you keep it from becoming shiny object syndrome, where you partially know how to play like 17 instruments, but you really can't do anything significant in any of them, is grounding it to one actionable thing that you can do every day. So Danelle's 4 Gs, that growth, that's one thing she'll have you do. Identify one thing that is actionable from what you learned that day. Now, I get it. Learning a new language, playing a new instrument, those things may not elicit answers to that question that might be useful. Nevertheless, the growth is designed to challenge you to leverage The neuroplasticity of your brain and keep it that way. So if it's something you're really interested in, something you're really curious about, go ahead and check it out and learn about it. The impact of that daily engagement is gonna have those benefits to your brain anyway. So as you look at the week ahead, remember that optimization isn't about perfectly applying every strategy at once. It's about knowing which tool to pull from in your belt for the specific task and season you're in. Maybe you're a high-level operator in business and you're starting level zero with your health. Like we talked about earlier, and you just need the momentum of the low-hanging fruit. Or maybe your work is jammed and you need to prioritize one avalanche task to free up your team and get out of the way. I challenge you to audit your current goals and ask yourself which of these 4 frameworks is going to serve you best right now. And like I said, I use all 4 of these almost on a daily basis, so you don't have to choose one In particular, identify ways that you can leverage these all to your advantage on a daily basis. Thanks for listening to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. Remember, growth happens when you take action. So subscribe, share this with a friend, and most importantly, put what you learned into practice because daily anything changes everything.