“If it’s not getting me to £10k/m then I don’t care”
I said this to my friend a few months back, only half seriously.
Since then, it’s become a form of mantra between us, used to call the other out when we’re not focusing on the task at hand (which is often business, hence the cliché ‘£10k/m’ reference)…
‘That’s not getting you to £10k/m, why are you doing it?’
‘I was going to go to XYZ, but it’s not going to get me to £10k/m so I’m not anymore’
And so on.
Although perhaps not entirely accurate, this jokey perspective has some practical value within its message.
There’s a lot of crap in the world, and most of it’s not going to help you progress towards your goals in any way.
You need a method of filtering this crap out. That’s what Essentialism is for. An idea by Greg McKeown, made popular by his book of the same name, the main premise is that you should focus on the essential few things that hold significance in your life.
It’s not about getting better at powering forward with things — this only works through brute force for a short while. Instead, it’s better to improve at filtering out the things that don’t matter. There’s always more refining that you can do.
So how do you go about this filtering process?
At the core of remaining focused are sustainable values that you feel connected to. You have to be certain about what kind of things you want from your day-to-day work, and you have to know how to get them by no uncertain means.
By knowing what you have to do, you can remove everything that’s not what you have to do so that you have no choice but to do the thing.
An example would be knowing that you’re never going to have a good use for a Snapchat account, therefore deleting the one that you have. It’s just an extra avenue that can steal your attention even though it’s never going to provide you with any value.
Even though you’re crystal clear on what you’ve got to do, sometimes there are going to be moments where you’re uncertain. From here, you need some method of making consistent decisions. Look into ways that you can create frames of reference for your decision-making, using mental models to help you think clearly.
Essentialism, and minimalism at large, have become increasingly important to me as I’ve started writing on the internet. My time has become worth more, and my focus has a greater premium on it. Would I get anywhere forcing myself to work harder? Perhaps. But I’ve found it more effective to ruthlessly cut things off and optimise for the things that I know provide value.
So will you catch me doing things that ‘aren’t going to get me to £10k/m’? Absolutely not. Thanks for reading!