[3-1-3] The next right thing

Hey 🙂

One of the most common things I write down, especially when there seems to be a lot to do, is to ask the question: “What’s the next right thing to do?”

I’ve shortened that to NRT (next right thing).

There are a lot of days when I run out of steam, energy, focus, motivation, or gumption. I look at my list of things to do and nothing feels like the thing I want to do. Something does take over, which is this idea: just making progress is sometimes enough.

The question I then ask myself is, “What’s the next right thing to do?”

Oftentimes I just pick one thing and I get on with it, and that’s enough.

If you’re feeling like you’re running out of energy, running out of motivation, nothing’s inspiring you, or you’ve got a laundry list of things to tackle — just ask yourself, “What’s the next right thing?”

Pick one thing, move it along. You’ll probably find you feel a lot better having done that too.

Your 3-1-3 for the week

Let’s take 10 minutes out this Friday to do your 3-1-3, and get you back on track heading into next week with focus and direction.

A week is just about enough time to get off track.

1. Three wins. When you look back across this week, what are the three things that feel like progress? No matter what kind of week you’ve had, there’s always progress to be found. Finish the week on a high with what you got done. You’ll probably find you made a lot more progress than you think. Take a moment here to recognise where your team made progress too, before the week finishes up.
2. One objective. What’s the single most important project or objective that needs your attention next week? Ask yourself the one thing question: what’s the one thing that, if you did it, would make everything else easier or unnecessary? You may need to write out a full list first before you can reorder it and find the main thing. Sometimes you know exactly what it is. We live complicated lives with a lot going on — but if you had to choose just one thing to make progress on next week, what is it?
3. Three tasks. Write down three things you can actually schedule into your calendar for next week — things that, if you did them, would move the needle on that one objective. Get detailed, get it into your calendar, and get your week planned before the week begins. Do that today, Friday, or over the weekend, and you can land Monday already knowing what your week looks like.

Don’t forget to protect that time for your most important thing — your 20% time. 20% of your time drives 80% of your results.

The question is: what should that 20% be spent on to drive the best results?

You can only do one thing at a time.

Get your week planned, and don’t forget to send me your 3-1-3 to chris@chrismarr.co.uk — I’d love to read it.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.