Productivity Tip: The One Hour Solution
The 1-hour solution is a stolen strategy from Roger Seip, author of Train Your Brain For Success. Seip’s solution is called the 2-hour solution and the goal is to dedicate two hours each week to create the next week of your life mentally.
I love the idea, but I also know how lazy we are, so I have decided to reduce it by half and hack it in a way that is a bit easier for all of you Lazy Bastards out there.
Seip’s system is a little bit like an accountability meeting with yourself, where you can reconnect with your goals and assess what works, what didn’t work, and have a look at your schedule for next week and define what do you want to achieve.
In theory, this is awesome if you are a calm, focused and non-lazy person that hasn’t been hijacked by the procrastination monster, that’s why my modification of the Seip solution is a bit more realistic and less demanding.
Here is how the 1-hour solution works:
Start on Sunday afternoon or night. Get a glass of wine, a nice cold beer or a lovely tea and some cookies (yes, do this as a treat, make it a bit of an event).
Get a pen and paper and try to avoid doing this on your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
1st Step: Name the next week with a title.
Every big military mission in the world had a name: Operation Desert Storm, Red Dawn, Eagle Claw, Phantom Fury, Overlord. So start by naming your week.
Hint: Chose a badass name.
2nd Step: Three Big goals of the week.
Previously we did three or die for daily goals; these three goals are goals where if you achieve them you will consider the “operation” a success.
The goals need to be based on quantifiable goals and not goals determined by your judgement.
Example:
I will write for five hours next week; I will finish two chapters vs. I will write the best chapter of my life.
3rd Step: Define times when you will NOT DO A THING.
Usually, productivity books ask you to “mark” in a calendar when you are going to do tasks; in this case, we are going to limit the time.
We don’t want a calendar full of empty spaces; we want to schedule our week, with limited time.
Fill the calendar with activities.
4th Step: Before you start the week, anticipate what could go wrong and accept it.
Yes, the goal is not to find the solution, it’s to accept that something may go wrong, but you still will try to achieve the tasks.
Example: My goal is to write every day, but I could end up with writer’s block. That’s okay. I will still commit five hours even if I don’t finish the two chapters.
And that’s it.
The goal with the 1-hour-Gab-solution is to plan for the week, define goals, but also realise that shit happens and life happens.
Our objective is to achieve our goals, while living our week without a productive mindset accepting that we might fail on the tasks we are trying to achieve.
It’s not about achieving more; it’s about changing the way we define ourselves.
