One Sentence That Will Guarantee Unrivalled Productivity
Glen / 
21 Comments / 
March 31st, 2009 / 
Subscribe via RSS
Assembly time wasn’t really something that I looked forward too when I was in middle school. After lunch, every student would have to go to the main hall and sit down, cross-legged, before singing hymns that were projected onto the walls.
On the odd occasion, our head master would stand up and give a speech, usually a story from his life. Now, around 7 years later, I’m going to share one of his fictional stories that contains the greatest productivity tip I had ever heard.
Before I get right into it, I have to say that I have no idea where this story originates and whether it is well known. I’m sure my way of telling it is quite different to the way I heard it some years ago, but the most important point is that it includes the invaluable message.
The Story (and The Sentence)
John had just finished school with decent, yet unremarkable grades and decided not to further his education. Instead, he decided that he wanted to get into Law, and set himself a challenge to work for the largest Law firm in his city. Due to his lack of qualifications, he understood that he would have to start small and work his way up the ranks.
His parents were shocked when one day he informed them that he had managed to secure a job with the global brand. They were less surprised however when he revealed his position: cleaner.
For 3 months John worked hard, 6 days per week, mopping and scrubbing to try and impress his seniors in the hope of a better position. On one ordinary Thursday, when he was cleaning the office of the CEO, he noticed that the man at the head of the company appeared to be tired and stressed.
“What’s wrong”, John asked hesitantly (he had never spoken to the CEO before). “Ah, just the usual, son” he replied. “Anything I can help with?” John continued. “Not unless you know how I’m supposed to organise all these tasks, I don’t know what to work on first and it’s all coming in quicker then I can process it due to hesitation”.
“Ah, no problem” said John as he put down his map and sat in the chair next to the CEO who looked very taken aback. “Here’s the secret…”
“All you have to do is put all your tasks in order or priority, and start on the most important one. Even if you don’t get to finish the task today, there’s no way you could have been more productive with your time”.
Amazed at this simple but logical response, the CEO told John never to pick up his mop again. Instead, he should go pick up a new suit as he has just been promoted to Director of Company Operations.
Of course, these 9 tips for adopting the ‘now habit’ will also help.
If you enjoyed this post, I would appreciate if you share it on Twitter, Facebook or Delicious!
simple truth. but sometimes it`s hard to prioritize. i have spent even 20 minutes organizing what to do first and next, etc…
I love it! Somehow, we think complicated is better, and will take us further. Want something over-thought, call me. Thanks for a bright spot blog post!
Glad you liked the post Newsong, you’re welcome!
Very cute story – the challenge being in how to prioritize because in many cases the distinction is very fine as to make many things of equal importance.
Thanks Alex
Very nice… I completely agree with your sentence.
But I’m going to have to also agree with Alex here. Sometimes the challenge is HOW to prioritize among equally important tasks. Some are obvious: most household chores can wait. But some not so much: what your boss needs you to do, what your spouse needs you to do, what your kids need you to do. Sometimes the top 5 are ALL the most important thing… where to begin?
i´m with you Lisis, sometimes many things are the most important
Personally, I always know deep down what I think is my most important task. Some have to come before others, so for example if I want to build a profitable website, making a logo has to be first on my list before monetizing the site as it wont look right without a logo.
Hmm, that probably wasn’t a great example
In regards to boss vs spouse vs kids, I say you go for whatever matters most to you. If you don’t listen to your boss straight away will you lose your job, or is it worth risking that to spend time with your kids? Again, it all depends where your priorities lie.
Well the thing is, if there are more than one “equally” important things to be taken care of, how do we decide which one to do first?
Here are my answers.
1. Just take one and get on with it without wasting time to decide which one you should do first. Maybe the time you take to prioritize is more than what it takes to finish one more task at hand.
2. If you really are stuck up go for the task that aligns with your core personal values. Do you prefer family over work or work over family? Friends over work or work over friends? Friends over family or family over friends? You get the point.
Exactly Sunny, very well said. Thanks for that addition!
I loved this Glen – oh yeah, and *great* image, that is one of my favorites.
Thanks Adam, I actually got that from one of the posts you did on the Flickr images
I would love to know how you find all the ones that go ‘large’
This is a good tip, as all too often I get completely swamped trying to take on everything at once without thinking about priority.
Thanks Brett, nice to see your site is doing well!
Nice post Glen. I don’t think it’s that hard to figure out how to rank. I go with my gut because intuition is usually correct on these “equal” tasks. Also I agree that some of them are going to line up with your core purpose more than others. Everything is not as complicated as we make it. We make it complicated to give ourselves excuses not to get it done.
Lovely post!
I’m not so sure about the value of prioritizing, though. If my aim is to be productive, then prioritizing is a great strategy. But what if I value being creative?
In my experience, my creativity is sometimes boosted by doing something ‘unimportant’.
I strongly disagree. When someone prioritizes by importance, that just means that lesser-important things have the chance to blow up. You can end up living from emergency to emergency, as the most important thing is constantly the LESSER important thing a month ago, that you SHOULD have taken care of but didn’t.
I would suggest the book “Do It Tomorrow” by Forster. It’s a bit of a redundant read, but very good at forcing people to think past the obvious. (I don’t use his newest auto-focus idea though, just the older book.)
I’m not sure you get the idea. Based on your theory that would mean that there’s a chance for the bigger things to ‘blow up’.
If something does ‘blow up’ then that is your priority. I don’t see it as dealing with emergency to emergency, it’s simply working on what is important to you.
I’ve read variations on this story over the years. It is obviously excellent advice that few ever manage to actually implement as well as they’d like. One reason for that is we are simply spreading ourselves too thin,
At some point you simply have to let some things go. Prioritize and make a conscious decision to eliminate many of the tasks in your life. There is also a method that has four sections that most would find useful for deciding what is to be eliminated.
we will always have many things we want to do in a day, and something will always be more important, but if what we don`t do today is still important to us, we`ll find the time to do it,tomorrow or whenever is right to do it. We also have to pay attention to the moment, we may want to find a new job but maybe now`s not the best time for job hunting (for whatever reason) and we should just wait, and concentrate on something else that`s important and has to be done at the moment.