309. How to Decide What to Do Today

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Marissa: We know you’ve got a to-do list, and maybe it’s even a good one, but a list is really just an inventory. It tells you what might need doing, but it doesn’t tell you what you should be doing. Well, today we’re unpacking a solution that can. Three tests rolled into one question that creates instant clarity

[00:00:24] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I’m Marisa Hyatt.

[00:00:30] Joel: And I’m Joel Miller.

[00:00:31] Marissa: This is where we remind you of something you already know. It’s not about getting more things done. It’s about getting the right things done

[00:00:38] Joel: Both at work and in life. And today, we’re talking about the tool that we would put in front of every other productivity habit that you have.

[00:00:47] We call it the priority filter.

[00:00:50] Marissa: Now, we know that pretty much everybody who is listening to this is overloaded. Like, I think that’s fair to say, that we all are walking around with too much to do.

[00:01:01] Joel: I read a study not that long ago that showed the average professional had something like 60 items on their to-do list.

[00:01:11] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:01:11] Joel: Which, that’s kinda ludicrous. You know? There’s like, how many productive hours in a day, and how many items on that list?

[00:01:19] Marissa: Yeah, you’re just gonna constantly feel like a failure, right?

[00:01:22] Joel: Right.

[00:01:22] Marissa: Most of what you do, you’re probably doing by default. Some of this stuff ended up on your plate because somebody asked for it or asked you to do it.

[00:01:32] Joel: May- maybe it was interesting.

[00:01:34] Marissa: Yeah, it could be interesting. Maybe you just noticed that it needed to be done. It was like, “Oh yeah, that thing needs to be taken care of.”

[00:01:40] Joel: Regardless of who might actually be responsible for it.

[00:01:43] Marissa: Right. Or maybe you’ve been doing it for a long time, and therefore you’re just used to doing these certain things.

[00:01:51] Joel: The problem is that you, you literally can’t do it all. It’s not possible. You’ve got actual constraints. We already alluded to one of them, one of them being the hours of the day, but there are other constraints, you know? Like your actual capability of doing any particular thing, your energy at any given point in the day, and any number of other constraints.

[00:02:13] Yeah. It’s like we just assume that it’s on a list, therefore it needs to be done, and that is not true.

[00:02:18] Marissa: I think that what we’re ultimately saying here is that you can’t solve a volume problem, like if you have too much to do, you can’t solve that just with an efficiency solution, by getting more efficient or more productive.

[00:02:31] Joel: Right.

[00:02:31] Marissa: We’ve all had this experience where we’ve thought, “Oh my gosh, I have this, you know, mile-long to-do list. Let me just power through and try to get more efficient and do these things faster so that I can get through it quicker and get to more items on the list,” and it doesn’t work.

[00:02:48] Joel: Well, we have to remember- The six-part series we just talked about.

[00:02:52] Marissa: Right.

[00:02:53] Joel: We all have work styles, and those work styles interact with our lists in very unique ways to us. And some people really do have the ability to, like, power through, but they, like, sacrifice everything else in their life in order to do that. Others of us, like, we just don’t have that engine. Like, that’s not in there.

[00:03:14] That gear is not in there.

[00:03:15] Marissa: Right.

[00:03:16] Joel: And there’s no sense, like, beating our head against the wall when we realize that what we’re trying to do is brute force our way through something that not only can’t be done, but really even shouldn’t be done.

[00:03:28] Marissa: If you can’t do everything, you need to figure out a way to figure out what you’re going to actually do, what you will do, right?

[00:03:36] And we’re gonna have to exercise a lot of discernment in this process. And the good news is we have a really simple tool to help you exercise that discernment. Yeah. And it’s called the priority filter.

[00:03:48] Joel: Yeah, this is like essentially a Venn diagram with three overlapping circles. So you can just picture this in your head right now.

[00:03:57] It’s, like, in the shape of a triangle basically, and you’ve got two circles at the top and one at the bottom, and they oversect in the middle, and we’ll talk about why that matters in a minute. But we’ll talk about how to use this really simple model to decide what your priorities are today. And frankly, you can scale this thing up all the way to what you should do this year.

[00:04:20] Works great for setting goals. It works great at every level because it gets at fundamentally The value and the resonance and the relevance of a particular activity, you can run it through this filter and you can decide for yourself, is this worth doing?

[00:04:37] Marissa: I love how adaptive this model is because you can literally use it every single morning when you sit down to determine your daily big three, right?

[00:04:46] The three most important tasks of the day. We used to talk about that in a way that for a lot of people felt abstract and kind of like, “How do I know?”

[00:04:54] Joel: Right.

[00:04:54] Marissa: And we’re gonna solve that today. You can also do this in your weekly preview every single week when you try to determine, what are my most important priorities this week?

[00:05:03] This solves that problem.

[00:05:04] Joel: I have this mental model in my head every time I do those two exercises.

[00:05:09] Marissa: It’s really a big shift when you start to use this, how quickly and easily it starts to filter things out. So imagine this like an accordion, right? You can do this, you know, for the day at hand, whatever is on your task list, what do you wanna tackle?

[00:05:23] And you can also expand it to look at the rest of your year or the quarter, your life goals, all the things. There’s a, a way to expand this beyond just today, but it’s incredibly helpful. So Joel, why don’t you share with us, what is the first part of this filter?

[00:05:40] Joel: Yeah. So the first part is just you. Who you are.

[00:05:44] What is uniquely yours to do is more or less the question involved, and there are a couple of important pieces of that question. Uniquely yours being the most obvious, but uniquely meaning like this relates directly to who you are, and yours meaning like it has some kind of fit for you. Like-

[00:06:07] Marissa: Yeah

[00:06:07] Joel: there’s some work that just doesn’t fit with you, and we all know that because if you’ve done your work style assessment, or frankly if you’ve done any number of other assessments, you’ll know that there’s just some work you’re not wired to do, or some work that you’re not wired to do the way that it’s being asked to be done.

[00:06:24] Marissa: We know, Joel, you’re probably not wired to go put together a 67-piece IKEA set of furniture. That is super tedious and all the things Yeah That’s probably not knowing you and your wiring, right?

[00:06:42] Joel: I have done it, and I have risked my own salvation in the process.

[00:06:48] Marissa: Exactly.

[00:06:49] Joel: Yeah.

[00:06:50] Marissa: Yes.

[00:06:51] Joel: It’s like we have strengths and we have weaknesses, and those things are in this alchemy that causes frustration when we work against our wiring, right?

[00:07:00] It’s, like, so obvious.

[00:07:01] Marissa: One thing that I think is important here, especially as we’re gonna start talking more about the work styles, these are not meant, you know, whether it’s the work style assessment or the Kolbe assessment or StrengthsFinders or any of these, these are not meant to pigeonhole you and make you feel like you’re now in a box, right?

[00:07:23] It… That’s not what we’re trying to do. The goal, really, of these assessments is to help you have better awareness- Right … so you can play to your strengths, right, and, and do less of what isn’t working and more of what is. And so really that’s the aim of our work style assessment, and you’ll know if you’ve taken it, hopefully you have by now, now that we’ve gone through that six-part series, that there are going to be certain things that are in your unique wiring, depending on your specific work style, certain things that come easily and effortlessly, certain things that you’re just naturally drawn to.

[00:07:54] That’s what we’re really talking about here, you know, is work essentially that is fully in alignment with how you’re wired.

[00:08:02] Joel: Well, because that’s where you’re gonna make your highest and best contribution. Yeah. That’s gonna be the work that’s unique to you. And if you find yourself working against your wiring, it’s not effective.

[00:08:15] You… You’re going to burn out. You’re going to… The quality isn’t gonna be there. Like, if somebody asked me to take over project management for Full Focus, like, we’d be hosed. Yeah. Like, that, that would not be wise. Right.

[00:08:27] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:08:28] Joel: And it’s important to recognize that about ourselves, which is the value of an assessment.

[00:08:34] It helps, like you said, raise the self-awareness. Mm-hmm. But it also If you do it right, it helps point you to the work where there is a fit. It helps point you to the work where it does resonate with who you are.

[00:08:47] Marissa: This is important because just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.

[00:08:52] Right. And a lot of us, if you look at your task list and you’re honest with yourself, you’re doing it because you can. You have some kind of capability, some level of skill or understanding, or just because you’re the default person to do it, maybe because there’s literally nobody else. That is not a good enough reason for you to be doing it.

[00:09:14] So it’s important to remember this, that just because you can do it doesn’t mean you actually should.

[00:09:19] Joel: That, I mean, that’s a trap, right? Because-

[00:09:21] Marissa: Yeah …

[00:09:22] Joel: like let’s say you’re in an organization and, and you kinda have this track that you’ve been on doing a particular thing, there’s this idea of path dependency.

[00:09:31] You know, like once you go down a particular track, it’s hard to get off that track. Mm-hmm. And if you’re in work doing things that you’re capable of doing but don’t actually resonate with you, you’re kinda stuck until you choose to go do something different.

[00:09:47] Marissa: Yeah. Well, sometimes, you know, stuff ends up on our plate.

[00:09:51] It becomes ours, but it actually belongs to somebody else- Yeah … if we’re really honest. And I think this is hard for a lot of people to distinguish what really is mine versus somebody else’s to do.

[00:10:04] Joel: Especially if on the work style assessment you happen to be a giver. Yeah. This is one to pay very close attention to.

[00:10:10] Marissa: Absolutely. So just because the need exists doesn’t mean that you have to fill it.

[00:10:15] Joel: Right.

[00:10:15] Marissa: Super important to pay attention to just because you have that impulse of, okay, you know, there’s a need. I saw that there’s a need. I need to jump in and, and take care of it. That is not a good enough reason, okay? So the first part of this whole priority filter is you.

[00:10:32] Joel: As you’re holding this mental model in your head, that’s the first circle.

[00:10:36] Marissa: So you, is it uniquely yours to do? Then we move on to the next part, which is ROI. Is it high leverage?

[00:10:45] Joel: What do we mean when we say ROI? Funny thing for me about this is sometimes I’ll s- I’ll ask people and they’ll know ROI means return on investment.

[00:10:55] They’ll know it means results. Other times, people have, like, literally never heard the acronym in their life.

[00:11:00] Marissa: Right.

[00:11:00] Joel: But it doesn’t just mean results, right? What are we talking about?

[00:11:03] Marissa: Well, it, it is about results. It’s about what you’re, you know, actually producing, right? Is this something that is going to help you produce the results that you’re after?

[00:11:13] And the truth is, none of us are paid for the activities that we complete in any given day. The truth is- Yeah … like none of our bosses actually care what we’re doing day in and day out. They care and they’re paying us for the results that we’re driving. And I don’t care what kind of- That’s right

[00:11:31] position you’re in, I don’t care where you work, I literally… You could put any profession, any job title in here, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, you are being paid for certain results.

[00:11:43] Joel: The reason I say it’s not exactly about results or it’s not only about results, it’s that results are relative.

[00:11:48] Right. And sometimes we do activity that we can self-justify as being meaningful when that same time could’ve been invested in something that would’ve delivered even better results or more important results. Yes.

[00:12:00] Marissa: Absolutely. So

[00:12:01] Joel: the return on investment baked into that phrase, ROI, matters because there’s an investment of time, of attention- Yeah

[00:12:09] of energy, of all sorts of stuff, and some returns are not worth the investment. And so- Right … like we really need to be critical about when we see an item on our list, is it worth the return? Or rather, is the return worth the investment?

[00:12:24] Marissa: Well, if you’re… For instance, let’s give a few examples of what this might look like in terms of results that you might be responsible for.

[00:12:31] So if you’re in marketing like me or potentially- Yeah … in sales, right, you’re typically responsible for bringing dollars in the door. That’s like, at the end of the day, if we whittle it all the way down, that’s what marketing is for and that’s what sales is for.

[00:12:45] Joel: You don’t have a job if that’s not happening.

[00:12:46] Marissa: Yeah, if we’re not bringing in money, like, I’m fired.

[00:12:49] Joel: Right.

[00:12:49] Marissa: Right? Or if you’re in sales and you’re not closing any deals, and you do that for an extended period of time You’re eventually gonna be let go

[00:12:59] Joel: On the other side of it, like I’m on the content side, so in our coaching program or other avenues where we’re developing content, if there’s not engagement, if there’s not great feedback, if there’s not client transformation, I’m out of a job.

[00:13:15] Like, I’m not delivering results

[00:13:17] Marissa: Right. We’re not just producing or creating content just for the sake of creation. We’re creating it for a specific result in mind

[00:13:25] Joel: Right

[00:13:26] Marissa: And in the case of, uh, you, Joel, you know, you do a lot of content specifically related to our coaching program, and there we’re specifically looking for results for our clients.

[00:13:36] Like, that’s what we are ultimately driving for, engineering all of that content for

[00:13:41] Joel: I mean, we measure it, right? Every quarter

[00:13:43] Marissa: Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s a good point. Usually the results that you’re responsible for, not usually, always are measurable Yeah So that’s a good indication. If you can measure it, that’s probably a result

[00:13:54] Joel: That’s actually one of the easiest ways to think about ROI, in fact, because since the results might be relative, you wanna pick the ones that are measurably better, not the ones that are measurably not as good

[00:14:06] Marissa: Well, if you’re in finance, for instance, the results that you might be delivering are something like clarity or visibility, right, into the data, into the numbers

[00:14:16] Joel: Right

[00:14:16] Marissa: Um, that could be really important.

[00:14:18] Or having accuracy, you know, making sure that the reporting is accurate

[00:14:24] Joel: Or on customer experience, which on, in our company reports up to me, I mean, this is about satisfaction fundamentally Absolutely If people are not satisfied with Full Focus, in part, that’s my fault Yeah And so I attend to this

[00:14:39] Marissa: You know, there’s a million other areas and professions.

[00:14:41] These are just ones that we have within our organization. But I wanna challenge you as you’re listening to this, what is a result that you know that in your specific position that you currently have right now, and even if you’re a solopreneur, you’re responsible for results, so what are the results that you are responsible for?

[00:15:01] And really, like, take a second to think about that in your specific role

[00:15:05] Joel: If you look at your to-do list, imagine checking off everything off that list at the end of the day, how effective were you really? Just because you got stuff checked off the list, did it really add value?

[00:15:17] Marissa: Right

[00:15:18] Joel: Was it really worth the investment of your time and attention?

[00:15:22] Was it really worth the salary the company is investing in your work? I mean, the answer is on some of those things, I guarantee you no

[00:15:30] Marissa: And if you just take inventory for a second of all the things you accomplished I guess on Friday, ’cause I know you guys are listening to this likely on a Monday. So just think about Friday of this last week.

[00:15:43] What were all the things that you did? What meetings were you in? What things did you produce? What communication did you have? Was that driving for a specific result, or was it what we would call busywork or fake work?

[00:16:08] Joel: All right, here’s a curve ball related to this. Some work drives results that are, you know, like measurable, meaningful, they’re new, whatever. It’s like an important part of a company goal or something like that. Other work might be like maintenance work. Mm-hmm. This is the very unsexy stuff that just kinda has to be done in order to keep, you know, the toilets working.

[00:16:32] So, like when we think about return on investment, when we think about ROI, where does maintenance work fit in?

[00:16:39] Marissa: Well, I think a good way to think about this is if it is necessary, like it has to be done, and in, you know, the case that we’re talking, it has to be done by you, then opt for the minimum viable…

[00:16:51] What is the word I’m looking for?

[00:16:53] Joel: Minimal viable dose, right?

[00:16:55] Marissa: Yeah. So that’s ultimately, you know, what we want you to think about is, okay, I’ve got to get this done, but I’m not gonna spend my best energy on this or a ton of time on this. I’m just gonna make sure that it happens, and I can check it off, but it’s not something that I’m gonna go the extra mile on because it’s not necessarily driving results.

[00:17:16] Joel: Well, and fundamentally, that’s what matters, right? So this is about maintenance work doesn’t exist for itself. It exists to support the high ROI stuff the business is doing.

[00:17:26] Marissa: You know, we’ve talked about you, what is uniquely yours to do. We just talked about ROI. Is it high leverage?

[00:17:34] Joel: By the way, these…

[00:17:34] Remember, this is a Venn diagram, so these two things are overlapping. If there’s an overlap between you, in other words, it’s like it resonates with you, there’s an overlap between that and ROI, in other words, results, that’s like we’re getting close to the sweet spot. If there are results- Yeah … that really aren’t yours, like it doesn’t resonate with you, it’s not the kind of work that you’re good at, it’s not k- the kind of work that you’re proficient at, that tells you something already.

[00:18:03] Mm-hmm. So you want to make sure there’s an overlap between what you uniquely bring to the table, as, you know, the unique and special snowflake that you are, and the results that you are being asked to deliver. There should be an overlap there. Yeah. If there’s not an overlap, there’s a problem. But there’s this third thing that we have to factor now.

[00:18:22] Marissa: Which is now. So we’ve talked about you, ROI, the last one is now. Right. Does it matter now? And the key thing here to remember is that not all work is equally relevant to the current moment Okay, so it would be really easy for us to just think about urgency here, and just think, “Well, what’s the most urgent?”

[00:18:43] Right. “What is the loudest? What’s screaming at me and needs to be done right now?” That’s actually not what we’re talking about. We’re actually talking about relevance, okay? So kind of take urgency and put it to one side, and then think about relevance and put it to the other side. Relevance is really asking, all things considered, what does this moment call for?

[00:19:06] Joel: Right.

[00:19:06] Marissa: That’s an important distinction.

[00:19:08] Joel: Yeah. There’s a number of things that roll into this. It could be, like, what deadlines are actually immovable versus flexible? A lot of times a deadline is on a list. It’s not like St. Paul, you know, walked over and, like, told you that that’s when it’s due. Right. It’s not like Moses walked down off the mountain with a tablet that said Tuesday at noon.

[00:19:28] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:19:28] Joel: You know, like, some things can be changed. What snowballs if this thing gets delayed? You know, like, there may be downstream effects that are bad. There may be downstream effects, though, that all things considered are not as bad as waiting on something else, so you prioritize the other thing.

[00:19:45] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:19:46] Joel: What gets me in trouble if I don’t do it? That’s another good question.

[00:19:49] Marissa: That’s a good one. I think that’s a pretty clear… You know, what are- Yeah … what is my boss gonna be mad at me for if I don’t do this?

[00:19:55] Joel: Exactly. What’s the next step in advancing my goals, right? Mm-hmm. Something may not be urgent. Like, if it’s related to advancing your goals, it’s probably not urgent- Right

[00:20:03] in the kind of, like, deadline sense. However, it is relevant. Right. It has immediate relevancy to your life. Mm-hmm. And then what would help you perform at your best? Maybe there’s some sort of thing you need to do, an activity you need to undertake to be a better you, whether that’s rest, whether that is- Yeah

[00:20:22] some self-care or whatever. That is relevant even if it’s not remotely close to urgent.

[00:20:27] Marissa: Well, I think all of this, what you’re saying, comes back to considering our context, right? Right. So this is your commitments, your constraints, and everything that influences now. So as you’re thinking about does it matter now, again, put the urgency to the side.

[00:20:46] That’s not really what we’re talking about. We’re talking about relevancy. Yeah. So what is the most relevant thing for me to be focusing on right now? Does it matter now in that context? So now you’ve got kind of the three pieces of this priority filter together, and so Joel, do you wanna just kind of talk about what this might look like visually when these all intersect in the middle?

[00:21:08] Joel: Yeah, so if you imagine these three intersecting circles, these three items in this Venn diagram, you’ve got this spot in the dead center where it’s deeply resonant with you, the results are there for ROI, it’s relevant for now.

[00:21:28] Marissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:28] Joel: That is definitionally a priority.

[00:21:31] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:21:32] Joel: If it’s not one of those three, if it’s like, if, if one of those things is missing, that’s definitionally not a priority.

[00:21:40] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:21:41] Joel: And so when you look at your list of 60 items, or 20, or 80, or whatever it happens to be, you wanna run all of those things through this filter and ask, like, “Is this really mine to do? Am I really uniquely suited to do it?”

[00:21:56] Marissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:57] Joel: If not, maybe I need to renegotiate something in my work, and that’s, you know, like honestly, negotiation is just a part of being a human.

[00:22:05] Like, we have to advocate for our needs. And if it’s not producing high results, like if it’s not producing the kind of results that really matter, then it should be demoted on the list or come off the list entirely. If it’s not really relevant in this moment, if it’s not about, like if it’s not, like meaningful now, then it needs to either get like intentionally deferred or procrastinated, or it might also need to just come off the list.

[00:22:33] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:22:33] Joel: So like we wanna take everything that we’ve got and like drop it through this filter and shake it really good- Mm-hmm … and just see what falls out through that narrow aperture in the dead center and ask where the overlap is, ’cause only the good stuff is gonna fall out. The crap is gonna stay up at the top of the filter, and that’s the stuff we wanna sift off and get off our list.

[00:22:55] Marissa: Well, this is how we take our task list, Joel, that you talked about at the beginning of the episode, from 60 things down to just a few. Right. So if you’re sitting in that moment right now listening to this episode, hopefully on a Monday morning, you know, maybe you’re on your way into work or you’ve gotten to work, or you’re listening to this after work and you’re thinking, “How am I gonna get it all done?”

[00:23:18] First of all, you won’t And you shouldn’t. And this is exactly how you determine what you actually should be spending your time on. So Joel, I wanna talk about, we’ve, we’ve just spent the last six weeks deep diving into our- Yeah … work styles, and I wanna talk about where each of those styles may fit into this kind of priority filter, and potentially may get hung up.

[00:23:42] Joel: This would be a little bit of jazz because, like, I am one of these work styles. Yeah. I am not all of them.

[00:23:48] Marissa: Right.

[00:23:48] Joel: And I don’t necessarily have access to the psychology of Of all you other wonderful humans out there. So this is me just kind of riffing and guessing, but based on what I know about these work styles, I would say, like we teased earlier, doing work that’s not really yours, like givers are going to find themselves-

[00:24:09] Marissa: Yeah

[00:24:10] Joel: drawn because they have this need to be responsible. They have this need to step up. They have this need to give of themselves to other people. They’re going to find it sometimes tempting to put stuff on their list that doesn’t belong to them, like it’s uniquely somebody else’s.

[00:24:27] Marissa: But they’re wanting to fill the gap, and I think that’s the, the intention behind it is there’s a gap and they see that, and they want to jump in and help.

[00:24:34] Uh, but that’s a trap.

[00:24:35] Joel: It’s commendable for that, right? It’s-

[00:24:37] Marissa: It is. Yeah. But

[00:24:38] Joel: it’s- But it happens to also be like a self-sabotage activity.

[00:24:41] Marissa: Exactly. Yeah, it’s a trap. So all of you givers, listen up, pay attention, that that may be something you need to get really clear on is what is yours, what is uniquely yours to do.

[00:24:53] Joel: Yeah. What about doing work without thinking enough about the results, without, like, really analyzing the ROI?

[00:25:02] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:25:02] Joel: I think that’s probably, like, achievers and optimizers fall into that.

[00:25:06] Marissa: Yeah, I think so, too. You know, this is the kind of person that is going to be getting that dopamine hit every time they check something off, right?

[00:25:14] They’re thinking, “How many things can I get done today?”

[00:25:17] Joel: Yeah.

[00:25:18] Marissa: Kind of playing that, uh, little competition with themselves, and they may not be thinking enough about the results, thinking, “Oh, I, I can just get all this stuff done,” but not necessarily how does this tie back to the results that I’m responsible for?

[00:25:33] Joel: Yeah. Some of this is, like, upstream work in that if we’re gonna put it on our list, we should run it through this filter first.

[00:25:42] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Joel: But some of it is downstream. Like, if we’ve already got the list, we need to run it through the filter. So depending on where you are, you may need to reevaluate your list or you may need to reevaluate how you put stuff on your list.

[00:25:55] Mm-hmm. Especially if you are prone to, like, check mark chasing, you know?

[00:26:01] Marissa: The next one, which is doing work out of step with the context of right now. Basically, like, biting off too much. Yeah. Relying only on urgency, uh, reacting to novelty rather than need. Oh, yeah. I think this is, Joel, me and you. Yeah, totally.

[00:26:16] I, like- This is, this is the jugglers … guilty as charged. The jugglers and the improvisers,

[00:26:17] Joel: right?

[00:26:18] Marissa: This is

[00:26:23] definitely me. We’re the

[00:26:24] Joel: ones who

[00:26:25] Marissa: are just constantly going to get into deep waters and, you know, we’re not really thinking about does this matter right now.

[00:26:34] Joel: I can tell you, when I do my quarterly preview, one of the things that I’ll do is I will flip through my full focus planner from the last 13 weeks, and I’ll, I’ll kind of just- look at everything in there, and I’ll find, you know, like during my weekly preview, I’ll go back and look at everything that was unaccomplished from the prior week and make a determination, like, do I need to move it forward?

[00:26:57] Do I need to abandon it or whatever? But it’s really interesting to do that over an entire quarter.

[00:27:03] Marissa: Mm. ‘

[00:27:03] Joel: Cause what I’ll find is, in some cases, I have put stuff on the list that I know when I wrote it down, like lit a fire for me. I was like, ooh, this is gonna be great, and I like write it down. And then I’m like, it’s occupying head space, I’m thinking about it or whatever.

[00:27:19] I can never quite get to it ’cause there’s other things going on, and I get to the end of the quarter, and I realize that was stupid. That should never have been on there. I was wasting time even thinking about doing it, let alone if I had actually done it.

[00:27:33] Marissa: So this filter can really help in that moment moving forward for you to go, “Okay, does this actually matter?

[00:27:39] Is it relevant now? Is it driving results? Is it in my wiring?” All of those things. Yeah. So let’s go ahead, Joel. I wanna put this into like a single question that people can easily remember. All of you listening, I encourage you, like pause this episode for a second if you need to. Write this in your notes app on your phone, jot it down on your planner or on a Post-It, somewhere that you can use this.

[00:28:02] Joel: Yeah, yeah. You’re actually gonna wanna visit the tattoo parlor for this one.

[00:28:05] Marissa: Yeah, yeah. I

[00:28:06] Joel: will. This one is, is particularly meaningful. If there’s one question you ask yourself today, I hope it’s one that you repeat to yourself many times today, and then ask yourself from here to Armageddon. The question is: What’s mine to do that drives results and matters now?

[00:28:30] That Venn diagram, the priority filter, every feature of that is crammed into that one tight, tiny sentence.

[00:28:38] Marissa: Yes.

[00:28:38] Joel: What’s mine to do that drives results and matters now?

[00:28:43] Marissa: And like we said earlier, this question you can use in so many different context. So stop what you’re doing and ask this question about your daily big three today.

[00:28:55] Right. Even if you’ve already Set your daily big three for the d- the day. I want you to go ask that question over each of those three items that you chose, and if it checks all three of those boxes, great, it stays. If it doesn’t, you need to move it off the list and put something else that checks all three boxes.

[00:29:13] The next time you do your weekly preview and you’re setting your weekly big three, ask this question. Right. It will be crystal clear what the priorities are for the week. Same thing when you’re setting goals, like we talked about. Yeah. Exactly. You know? Which we’re all coming up on getting towards the end of the year, we probably just set some goals for Q4.

[00:29:30] So again, refer back to this question as a filter. And any time you’re sitting there and you’re wondering, “What do I need to do next?” For a lot of us, we look at our task list and we feel this sense of overwhelm and kind of like paralyzed, right? Where we just go, “Oh my gosh, I’m frozen. I don’t even know what to do next.”

[00:29:47] This question will help you determine what your next action should be.

[00:29:52] Joel: Absolutely.

[00:29:53] Marissa: What’s mine to do that drives results and matters now? Get that tattooed somewhere on your body, put it somewhere in your, you know, regular view on a daily basis, and use this every single time you’re trying to figure out what you should do next.

[00:30:08] Joel: Honestly, open up your f- your Full Focus Planner and find a blank page, write it in big letters, and take your pen or your pencil or your writing implement of choice and, like, circle the heck out of it. Yeah. And dog-ear the page. Like, come back to it-

[00:30:25] Marissa: Yep …

[00:30:26] Joel: regularly.

[00:30:28] Marissa: The big idea that we want you to walk away with is that you have way more agency than you think you do about how you’re working- Totally

[00:30:38] what you’re working on, right? Work doesn’t just happen to you. You choose what and when to make happen. So when we own what we’re good at, the results that we’re responsible for, and our sense of what matters now, our contribution is much higher.

[00:31:00] Joel: And I mean, it’s gonna be more satisfying too, right? Yeah.

[00:31:04] Like, if it’s within your wiring, for instance, and you know it’s like the results are super meaningful and it’s relevant to the moment, that’s like almost definitionally what it is to do satisfying work.

[00:31:18] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:19] Joel: And anything that’s not is not gonna be satisfying, right? The value’s gonna be low. It’s gonna, it’s gonna be work that drains us instead of energizes us.

[00:31:27] It’s gonna be irrelevant to the moment. Yeah. That’s not satisfying. That’s like literally the result- that’s like literally the opposite.

[00:31:32] Marissa: Well, and I think when we ask ourselves this question, we get to end the day feeling like I know with confidence that what I spent my time on, my energy on, my attention on was enough.

[00:31:46] Joel: Yeah. That’s such a good word.

[00:31:47] Marissa: It’s how we stop that constant loop of, oh my gosh, I need to be doing more.

[00:31:52] Joel: Well, and we know there’s no end to the work. I mean, like you think about all the meaningful projects that there are in the universe to accomplish. Mm-hmm. Good luck ever making any real headway on all of it.

[00:32:07] Yeah. You can’t. You have to, you have to like torque it all back to something that actually makes sense for you right now. And when you do that, that’s your only shot at actually feeling satisfied in your work, ’cause there’s always more.

[00:32:22] Marissa: So that question is where we’re gonna leave you today. What’s mine to do that drives results and matters now?

[00:32:34] Well, thanks for joining us on Focus on This.

[00:32:36] Joel: This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so share it with your friends and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focusonthispodcast.com.

[00:32:47] Marissa: And we’re gonna be here next week, where we’re gonna use the priority filter that we just talked about to diagnose some common places that you might be getting stuck at work and what to do about it.

[00:32:58] Joel: Until then…

[00:33:00] Marissa: Stay focused.