Living by the Golden Dozen

Here’s a powerful way to pull the best performance out of yourself. First, hang copies of these 12 words where you’ll see them: I do the most productive thing possible at every given moment.

It doesn’t help to look at those words once in a while. Start living by those dozen words now.

Doing the most productive thing possible means just that—the most productive thing. Not make work. Not look busy. Not get by. But doing the most productive thing possible at that given moment, no matter how distasteful, hard, or worrisome the thing might be. This often means facing up to an unpleasant task, heading into a likely rejection, preparing when you need to prepare, and doing when you need to do. Anyone can do it—you just have to want to.

Repeat these four steps until they become second nature: 1) Tell yourself, “I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment.” 2) Decide what the most productive thing is. 3) Do it. 4) When you’ve pushed that thing as far forward as you can right now, go back to Step 1 and start over.

The Cutting Edge

Often, the most productive thing you can do this minute will be the last thing you want to do right now. The edge between winners and losers cuts sharpest at this precise point.

Winners almost always do what they think is the most productive thing possible at every given moment; losers almost never do. When you look at what winners and losers actually do, the difference between them is small. But the results of those small differences keep adding up. Then they start multiplying.

What’s been multiplied by many moments spent productively will be knowledge, skill, health, contacts, opportunities—and the beginnings of wealth. What’s been accumulated and multiplied by many moments given to doing the easiest thing possible? Perhaps some debt for pleasures consumed and forgotten, some extra pounds around the middle, and some time moved from one’s future to one’s past, some missed opportunities—little or nothing of value will be retained.

We live moment by moment, not year by year. Do the most productive thing you can with each and every moment as you live it and your future is assured. Do that all day every working day and your progress will soon astound everyone who knows you. More importantly, you’ll be astounded, delighted, and justifiably proud of yourself.

On the road to that happy result, there’ll be some painful moments. There’ll be times when you’ll talk yourself out of doing the most productive thing. As you pass through some particularly low points on your road to success (make no mistake about it, you will—we all do) there’ll be times when you’ll lie to yourself to get out of tackling the most productive challenge facing you. And there’ll be times when you won’t be able to make yourself do anything even faintly productive.

The good news is that these little backslides don’t stop you. They merely put a few extra hours between you and your goals. Shrug these minor incidents off. Resolve to do better. Then get back to business.

Excellence in Action: Do the most productive thing possible today.