Getting It DONE With the One-Task Challenge
With our Big Comeback Event – where we’ll be coming together to create a 14-step Certified Revenue Breakthrough Plan for your business – just weeks away, I’ve been thinking a lot about what holds my clients back from following through on their plans.
And I can’t help but think of the most common problem that my clients express to me:
“Monica, I end each day feeling like I didn’t get anything done. I don’t even know where the time went, and it’s so frustrating.”
So this week, I want to invite you into a little game – a challenge of sorts – to get you thinking differently about your days and about getting things done.
So I call this the One-Task Challenge, and I actually live by it. I use it all the time for myself, and it’s very simple.
You wake up in the morning and you decide that you’re going to get one thing done that day.
Now, that one thing doesn’t actually have to be one thing. For example, today, my one thing was writing three newsletter articles, which isn’t actually one thing – it’s one general task.
So your one thing could be writing one chapter of your book, or it could be writing two chapters of your book. It could be shooting one video or it could be shooting 12 videos.
It could be a combination of things – like shooting one video and finishing a slideshow that you’ve been working on.
The challenge is that you have to get your one thing done by midnight or before you go to bed that day.
Why do I say midnight or before you go to bed? Because a lot of us have one thing that we resist, avoid, or procrastinate day after day after day. It becomes a source of fear, anxiety, and shame.
And even if we do 10 other things that are really important to our business, if we don’t get that one thing done, we feel dissatisfied.
So if we flip the script and define the one thing that we want to get done – the most important thing – then if we only get that one thing done, chances are we’re going to be happy. And we’re going to be happier about the fact that we’ve gotten 10 other things done.
You may get to four o’clock and not get it done. You may get to six o’clock and not get it done.
But what matters is that you have the will power and the discipline to sit your butt down at seven o’clock or eight o’clock, after dinner or after the kids are in bed, and do it.
And what’s interesting is that when you do get it done, even if it’s nine o’clock at night, at midnight, or right before you go to bed, you’re going to feel that sense of achievement. You’re going to know what it feels like to get that one thing done.
And, frankly, it doesn’t really matter what time of day you did it. All that really matters is that you got it done.
From there, you start to build the mental muscle memory of getting something done, of knowing that you can count on yourself to get that one thing done.
You’ll start to trust yourself to get it done.
And after a while, because you know you’re going to get it done, you no longer have to fight yourself to do it at ten o’clock at night. It becomes easier and easier for you to do it at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning or whenever you’ve planned to get it done.
So my invitation to you this week is to try the One-Task Challenge for seven days. Pick one thing each day that you want to get done and get it done before you go to bed. That’s it.
Don’t worry about the other 10 things. Don’t worry about your entire to-do list. Just try the One-Task Challenge, and let me know how it goes.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to check out our Big Comeback Event, which is a virtual event we’re hosting. You’ll leave the event with a 14-step Certified Revenue Breakthrough Plan that’ll make the One-Task Challenge even easier to follow through on.
Here’s to you having the best 15 months of your business yet!
