Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of building a life you love. This is your host, Kristen. And today is another solo episode, I'm going to talk about how do we get more results more success from less action by taking the right actions and some easy ideas on how we can do a better job at this. Okay, so it turns out for most of us, whether it's in our personal lives, we want to make a change, maybe we want to clear a room because it's cluttered. Or maybe we want to work out you know, to get fitter, healthier, improve our numbers, or it can be in business, where we're not seeing the results or the revenue we want. Or maybe we're not getting the clients we want, or whatever it might be, we're not finishing the book. So it turns out, there's two common things that are going on with so many of us. And in Greg McEwen book, effortless. He talks about this and part of the book he talks about, if we can or what we what so many of us fail to do, I guess is that we think when we're looking at a priority or projects, we think we we either don't act because it seems so daunting or big, you know, it's kind of overwhelming. So then we keep spinning our wheels, we keep trying to plan the project out for all the pieces, all the chunks, all the variables. And then we don't actually get moving forward. So it slows us down or delays us. So that's the first thing that can happen. The other thing is, is we do define what we want to work on. But we don't realize often that it's not a singular action, we're supposed to that we're we've defined, we've actually mult we've taken a project. And it's multiple steps, but we are defining it as the next step. But it's really not. So what means what that means is, it would take us longer to finish what we've defined, and it's really not a singular step, or next action. So I love what he suggests here. Which is this, what we need to do when we're looking at a project or getting something done, let's just use the example of like a room that's cluttered, is we, we determine like, what are the possible next steps? So we list out some of those things. And then we decide what is the step I could take right now that would start me down this path. So for instance, in his book, he gives an example of a woman that the reason she hasn't moved all these books from one of her rooms is because she needs bookshelves in her office. But she hasn't done anything about getting bookshelves. And they try to figure out like, what is the real next step? And then the person says, well, could we just go online and order the bookshelves if I bring my computer? And she says, Well, no, I need to measure the space. And they say, Okay, well can you measure the space. But what ends up being the actual issue is that she doesn't she can't find her doesn't have a tape measure. So as they talk through it, they realize the first step needs to be to find borrow or by a tape measure, because that's what holding her up from moving these books. But that is what we're talking about identifying that first step or the in a very small singular step, right? We're not the first step for her wasn't get up the bookshelves, because that's multiple steps. It's finding a tape measure, getting the measurements, going online, finding the bookshelf you want, and then buying the bookshelf and then installing the bookshelf. So do you see how that's actually multiple steps. So a lot of us get caught up in the entire project in a lot more steps than just one. So the first thing is that we need to really narrow down these steps. And then what is the step we can take now, and he talks about in his book, much like you've probably heard of an MVP, which, if you are in a startup company or software company or product based companies, what they're talking about is a minimum viable product. So it's when you're testing kind of a bare bones version of something. Well, he talks about he takes that up that idea and he goes a little further with it. He calls it a minimum viable action. So what is that small action that you can take, and a lot of times it can be a really quick action, something that doesn't take a lot of time or it doesn't take days upon days. And so that's the first thing is identify this first obvious action or minimal viable action. Then the next thing is to just do so thing super quick related to that. So I'm going to give you an example that he has in the book. So for instance, if he's talking about removing the cutter from the garage, the first obvious action is to find a broom. And then the microburst is to sweep out the shed and move the bikes into the shed. So do you see I'm saying it's not cleaning out the garage, that's the whole project.

Unknown Speaker 5:19

The action is what is something I can do right now it might have been find boxes that you can put stuff in, or, you know, big trash bags, that might have been step one, but that will get you moving, that'll get the momentum going, so that you actually start. So I think that super important, I think that's really cool. So if you really do try to break down your work, you'll find you're more productive, instead of being busy on things that actually aren't going to move something forward. And you get that momentum, or we spend our little seconds and minutes on things that are non productive, right going on social media sometimes or, you know, just kind of perusing the internet or whatever it might be. So if we really do break down projects into what can I do right now, what's the simplest path to executing on something that is important for the project you've determined is a priority. Another thing I love, is in the book, The One Thing by Gary Keller, he talks about how we can use two different concepts. One is kind of Domino's, right? So what what that idea is, if we take the smallest thing, or the smallest domino that we know is the important thing we need to get done, that can knock down the next goal, if you will, or I'm just going to call it a domino. But apparently, the smallest domino can knock down a domino that's 50% bigger than it. So each consecutive domino or each action, if they're all going in the same direction towards the same big goal or end result you want, actually has the ability to cause more waves or more momentum towards your goal. In other words, to give you more success, even when you start on the smallest Domino, or the smallest action or goal. And he basically brings up parados rule or law, which printer was an Italian economist from the 19th century. And he had realized that 80% of the land that he was serving, or reviewing was owned by 20% of the people. But it in his time, he was really looking at it from an economists perspective. So he wasn't looking at it in a more holistic way. But then a gentleman named Joseph M. Won, or, yeah, we'll just say that German I'm sorry, German, Joseph M. German, he was a let's see a Western use a Western Electric consultant in the 30s. Well, as he was studying this for a project they were working on, he started realizing that this, this Pareto guy was onto something that it was a lot bigger than just the land distribution concept. What he figured out was, this was really a huge productivity truth, it was a law of nature, if you will, that 80% of our results, 80% of the thing we're trying to get is actually produced by 20% of our efforts. And you've probably if you've read any business books, this, you know, or you've talked to people, so many people talk about the 80, it's actually called the 8020 rule. Now, you know, that's what a lot people refer to does. But the 8020 rule, even with customers, when people have reviewed their customers, many times people realize that 20% of their customers are actually bringing in most of their revenue, or the opposite can be true. Sometimes you're your clients that are causing the most time stock, like they're there. They're literally spending the most of your team's time, often or 20% of your customers, and they're often not your better customers. So in other words, sometimes people talk about how if they cut that 20%, it's really kind of drawing out a lot of their energy and time, but it's not equivalent to the money they're spending, cutting those clients or clients that are super negative, they don't align with your company, you'll see exponential growth because now you're focused on the right clients. So this is such an amazing concept when we apply it to our business or our personal lives. Anyways, so he goes on to explain, if we can whittle our to do list and pick the top priorities, and then decide what 20% From that is really important, and then keep paring it down by another 20%.

Unknown Speaker 9:42

Until we get to the one thing that is really the main thing, the main thing that if we did it, first thing we got we took care of we knocked it out, that would cause our first domino to tip the next thing and so it's so important for us to get really good at coming up with that. list or coming up with the steps, but then determining what is really the most important step or first thing we can work on. But what you'll find is these simple concepts, these things that really would only take us shifting our time and our focus just slightly more, right, actually will result in so much more improved results in in a shorter timeframe. So I think it's so cool. And I think applying these is really easy. And one thing I'll say about this is the whole idea of the book, the one thing is the concept that if we put up a lot of energy, doing things in all different directions, right, so it's a circle with arrows going every direction, versus we have a circle, and we put all our effort in one direction towards one goal, the efforts the results exponentially grow. And we actually achieve, then those results we're trying to get by putting all our energy towards that bigger goal that that bigger result we're looking for. And I know this can be hard for some of us, some of us have mastered this pretty well in others of us, and I'm guilty of this in some areas as well, I, I'm very creative, I do like to try new ideas. But that can get me in trouble that can get me kind of literally throwing things out in lots of directions. But 100%, I find that then I my growth is slower in some things, because I do that, because instead of waiting till the first thing gets to where I want it to be and then adding something I sometimes don't wait. And I add things and I know that that means I diminish the domino effect, if you will, or the effort of everything going towards one direction. So that's why this is so important is because it does help you accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. quicker and easier, really. So if you want to implement this in your own life, what I recommend is, when you do your list of to dues, I would just keep narrowing them down, you know which ones can you pause, which ones can you say no to, or leave alone for now, and there won't be a major impact. And as you keep just narrow it down. So you can either take that main list, and then transfer it or like put a column and then put the couple that you think are super important until you narrow it down to the the main one. So that's one way you can do it. Or you can just have a running list. And then you look at that list and decide what is the main thing today that I need to do this morning to get going towards my goal to move that first domino so that tomorrow and the next day, I could start moving bigger dominoes by what I did today. So that's the first thing. And then the next thing is just start applying in the simplest way, this little idea of these minimum viable, viable actions, these micro bursts. So you don't it doesn't even have to be on your big projects. Because you're what you're trying to do, you're trying to start getting yourself to think this way in to implement something immediately. So in the idea of the clutter, one example would be as you're listening to this, just pause it and go in the other room and just clean up something for literally a couple seconds. Oh, there's something on my counter, let me put it away. So it's as simple as that. Because the what we're trying to do is trying to start getting in the habit of taking these quick actions instead of spending so much time thinking about the actions or the steps. And of course, ideally, we want to do the one that's really going to start moving us in the right direction. But even just the act of what can I do right now? What's the smallest thing I can get done? That's going to give me the biggest results. So that's it for day today. I just think these are such great concepts and principles that you can apply to your life that actually will get you closer to the results you want sooner and with less effort. I mean, I don't know what else to say. But that sounds that's amazing. So I'd love to hear from you if you implement some of these things, or if you're already doing them. How is it working for you? Have you seen a change so let me know you can DM me on Instagram or you can email me and I'll see you back here

next time. Once again. Thanks for listening to the podcast. And if you enjoyed the podcast, we would love it if you could leave a review on Apple podcasts that helps us get discovered by more people. We'd also love your feedback. So email me at Kristin at Kristin Fitch calm or DM me on Instagram on a Kristin Fitch and let me know what ideas for ideas for shows or for guests that you have. I would love to hear from you.