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Kindle Notes & Highlights
By Scrooge’s own standards, he’s highly productive in accomplishing his purpose. By anyone else’s, it’s simply a miserable life.
After Marley’s intervention, Scrooge experienced the transformative power of a new purpose.
money is good for the good it can do.
Who we are and where we want to go determine what we do and what we accomplish.
What is the secret of this begging bowl?” The beggar humbly replied, “There is no secret. It is simply made up of human desire.”
Acquiring money and obtaining things are pretty much all done for the pleasure we expect them to bring.
ricocheting
Happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.
Dr. Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association, believes there are five factors that contribute to our happiness: positive emotion and pleasure, achievement, relationships, engagement, and meaning. Of these, he believes engagement and meaning are the most important.
financially wealthy people are those who have enough money coming in without having to work to finance their purpose in life.
without purpose, you’ll never know when you have enough money, and you can never be financially wealthy.
Happiness happens when you have a bigger purpose than having more fulfills, which is why we say happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.
*Need help discovering your ONE Thing? Let us help you at the1thing.com/mypurpose.
Purpose provides the ultimate glue that can help you stick to the path you’ve set.
BIG IDEAS Happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.
Discover your Big Why.
Absent an answer, pick a direction.
Time brings clarity
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” —Alan Lakein
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
When each day begins, we each have a choice. We can ask, “What shall I do?” or “What should I do?” Without direction, without purpose, whatever you “shall do” will always get you somewhere. But when you’re going somewhere on purpose, there will always be something you “should do” that will get you where you must go. When your life is on purpose, living by priority takes precedence.
Purpose has the power to shape our lives only in direct proportion to the power of the priority we connect it to. Purpose without priority is powerless.
we have goals and plans for only one reason—to be appropriate in the moments of our lives that matter.
If you’re offered a choice of $100 today or $200 next year, which would you choose?
people prefer big rewards over small ones, they have an even stronger preference for present rewards over future ones—even when the future rewards are MUCH BIGGER.
hyperbolic discounting—the further away a reward is in the future, the smaller the immediate motivation to achieve it.
“present bias” overrides logic, and they allow a big future with potentially extraordinary results to get away.
Remember our conversation on delayed gratification? Turns out that what starts out as marshmallows can later cost you much more.
By thinking through the filter of Goal Setting to the Now, you set a future goal and then methodically drill down to what you should be doing right now.
FIG. 24 Future purpose connects to present priority.
Connect today to all your tomorrows. It matters.
The students were asked to visualize in one of two ways: Those in one group were told to visualize the outcome (like getting an “A” on an exam) and the others were asked to visualize the process needed to achieve a desired outcome (like all of the study sessions needed to earn that “A” on the exam). In the end, students who visualized the process performed better across the board—they studied earlier and more frequently and earned higher grades than those who simply visualized the outcome.
People tend to be overly optimistic about what they can accomplish, and therefore most don’t think things all the way through. Researchers call this the “planning fallacy.”
Your last step is to write down your answers. Much has been written about writing down goals and for a very good reason—it works.
Those who wrote down their goals were 39.5 percent more likely to accomplish them. Writing down your goals and your most important priority is your final step to living by priority.
BIG IDEAS There can only be ONE.
Goal Set to the Now.
Put pen to paper.
And once you know what to do, the only thing left is to go from knowing to doing.
“Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil... . It’s more about priorities, planning, and fiercely protecting your time.” —Margarita Tartakovsky
there’s no better word than productivity to describe what you want from what you do when the outcome matters.
“My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.” —Francine Jay
They time block their ONE Thing and then protect their time blocks
FIG. 26 Make an appointment with yourself and keep it!
Time blocking is a very results-oriented way of viewing and using time. It’s a way of making sure that what has to be done gets done.
The most productive people, the ones who experience extraordinary results, design their days around doing their ONE Thing. Their most important appointment each day is with themselves, and they never miss it.
most people work on “clock” time—“It’s five o’clock, I’ll see you tomorrow”— while others work on “event” time— “My work is done when it’s done.”
The most productive people work on event time. They don’t quit until their ONE Thing is done.
“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” —Peter Drucker
Paul Graham’s 2009 essay “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule”
