Work Four Hours A Day On The Big Goal

Posted: April 24, 2017 by Robert Craven

In Gary Keller’s One Thing (which I really recommend for anyone who enjoys the Check-in Journal*), he says that you should go to your calendar and block off all the time you need to accomplish your ONE Thing (your big goal) to achieve your daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

Agreed.

You should make this time as early in your day as you possibly can.

Agreed.

Block as much time as you need.

Agreed.

Ideally, no less than four hours.

I repeat, ideally, no less than four hours.

Crikey.

So, take a deep breath and think about this.

Keller asks you to define the big purpose, the one thing that you want to achieve (that will make all other things less necessary or unnecessary). If you know what your big goal or purpose is then all actions (or most) should be working towards them.

And yet, we spend most of our time not working on our top priority.

So maybe, just maybe, he is actually right.

If you know what your purpose is (a £5m sale, setting up a school, creating a charity with funds of £10m, a £10m pension fund, 1,000 customers…) then any time not spent pursuing the goal is time wasted or at best a distraction.

As a result, I think he is probably right. If you know what your ONE thing is then you should be spending four hours a day working towards it.

Maybe you need to start with 20 or 30 minutes and build up towards the full four hours.

What still rankles me is that so few of us spend so little time working on our big dream. We end up doing stuff we need or ought to do. And spend little or no time working on what is really important.

This is all upside down; we should be spending much of our time working towards achieving our purpose or dream. Or give up on any kind of ambition. Food for thought.