Journal Prompts to Narrow Your Focus on What Matters -

A while back I wrote a post with key takeaways from the book The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth about Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan.

The premise of the book is that by narrowing your focus down to the one thing that matters most – what really moves the needle – you can make the biggest impact and get the greatest results. Everything else is downstream of that.

So in this post I extracted the questions that best would work as journal prompts to help you get the clarity and results you want.

The Focusing Question

What’s an area of your life that you want to get clarity on and create results?
Ask yourself the Focusing Question: What is the ONE thing I can do (in this area of my life) by which everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?
Write your response to the Focusing Question. Jot it down in your journal. In your phone’s notes app. On a sticky note for your mirror. Wherever you decide to write it, make sure that you’ll see it and be reminded of it every day.
When it’s time to work on your project, get specific and narrow your question down: “What is the ONE thing I can do right now?”
Start taking action on your ONE thing and see everything start to shift into place!

Find your WHY

What is your WHY?
What gives your life a sense of meaning?
What gives you a sense of purpose and motivation, a reason to do what you do?
What lights you up inside?
What do you get excited about in life?
What GIVES you energy?
What can you talk about for hours?
What is something you’ll never get tired of?

Is there a pattern emerging out of your answers? What’s the golden thread running through it all?

This is your WHY.

Keep your WHY close to your heart: for example, post it on a vision board or make it your phone background. Let this shape your priorities, decisions, and actions.

Saying Yes to one thing means saying No to something else

What are your biggest distractions?
How much time and energy are you spending on these distractions, compared to working on your goals and dreams?
Are your distractions worth the amount of attention you pay them?
How do you want to spend your time? Do your actions align with that?
What do you want to accomplish? How do you need to be spending your time in order to achieve that?
Action expresses priorities. What would your schedule look like if you prioritized the things that you say matter most to you?

With the Right Action, Your Efforts Will Be Compounded

What is the ONE thing I can do right now by which everything else becomes easier or unnecessary? What will be the result(s) of that?
What’s the next ONE thing? What will be the result(s) of that?
What’s the ONE thing after that? What will be the result(s) of that?
Where will you be after these three individual items are done?

…

To recap, these are my top 4 productivity takeaways from reading The ONE Thing:

The Focusing Question “What is the ONE thing I can do by which everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?”
Purpose Defines Priorities Identify your motivating force, your WHY behind everything you do. Let this shape your priorities.
Saying Yes to One Thing Means Saying No to Something Else Focusing on the most important thing requires that you redirect time and attention from other things (distractions) back to what you want to get done.
With the Right Action, Your Efforts Will Be Compounded By narrowing down to the most important things, and doing those few things first, you will create bigger results than if you had spent even more time on a greater number of less important things.