Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing: What’s Your #1 Number this Year?

In our world, we all suffer from juggling too many priorities and important things.

At the end of the day, boiling them down to the one or two that matter most is a critical skill, and we have a tool to help you make your life much simpler: The One-Page Master Plan.

This tool (from Chapter 17 of Your Oxygen Mask First. Find overview and resources here and chapter videos here), first asks you to imagine being at the end of your life, and to think about the single most important thing that you would want to accomplish in three areas:

  • Your Work – Career, money and investments
  • Your Self – Being happy, strong and healthy, and
  • Your Life – Friends, family and community.

When you look from that long-term perspective, it’s easier for many things that we think are important, today, to disappear.

It’s also valuable is to think about the priorities of the essential people in your life. To help me stay grounded, I created a wall in my office to remind me, every day, of what is most important to my children.

Without that clarity, it’s much harder to maintain the discipline of focusing on what’s most important for each day, week, quarter, month and year – and to eliminate a lot of the noise.

Like every driven person, I often struggle with all the important things I want to get done or experience in the world, and I’m constantly bombarded and distracted by other ideas and opportunities.

As I sit here, in early 2023, this is what I want to accomplish this year. Declaring them here makes me uncomfortable but I need to treat them accordingly:

  • Work: Write and complete my next book.
  • Self: Stay physically and mentally healthy: exercise, write and do things that energize me.
  • Life: Spend quality time with the most important people, in my inner circle.

The Challenge

  • What is the #1 thing that matters most to you, as you think about 2023, for your Work, your Self and your Life?
  • As you build your To Do lists for each day, what will have the most impact on what’s most important?

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