Velocity & Drag

Always focusing on your highest priorities can sometimes slow you down.

Think about all the little annoyances in your life that are low priority, but slow you down, distract you or drain a little bit of your energy. Things like the burnt-out lightbulb in your staircase, or not having a place to put your keys when you get home.

Each of these on their own isn’t worth addressing; they’re minor annoyances. But when taken together, they can create significant drag on your day-to-day activities.

Stop thinking of these as individual items when prioritizing your to-dos. Instead, group them together into an “Eliminate Drag” task, then prioritize that.

Likewise, ask yourself what you can do to amplify your effectiveness? Maybe that’s scheduling a time each week to stop doing and plan. Or reviewing your notes to extract key insights from a meeting or workshop you attended.

Batch these tasks together into an “Increase Velocity” task, and prioritize that.

By grouping small things together, and prioritizing them as a group, you can set aside time for important, but not urgent tasks that can have a great impact on your life.

To make this into a practice, set aside one day a month as your “Tune-Up Day”, where you do all those minor tasks that help you eliminate drag and increase your velocity. You’ll soon see yourself being more effective with your main priorities.