Your next right thing isn’t static; it may change depending on circumstances. The key is to remember that you will never get everything done, so focus on doing those few important tasks that are necessary to improve your life and bring your dreams into reality.
Title Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva
You Have More To Do Now Than You Can Get Done
“There is always more to do than you can do, and you can only do one thing at a time.” ~ David Allen
I wonder if you have found this to be true in your life? I suspect you have. As you and I do our best to embrace our Excelerated Life™, there will be many things we want to do, many things we must do, and many things we’d like to do. But we live with a limited amount of time – 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 4 weeks per month, 12 months per year. And although we may not like to dwell on it, we’re going to run out of years eventually.
But let’s get back to today. If you have impossible demands on your time, i.e., more to do than you can get done, the first step is to understand, on the deepest level, that you can’t do the impossible.
“When there’s too much to do, and there always will be,” Oliver Burkeman wrote, “the only route to psychological freedom is to let go of the limit-denying fantasy of getting it all done and instead to focus on doing the few things that count.” [Burkeman]
Even so, that realization won’t keep you from being busy at times, but you don’t overcome being busy by trying to cram more tasks into your day. So periodically during the day, or whenever you’re about to start a new activity, ask yourself: “Is this the best use of my time right now?” By consciously asking and answering this question, you can tell if the activity is important or merely urgent. The key is to choose and focus on your next right thing. Let’s explore how to do that.
How Did We Get So Busy?
Have you ever stopped to wonder how your days became so packed? How you’re constantly busy yet often feel like you’re spinning your wheels instead of moving forward in a meaningful way? For many of us, life feels like a relentless game of catch-up. We sense there’s a better way to spend our time on things that truly matter, things that would leave us fulfilled, but somehow, those things always seem just out of reach. As Oliver Burkeman writes in Four Thousand Weeks: “Even the relatively privileged among us rarely get around to doing the right things. We sense that there are important and fulfilling ways we could be spending our time, even if we can’t say exactly what they are — yet we systematically spend our days doing other things instead.” [Burkeman]
One reason for this is that modern culture has conditioned us to equate busyness with productivity and productivity with self-worth. We’re told that if we can just “get it all done,” we’ll finally have the time and freedom to focus on what truly matters. But here’s the trap: the more efficient we become, the more we fill our days with even more tasks, projects, and responsibilities.
It’s not that we’re bad at managing our time — it’s that the very idea of “managing time” is flawed. We treat our lives like a series of to-do lists to conquer, rather than a finite, precious resource to cherish. As a result, we end up busy but disconnected, achieving a lot but not necessarily what’s meaningful.
Chasing Productivity Instead of Progress
This constant pursuit of efficiency can rob us of the clarity we need to make thoughtful decisions about how to spend our time. Stephen Guise, author of The Magic of Momentum, reminds us that it’s not sheer busyness that moves us forward; it’s the direction of our actions that matters. Small, intentional steps — what Guise calls “momentum-building actions” — can have a far greater impact on your life than a flurry of aimless activity.
Choosing the Next Right Thing
“If whatever you’re doing isn’t working, don’t do it harder.” ~ Martha Beck
Instead of trying to tackle everything, ask yourself: What is my next right thing? This question cuts through the overwhelm and helps you focus on actions that are aligned with your goals and values. By narrowing your focus to one meaningful step at a time, you escape the productivity trap and start creating momentum toward the life you want.
The first step in choosing your next right thing is to stop doing everything else. Remember the “Rule of Holes”: If you find yourself in one, stop digging! As Martha Beck writes in The Way of Integrity, trying harder or trying to be better doesn’t work. The problem isn’t that you aren’t working hard enough. The problem is that you’re not working on what is right for you, on your next right thing.
You may be stuck in “homeostasis”, the tendency to keep doing what you’ve always done. I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage attributed to Henry Ford: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
You may like what you’ve done and gotten so far. But if you want something different, then you must do different things. And that doesn’t mean working harder, trying to get more done. You must choose to do your next right thing.
But what is that for you?
Five Questions
Oliver Burkeman offers five questions to help us begin to live into the fact that we are never going to do everything we have to do. You likely won’t have the answers to them right away, but Burkeman says, “Even to ask them with any sincerity is already to have begun to come to grips with your situation and to start to make the most of your finite time.” [Burkeman]
Here are the five questions:
- “Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort?”
Remember, growth lies just outside the comfort zone. - “Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?”
What would you do differently if you understood at a gut level that you will never have time for everything? - “In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?”
Until you do this, it is difficult to know what your next right thing is. - “In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing?”
The fact is, that feeling of certainty is an illusion. You’ll never have all the facts. “Do not wait,” said Napoleon Hill. “The time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” - “How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?”
What will you do to make our world a better place, knowing that you may never see the final outcome? Could that be your next right thing?
Doing the Next Right Thing
OK, let’s say you’ve accepted the fact that you can’t do everything, that your time is limited, and that working faster or working smarter isn’t the answer. You’ve got to work on your priorities – your next right thing. One way to get started is to use the “Four ‘S’ Words”: simplify, small, short, slow [Sterner]
Simplify: Take your next right thing and break it down into its component parts, simple steps that you can take each day. We’re told in The Magic of Momentum that we are most likely to do what we just did, so focus on the process of doing the step, and make it easy enough that you will take another step every day. Repeated steps breed momentum, so simplify to make them easy to repeat.
Small: Similar to simplifying your next right thing, make your steps small enough that they are easy to do. Remember the two easies – easy to do and easy not to do? “Success,” Jim Rohn said, “is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” Make your next right thing easier to do than to not do.
Short: One method to make your steps smaller is to set a time limit. Write for 15 minutes. Take a ten-minute walk. Devote 30-45 minutes to completing an onerous chore (if that’s your next right thing). Tomorrow, do it again.
Slow: Let’s turn to Sterner for an explanation of this one. “Incorporating slowness into your process is a paradox. What I mean by slow is that you work at a pace that allows you to pay attention to what you are doing.” [Sterner] I have found this approach to be especially helpful in doing daily routine chores. Instead of looking ahead to what I’ll do when I’ve finished the task at hand, I simply pay attention to what I am doing, no rush, no expectations. Sterner gives the explanation of why this is: “…you accomplish the task more quickly and with less effort because you are not wasting energy.” [Sterner]
As you put the four “S” words to use, keep in mind that the four approaches work together. To simplify a task, break it into small steps and do each one slowly. Setting a time limit also keeps things simple.
“If you don’t have some way of directing your energy passively (like train tracks do for a train),” Stephen Guise writes, “you’ll spend too much of your energy deciding on and managing tasks instead of doing them and reaping the rewards.” [Guise] Once you’ve decided on your next right thing, let the four “S” words help keep you on track.
Your Next Right Thing
Now over to you. Have you ascertained your next right thing?
If you have, go you! Now, what will you do to start on it today?
If you’re having a bit of difficulty, you are not alone. If you’re like most of us, you may find it hard to choose one thing out of the multitude of possibilities. Just know that your next right thing is there among the throng. Maybe it’s one of these:
- Is there something you are struggling to accept?
- Do you need to act on something, like your BIG goal? Remember action requires movement.
- Do you need to decide on your BIG goal?
- Maybe you need to get your finances, your possessions, your calendar, or your life in order.
- Or perhaps you need to build a reserve in one or more areas to move from scarcity to abundance.
- Are there things you are tolerating that you need to deal with once and for all?
- Would simplifying your life be your right thing to do now?
- Is there a relationship that needs a little TLC?
- And it may be that you need to step back and give yourself some downtime. A little rest and recovery may be the next right thing for you.
Your Next Next Right Thing
“Life is unpredictable and people change, which makes long-term commitments difficult” both to other people and to our goals. [Guise] So have specific intentions for the short term and be flexible about the methods in the long term.
Your next right thing is not static; it may even change during the work day, depending on circumstances. The key is to remember that you will never get everything done, so focus on doing those few ultra-important tasks that are necessary to improve your job performance or your relationships or your health or your finances or that bring your dreams into reality.
Whatever it is in this moment, decide. Then get busy and give it your best shot. Do the same tomorrow. Repeat. For that is how you embrace your Excelerated Life™!
What is your next right thing?
What step could you take today to move in that direction?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
Excelerated Productivity™ — improving efficiency and effectiveness — is one practice for creating your Excelerated Life™, a life of flourishing and well-being, and a life of meaning, purpose, and service.
Read more about the Excelerated Life™.
Resources:
Beck, Martha. The Way Of Integrity. New York: Penguin Books, 2021.
Burkeman, Oliver. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
Guise, Stephen. The Magic of Momentum. Selective Entertainment, LLC. 2022.
Sterner, Thomas M. The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2005, 2012.
This blog post includes research information provided by ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI. To learn more about ChatGPT and its capabilities, you can visit the OpenAI website. https://openai.com/