The Magic Hour
Do us both a favor: sometime between now and Monday at lunchtime, give yourself a “magic hour” when you do nothing but the most important work you can do.
If you’re reading this on Friday, see if you can squeeze it in before the end of today. Or do it on Sunday night from home. Or get in early on Monday. Do whatever you have to do, but for one hour, without even the threat of interruption, do the best work you’re capable of.
How will you know it’s the best work you can do? Because it gets you through a strategic “mountain pass” that you must cross to success. Because it scares you or stretches you the most. Because it affects several of these things:
- the most dependencies on the Gantt chart
- the most crucial conversation you’ve been putting off
- the best payback you could earn
- the best customer you have (or want to have)
- the longest-range dream of your career
- your most important key allies
- the biggest source of poison in your working life
Don’t worry that you can’t get the whole thing done in one sitting — Rome wasn’t built in a day. But do start carving the marble for the arches of the Colosseum.
Try it for ONE HOUR.
Then, in the coming week, see if you can get that “magic hour” to infect the rest of your schedule. See if the insights and achievements of that one hour start to warp your brain in better directions.
That’s the favor you’ll do for you. Here’s the favor you can do for me: after you’ve done this, let me know the results. I look forward to hearing the story of what you achieve and what you learn.
~
(Photo by Pitsu.)
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9 Comments so far
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Tim:
What a great challenge. Here’s the key in my book, though. For it to be a truly magical (i.e. productive) hour, one needs to block out all distractions, including e-mail and Twitter!
–Bryan Person
LiveWorld social media evangelist
Love this line, ’see if you can get that “magic hour” to infect the rest of your schedule’.
When we are not use to being “alone” with ourselves it can be a bit of an adjustment.
Thanks for stirring things up with this post!
Keep creating…a story worth repeating,
Mike
Last night I’m sitting on my couch, my business law textbook is sitting by my side instead of on my lap where it should be, and I am messing around with my router. Of course, I end up changing some setting and can no longer connect wirelessly through the router. I think to myself.. great! Now I can’t check my email, facebook, etc for the night until I fix it tomorrow; this blows! And then I realized something: I was distraction free. As much as I wanted to check my facebook, etc. I knew that overall it was better that I didn’t have those distractions because I could restart my studies interruption free from that point on! I definitely think I will try this “magic hour” again, this time intentionally, and see how it may help things out. Thanks for the post!
Tim – As Bryan said, all distractions blocked out. Worked for me this afternoon, indeed I achieved the one thing I’ve been avoiding for a few weeks. And can gratefully end the workday early. Hopefully, the result will infuse my days next week.
Cheers.
All – This is a technique I’ve used over and over. I find it’s especially tonic if I’ve had a harried week; sometimes three quiet, uninterrupted hours on Friday afternoon can redeem a whole week, in terms of productivity.
Tim:
I made it through a “magic hour” earlier today, and it sure feels good. I had to do some major brainstorming for an upcoming Blogging 101 presentation I’ll be leading.
Here’s what I did: Using several small slips of plain white paper that I had cut up in advance, I brainstormed for 30 minutes about key points for the presentation. I jotted down one point per slip of paper. I then spent the next 30 minutes grouping and regrouping the pieces of paper. Here’s a snapshot: http://brightkite.com/objects/c0228fd68e4911dd8951003048c0801e
By the time the hour was hour was done, I had completed the outline for my presentation — and all of this was done with my computer powered down (OK, I did sneak one quick peek at my Twitter replies on my iPhone, but I didn’t answer them)!
Thanks for the inspiration, Tim. Maybe I can find a “magic hour” for myself every day.
Good stuff, Bryan. As I said elsewhere, this week I’ve been getting up extra-early to make sure I get those magic hours of uninterrupted time. I’m glad I took my own advice here — the results have been fabulous already.
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