What makes the cut?

Most people’s default is to say yes to whatever new idea comes their way. It's only later they might think about how much they’ve already taken on or what the project is really going to achieve.

When you've finished this what’s going to happen? Is it going to take you closer to where you want to go? Will it give you much more leverage? Will it open the door to new and significant opportunities that you can’t reach now? Or is it doing more of the same for the sake of it?

Either “Hell yeah!" or “No”

Derek Sivers

There’s a limit to how much you can work on at any one time. Instead of having the default of simply saying yes and adding it the mountain of stuff that you’ve already said yes to doing, take a moment to step back.

Is it worth it?

Is this new opportunity worth it? Or is it worth more to someone else than it might be to you?

“You can achieve so much when you can truly focus.

Focus is saying no to something that with every bone in your body you think is a phenomenal idea and you wake up thinking about it but you say no to it because you’re focusing on something else.”

Jony Ive

Not every idea that comes your way is going to be automatically in alignment with what you do, who you do it for, and where you’d like to go. Would you rather spread yourself wide and thin or is it better to invest more of yourself, your team, and your company into fewer projects at a deeper, more detailed, focused, nuanced level?

“I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches—representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you’d punched through the card, you couldn’t make any more investments at all.

Under those rules, you’d really think carefully about what you did and you’d be forced to load up on what you’d really thought about. So you’d do so much better.”

Warren Buffett

What if you limited yourself to 20 projects that you could work on at any one time? Would you be more careful about what you said yes to? Would that list change if you could only work on 20 projects this year?

Only a small handful of the projects that come your way are going to make a substantial difference. (This is the 80/20 principle in action.) So you have to be selective and considerate about which ones make the cut. Then when you have something that does make it you can really invest your limited resources in it heavily.