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I’ve missed two weeks in a row. There goes my 6 month streak. So like every creator, here’s my apology letter:

Sorry bro.

But hey I’ve been busy - moved from London to DC, pitched to investors for my Zambia startup on food insecurity, starting an ecommerce biz (coming soon).

Not trying to toot my own horn, but toot toot.

Anywho, after 6 months I think you’re ready to learn my favorite productivity weapon. These are the nuclear codes of getting sh*t done.

I have a couple of different "to-do list" techniques. But today I'll share the one I do most frequently.

It's called One Big Thing.

Everyday - I choose one big thing to get done. Big is not about how long it takes. It's big impact. Sometimes that's a 5-minute phone call.

I ask myself: "what's the one thing on my list...that if I nailed it, would make the whole day a success?". That becomes my One Big Thing (OBT) for the day. I relentlessly focus on that, and feel zero guilt about ignoring other stuff.

I learned this from reading about Peter Thiel. He's the creator of PayPal, and one of the first investors in Facebook. The team from PayPal has gone on to create a dozen+ billion dollar companies, including LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, SpaceX, Tesla, Yammer, etc.. They are known as the Paypal Mafia, (which resulted in this dorky-looking magazine cover)

Anyways - Peter was quoted as saying his management style is very unique. He gives everyone ONE thing to focus on. ONE problem to solve. And if they try to talk to him about anything else - he literally gets up and leaves the room.

I thought that was hilarious, and a boss move. So I do it for myself. ONE thing a day. ONE problem to solve.

Today's OBT is brainstorming a list of potential products for the ecommerce startup. I can and will share more, but the specifics are not important yet.

The important part is to learn how to kick off any new project.

There are 4 key components to my Kickoff Process:

1. Define "Winning"

2. Set "Anti-Goals"

3. Back of the envelope - what does it take to get there?

4. 1 Hour, 1 Day, 1 Week, 1 Month

ˆRemember those . There's no acronym. Acronyms are for wimps!

Notice some key things that are not a part of my kickoff process:

• research

• asking others if it's a good idea

• worrying

• grand vision statements (these come later)

OK here's a link to the kickoff doc for my ecom business. Before you go there - let me give you a quick rundown of how to do each of the 4 parts:

#1 - Define Winning

I set clear, measurable goals.

Not some long-winded monologue. Just 1-2 sentences about the outcome.

It should be "measurable" (or "failable"). Meaning, that if you showed this to someone, they could figure out if you passed or failed.

That means including a time frame and a # objective.

"I want to achieve financial success and not stress about money!"

ˆterrible goal. what is 'success'? by when?

"I want to have $5M in liquid assets by age 35"

^a good simple goal

Okay, the last trick here. Ambitious people want to set big goals. Conservative folks want to set modest goals. Which one should you do?

Trick question - do both.

I think of "success" as a spectrum. A range. There's a minimum outcome, below that, and I put in more than I got out. I call this my "good win". It's solid.

Then I set a "F*ck Yea" goal. This is self-explanatory. If I hit this outcome, I would say f*ck yea. Great outcome.

#2 - Anti-Goals

There's an old saying when it comes to deal-making. "You pick the price, I'll pick the terms.”

Basically - even if you get the price you want. If the terms are screwed up. You'll be screwed up.

Like if your goal is to be a famous musician, and you're touring the world, but you're unhealthy, your marriage is in shambles, and your kids don't recognize you.. you won the battle but lost the war.

I stole this from Andrew Wilkinson. Setting Anti-Goals.

These are my parameters. I take 10 minutes to imagine all the plausible outcomes or side effects of pursuing this goal. Then I write them down like you'll see on the document.

#3 - Back of the Envelope, how might I get there?

I am a big fan of running quick numbers on things early on. Even when I have no clue how to achieve my goal - doing a quick calculation can show some of the options.

If I want to make a million dollars. I can make a $1 app and sell it to 1M users. Or I can create a $100k product and find 10 customers.

The back of the envelope is meant to walk through some scenarios, and identify which number seems "hard to hit". That becomes my focus. How do I get that number?

Then I brainstorm strategies to get to that number.

#4 - 1 Hour, 1 Day, 1 Week, 1 Month

This is the most important step. Never leave the scene of a decision without an action. This step is about brainstorming what you can do in specific timeboxes.

Most people overthink things. They start with something that will take weeks or months to complete.

I do the opposite. I ask myself:

"What's the 1-hour version of my plan?"

"What's something I could do in the next hour that would inch me closer to my first happy customer?"

etc…

Then I immediately do that thing. Momentum is the lifeblood of any project, so I throw myself headfirst into creating initial momentum.

I brainstorm things I can do, and start finding the "1-hour version" or "1-day version" of those ideas.

The 1-week and 1-month stuff doesn't matter, I keep those rough. I'm focused on the 1-hour and 1-day - because that's what I'm going to do first.

I discovered this by listening to Shaan Puri. 1 Hour, 1 Day, 1 Week, 1 Month.

Alright - that's a lot to take in. Next week I'll be shorter!

Talk soon. Ciao - Jacob

P.S. if you made it this far, hit “reply” and tell me what you think...what’d you love? What was boring?

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