Don’t be impressed by what I do, be impressed by what I don’t do

This is on the list of things I almost never do these days.

Over time, I have slimmed down the number of things I do into four core categories: family, Dragon Army, writing (this blog and my first book), and “Doing Good” (which right now is mostly 48in48 and Central OAC.) I would say +90% of my time goes toward those four things.

When I’m catching up with someone and we share the things we’re up to, I usually get the same bewildered question, “How do you do all of that?!”

Sure, Dragon Army is growing, and running a business is time-consuming…and yep, writing a blog post every 2-3 days and working on a book takes time and dedication…and true, 48in48 is going to four cities this year and I have a monthly board meeting for Central OAC…and my family, which consists of five children, gets more time than any of that…

I get it, that sounds like a lot. But I still get eight hours of sleep a night and I read a lot of books. And I’m home almost every night by 5pm.

But “how do you find time to do all of that?” is the wrong question. The question should be, “what are you NOT doing to find time to do all of that?” Everyone spends the same amount of time doing things, we all just prioritize differently.

For instance, I don’t watch much sports anymore. In the past 12 months, I probably watched a total of three quarters of the Falcons and then I watched the Super Bowl (ugh). I probably watched less than 10 quarters of the NBA Finals. And I watched my man Federer win the Australian Open. I think that’s it, in a full year. And I dropped fantasy football, which helped considerably.

I don’t go on guys weekends. I don’t play golf anymore unless its with a client during business hours. I don’t play video games on the Xbox or Playstation. I certainly don’t hunt, and I don’t fish.

I barely travel for work these days and I don’t go to conferences (though both of those things will change as Dragon Army continues to grow.) And I say “no” to almost every night business event I get invited to.

I could go on, but the point is that I choose to not do a great many things in order to focus hard on a few things. I don’t think I work any harder than anyone else. I simply work harder on fewer things.