The ‘One Thing’ Trick

Remove unnecessary distractions from your life

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Contributing Writer

It’s tough to succeed at just about anything with too many distractions. Not too many people will argue with that. Think back on the times when you got the most accomplished. You probably had a laser focus. Your energy was high.

Whatever the situation, you were fortunate to find few distractions. There weren’t too many roadblocks or hurdles that got in your way. Your time, energy, and possibly money were devoted to a singular vision. That focused effort leads to the desired result because the human brain loves order.

Your brain doesn’t like distractions. It hates lots of sensory clutter, whether physical, visual, or from your other senses. Structure and order are beautiful to the human brain. So when you focus on one objective, with few to no distractions, you have a great chance at success.

One way to lead a more fulfilling, rewarding, and successful life is to use the “one thing” trick.

Change Just One Thing in Your Life

What small change can you make today that will push you closer to making some incredible dream a reality? You want to think about just one thing. Don’t give yourself a laundry list of activities, or you’ll lose focus. Even if all those things need to happen before you achieve something, you can only do one thing at a time. Studying several different necessary steps to achieve a goal will distract you.

So just take one step

Whenever you have some free time, ask yourself what one thing you can do right now to give yourself a more focused approach to achieving a goal. What one thing could you accomplish in the next few minutes that would remove an unnecessary distraction or time-waster from your life?

When you have more time to devote to this task, take it one step further. Sit down with your planner. Ask yourself what one thing you can do over the upcoming weekend to give you more clarity and focus regarding something important to you. Then think about a larger “one thing” activity you can tackle next week. It might take several days to accomplish, but it’s still just one thing.

Do the same thing for next month and next year. The farther ahead you plan, the bigger that one thing can be.

Whenever you have some free time, ask yourself what one thing you can do right now to give yourself a more focused approach to achieving a goal.

Then Break It Down into Bite-Sized Actions That Are Easy to Take

Maybe the most important thing you want to do next year to remove distractions from your life and accomplish what really matters is to relocate. The place you live now is not conducive to achieving an important goal. It could be that geography is holding you back. For whatever reason, you know that relocating to a specific city will not only clear away distractions but also provide you with the mental and emotional energy to stay focused on some big task.

Start asking yourself some questions. What’s it going to take to relocate in one year? You need to do several things to accomplish that one big thing. Start scheduling those smaller actions. Put them in a logical sequence and get to work.

Removing distractions one at a time may not seem like much at first. Eventually, they add up and make an exponential impact on your life. They can reveal what’s necessary for you to achieve your goals and live your dream life. They also remove the unnecessary from your life, so you can make more efficient and productive use of your time.