Venture capitalist Mark Suster has a rule he lives by that helps him be more productive and successful. The rule: “Do Less. More.” It means doing fewer things overall, and getting the right things done. “Success often comes from doing a few things extraordinarily well and noticeably better than the competition,” he says.
Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle, says, “Everyone can achieve something significant. The key is not effort, but finding the right thing to achieve. You are hugely more productive at some things than at others, but dilute the effectiveness of this by doing too many things where your comparative skill is nowhere near as good.”
Koch also says, “Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.â€
So, what do you do better than most? What should you focus on? I asked this question in an earlier post:
Look at your practice and tell me what you see.
- Practice areas: Are you a Jack or Jill of all trades or a master of one? Are you good at many things or outstanding at one or two?
- Clients: Do you target anyone who needs what you do or a very specifically defined “ideal client†who can hire you more often, pay higher fees, and refer others like themselves who can do the same?
- Services: Do you offer low fee/low margin services because they contribute something to overhead or do you keep your overhead low and maximize profits?
- Fees: Do you trade your time for dollars or do you get paid commensurate with the value you deliver?
- Marketing: Do you do too many things that produce no results, or modest results, or one or two things that bring in the bulk of your new business?
- Time: Do you do too much yourself, or do you delegate as much as possible and do “only that which only you can do�
- Work: Do you do everything from scratch or do you save time, reduce errors, and increase speed by using forms, checklists, and templates?
Leverage is the key to the 80/20 principle. It is the key to getting more done with less effort and to earning more without working more.
Take some time to examine your practice, and yourself. Make a short list of the things you do better than most and focus on them. Eliminate or delegate the rest.
Do Less. More.
This will help with getting the right things done
