196 - The 24 Hour Rule
On the podcast this week, I introduce you to a rule that I impose upon myself that I call the "24 Hour Rule."
The 24 Hour Rule is going to free you up from all the things that you might do, should do, could do, or want to do someday. Instead, it'll teach you to focus on today.
Warning: Please listen to the full podcast episode! You may think at first that the 24 hour rule is a little crazy, but by the end I hope I've convinced you to give it a try.
A Bit Of Background
The 24 Hour Rule is something that I developed for myself after I'd been doing the SundayBasket™ for a few years.
Why? Well, I found that a couple of items in my Sunday Basket™ stayed every week!
This goes against the rule of the Sunday Basket™, that you empty the Sunday Basket™ completely on Sunday. Then you hold up every single item – every piece of paper, mail, slash pocket – and you ask yourself, "Can this wait until next Sunday?"
If it can, then it goes right back into the Sunday Basket™. At the end of your time working on your Sunday Basket™, you have identified the items that need to be acted on before next Sunday. All the rest can wait.
I Started To Drown In My WOW Ideas
I'm an ideas person. Ideas come to me all the time and I get so excited. I'm a WOW person and not a HOW person – I usually leave the details to someone else.
I love to write down my ideas or print them off and then put them in my Sunday Basket™. I realized that all of these WOW ideas were the items in my Sunday Basket™ that were staying each week. I was just accumulating a lot of ideas, but not necessarily implementing them.
In other words, I was drowning in my own ideas and becoming overwhelmed. I had to stop stockpiling all of my should/could/someday ideas in a physical location because it was wasting my time instead of inspiring me.
To overcome this problem, I created the 24 Hour Rule.
The 24 Hour Rule Explained
My 24-hour rule is pretty simple.
When I find a great idea, I ask myself, "Can I do this within 24 hours?"
Published on 8 years, 3 months ago