26 | 🔎 Focusing on less, for more

We focus on too much, which means we're a B or a C at lots of things. So how do we become an A at the things that matter the most?

Hello for the 26th week,

Number 26 means 6 months of writing weekly emails - I really hope what I’ve shared so far has been useful. I know that I’ve found it useful at the very least!

Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash

Today's newsletter is straightforward and brief - this is simple advice, but I have found it really effective and I thought it was worth sharing.

Focusing on what matters

I've started listening to The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett (which is bloody brilliant).

On my most recent listen was Jake Humphrey, of Bamzookie fame (yes yes, and also Sky Sports and BT Sports).

Turns out, he's a fascinating guy. He has his own podcast, The High Performance Podcast, in which he interviews Matthew Mconaghay. He asks Matthew for some tips on how to live such a 'high performance' life.

Matthew gives some simple advice:

Instead of being a B or a C across 4, 5, 6 different things, focus on being an A at 2 or 3 things.

If you're anything like me, you're constantly trying to fit in everything at the same time - friends, exercise, hobbies, work, health, family.

But, something has to give.

I won't be the only one who has got to the end of the week frustrated with myself because I didn't go to the gym enough times, or I had to cancel on plans with some friends, or I 'forgot' to do any yoga once again.

So, what do we put aside?

What's the most important right now? What will give the best return on effort? What needs the most attention?

Letting go of 1 or 2 things might make it much easier to focus on the things that matter more.

And by dropping the bits that don't quite matter as much, who knows what positive change will come from focusing on the most important things.

Cheers!

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If you found this interesting and useful, feel free to subscribe. I send emails like this every Tuesday - see you next week 👍🏼

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How am I 1% better this week? 📈

I got braces after deliberating for the best part of 5 years. No turning back now!

This Week’s Recommendation 🔝

Tip 📱 - I got this tip from Coach Tony’s guide on making our phones reasonably productive, and I think it’s excellent.

Instead of having Instagram, Facebook etc on your home screen, have more ‘useful’ ways to spend your time. On my home screen, I have my Kindle app. It took a while, but it’s become my go-to app to waste 5 minutes waiting for the tube / a friend / etc, instead of auto-ing straight to Instagram.

Photo of the Week 📸

This won’t always be Benji but his new album cover was too good not to share

This Week I’m: ⬇️

• Reading 📚 - Happy Sexy Millionaire - Steven Bartlett

• Listening to 🎧 - American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins (audiobook) - amazing so far

• Planning ⛷ - Skiing in March 2021 😄

• Working on 💻 - a video about why my Macbook is worth buying, to go with my other video on why not to buy one

• Looking forward to 🏃🏻‍♂️ - Being able to run and play football again. 3 weeks left for my broken toes to heal! I was meant to run the Royal Parks half marathon last week but c'est la vie!

• Just bought 📚 - The Power of Geography - Tim Marshall. I have been looking forward to this follow up from Prisoners of Geography for a while so I was pretty pleased when this was delivered.

This Week’s Quote 💬

You think people care what you think, and then you care less what people think, and then you realize no one cared, anyway. — Tom Brady

This Week’s Video 📺

I've been meaning to do this for a while - I can definitely see some improvements in this video, pretty happy with it!

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There we have it!

Looking forward to catching up next week.

In the meantime, find me on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and have a look at what I’m reading on Goodreads. Ciao!