A&B #65

Hey everyone,

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving weekend, caught up with the family, and maybe even talked about your favorite books with them.

I recently realized that I've written 10,000+ tweets over the past 4+ years.

So, I put together a list of 

 of all time (it's filled with my top book recommendation threads and reading tips).

Sidenote: We passed 100,000 views on

! Check out my channel for tons of book recommendations and podcast clips.

• PS: I'm trying to get to 5k subs before the end of the year, please subscribe to my channel here if you haven't already.

Alright, let's dive into this week's newsletter.

📚 Book Lessons:

This week's book is The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. This is one of the first productivity books I've ever read and still one of my favorites. The advice is simple, yet effective: What's the ONE thing you can do that by doing it, everything else becomes easier? Highly recommend reading it if you enjoyed Atomic Habits or Essentialism.Here are 3 lessons from it:1) Create Success Lists Instead of To-Do ListIf you want to be productive, a good strategy is to use a To-Do list. Every morning, take a piece of paper or open up your Notes tab and write down all the things you want to accomplish.However, it's important to realize that not all tasks are created equally and some tasks are more valuable than others (ex: having a 1-hour call with a new client is worth a lot more than spending an hour raking leaves in the backyard).That's why you want to turn your To-Do list into a Success list. A Success list is when you apply the 80/20 rule (figuring out what tasks will give you 80% of the results with 20% of the input) to your To-Do list.So, if you have 25 things on your To-Do list you want to apply the 80/20 rule to narrow your list down to the 5 most important tasks and work on only those 5 tasks until finished. Those 5 tasks will give you 80% of the results you want while only requiring 20% of the effort.2) Stop Trying To Multitask Multitasking is a lie.Humans can't focus on two complex tasks at once. When you're multitasking, you're actually quickly switching from one task to the other. However, that switching has a price.Every time we switch tasks, it takes a few milliseconds for our brains to refocus on the other task which increases the chances of us getting distracted and doing something else. This is why multitasking doesn't save time but rather wastes it. For instance, which strategy sounds more productive: A) Doing an hour of writing than an hour of cleaning B) Doing 5 minutes of writing then 5 minutes of cleaning and switching back and forth for 2 hoursThe answer of course is A.So, stop trying to multitask. It may sometimes feel productive, but it's not. Instead, once work on one thing at a time.    3) Dream Forward But Work Backwards To turn your dreams into reality you need a plan. Think of something you'd love to accomplish one day (publishing a book, buying a house, or some other big goal), then ask yourself, what's one thing you can do in the next 5 years to achieve that dream goal? Then ask yourself, what's one thing you can do in the next year to be on track to achieve that 5-year goal? Then ask yourself, what's one thing you can do in the next month to achieve that 1-year goal? Then ask yourself, what's one thing you can do in the next week to achieve that 1-month goal? Then ask yourself, what's one thing you can do today to achieve that 1-week goal?The whole point of this exercise is to understand that although your dream goal may be years away, you can start working on it and get one step closer by taking action today.And research backs this up. Students who visualized the process of studying for an exam did better than those who visualized the outcome (getting an "A" on the exam). So, write down your goals and the steps you need to take today, this week, this month, this year, and in the next 5-years to achieve it.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Turn your To-Do list into a Success list:  

• Grab a piece of paper and write down the tasks you want to accomplish today.

• Then narrow it down to the 5 most important tasks.

• Only work on those 5 tasks (they will give you the most bang for your buck).

2) Stop multitasking:

• When you try to multitask you're actually rapidly switching between tasks, not doing two tasks at once.

• When you switch tasks, you increase the chances of you getting distracted.

• So, focus on working on only one thing at a time.

3) Create a plan to achieve your dream goal:

• Write down your dream goal.

• Then identify the steps you need to accomplish along the way to achieve it:

  • Ask yourself: What's one thing I can do today/ this week/ this month/ this year to get me closer to achieving my dream goal?

🎧  Podcast Update:

My podcast episode with Jay Papasan is up. Listen to learn:

• Why multitasking does more harm than good

• The one question you should ask yourself to become more productive

• The four thieves of productivity

And more.Listen here or watch on YouTube here!

📖  Reading Lesson: Before you spend 5 hours reading a book...Spend 5 minutes reading a summary of it to see if it's a good match for your interests.Here are 7 books worth checking out (with a summary of each).

⭐️  Weekly Quote:"All the secrets of the world are contained in books."-Lemony Snicket

🙏  Support:No sponsor this week.Instead, here are some deals for you:  📖  Get 30% off my social media growth ebook (use code "bfw30" here). ☎️  Get 30% off a 1-hour consulting call with me (use code "bfw30" here). 👕  Get 30% off all Alex & Books merch (use code "bfw30" here).All deals end tomorrow at midnight so get it before it ends!

Thank you for your support everyone, I'll see you next Sunday!Read on,Alex W.