Ruthless Elimination: A valuable tactic of focus and productivity

“Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.”– Dale Carnegie

In the world of value and results, mere busyness is never proximate to high productivity; doing a long list of average activities is a poor substitute for doing fewer but truly important tasks. 

Figuring out tall-worth tasks in an era of tumultuous noise requires sound deliberation and firm will. It requires a sense of purpose to protect one’s key goals against the forces of massive daily distractions.

And to do this, we must recognize that not all tasks are born equal. Some things matter far less in comparison to others. And the skill of Pareto principle of conscious prioritization is what we want to run through in this article. The principle states that the vital 20% of activities account for 80% of the results and rewards. 

To live our lives at the optimum level, we need to determine and focus only on those vital 20% of activities: the very few things that really matter. As the former U.S.A president, Theodore Roosevelt once remarked, “Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

Now, it is our turn to focus hard at things that are really worth doing.

Narrowed Focus and Ruthless Elimination

The idea of ruthless elimination is what Steve Jobs used to transform Apple into what it is today. Like jobs, all super-successful people are masters at focusing on what is essential to the exclusion of all else. 

And Rory Vaden expresses this principle clearly in his book, ‘Take the Stairs.’ He counsels us that: “The most important skill for the next generation of knowledge worker is not learning what to do, but determining what not to do and focusing on key priorities.” 

In other words, it’s not what we do that drives our productivity, but what we deliberately choose not to do. Why? Because what we cease to do determines the time available for us to accomplish the things that are really important.

The strategy of ruthless elimination is a simple two-step process that can aid you to achieve far more by helping you leverage your time better. It is an effective approach used by many high achievers to get a whole lot done in a whole less time. 

See the steps as follows:

Step 1: Clarify what is essential to you. {Note: make certain that these are truly your supreme priorities.}

Step 2: Eliminate everything else. {You need to eliminate everything that is not truly important. Be proactive, be fierce and yes, be ruthless at this point.}

These two simple steps are powerful enough to make us superstars in anything we set our minds to. However, bringing it to life requires a good measure of self-discipline. 

You see, fabulous productive success boils down to being serious with the basics. Nothing earth-shattering, just identify the essential, and eliminate everything else.

Now, the big question is: how serious are we to putting simple strategy into practice in our lives? 

So, please don’t overlook this write-up because you already know everything it explains; yes, nothing is new here. But you should answer the following questions to improve your life going forward:

‘Am I doing this?’

‘Have I mastered it?’

‘Does my habit show that I am doing this?’

‘Do my results prove that I have mastered it?’

If you answer ‘no’ to any of those questions, then I guess you know where to begin.

Most people know what to do. However, the most successful people are those who do the most with the knowledge that they have. 

By using this knowledge to focus only on the things that really matter, we (you and I) can accomplish a lot with the very limited time that we have.