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Have you tried implementing the 5/25 rule for your productivity yet?
The 5/25 rule comes from a story about Warren Buffet and his pilot Mike Flint. Buffet asked Flint to write down 25 professional priorities and then circle the top five ones to focus on. When asked what he would do with the other twenty, Flint said that he would commit secondary time to the rest of the list. However, Buffet shut down that idea and said that the twenty should be the “Avoid at All Cost List” so he can give his complete attention to the top five. When he achieves a goal from his top five, he can then replace it with one of the goals from the rest of the twenty.
The point of the 5/25 rule is that you have to narrow down your priorities and focus on them. It’s tempting to want and try to do a lot of things at once but you’ll achieve better results when you prioritize.
Does the 5/25 rule sound like something that can help you with all your goals? Here are three reasons why the 5/25 rule might be just what you need for your productivity.
One of the best things you can do to achieve your goals is to write them down. It’s as simple as that. It’s even backed by science: A study found that people who vividly describe their goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to accomplish their goals. Turns out writing things down helps your brain remember better, and you want to have your goals top of mind.
Not only do you want to write down your goals, you want to be regularly reminded of them. Use a tool like Assembly’s Daily/Weekly Agenda to write down and keep track of your goals. This tool allows you to prioritize your goals, so you can easily write down your 25 goals and then prioritize your top five.
Do you ever get overwhelmed with all the things you need to do? The reason why the 5/25 rule works for productivity is because it forces you to focus on a narrowed list of items. Because, whether we want to admit it or not, we just can’t do everything at once. Especially in today’s world with the myriad of tools, goals, things-to-do in our professional and personal lives. So many things demand our attention that we need to prioritize what is most valuable and focus on doing things one, or a few, at a time.
There’s not much we can do to prevent distractions or keep our to-do list from growing, but what we do have control over is organization. By following the 5/25 rule, we can take our list of 25 and prioritize doing just five of them first. Focusing on five things is easier to manage and to keep track of. A good tool to organize your tasks is Assembly’s Notebook and you can see how easy it is to add and move tasks around in this video.
The reasons why the 5/25 rule works is because of its most powerful aspect: Prioritization. As we’ve said before, it is too easy to have so many things to do and goals to achieve. The best thing we can do for our productivity is to prioritize our tasks, from importance to timeliness. What needs to be done this hour, today, or by this week? What can wait? What is the most important thing to do? What is less important? Answering these questions can help us prioritize our tasks so we know what we need to do first.
If you need help figuring out what to prioritize, try a little retrospective. Think about what has and hasn’t worked for you in the past. What made your projects successful and your goal achievements possible? Assembly’s Retrospectives too has an easy-to-follow structure that will help find concrete takeaways, track changes, and identify areas of improvement.
Assembly is used by companies everywhere to get their employees organized and connected. Learn how Assembly can help you and your organization work smarter, not harder. Request a demo today!
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