100 Ways to Motivate Others : How Great Leaders Can Produce Insane Results Without Driving People Crazy

choose
, among all these things, 
the one
thing
that’s the most challenging and important. The one
thing you wish you didn’t have to do.”
“How do I know for sure what that is? And how will
this, in the long run, improve the motivation of my people?
Isn’t that your area of specialty?”
“Yes it is, but until you get this down, you won’t moti-
vate anyone. You have to have a secure place to come
from. An organized place inside yourself.”
“Okay, okay, I know that, but how do I choose the
one thing to focus on?”
“What is that 
one thing
that you’re most likely to put
off? What’s your most important thing to do, the thing
that really needs to be done; not necessarily the most ur-
gent thing, but the most important?”
“Oh,” said Carlos, “I think I’m seeing this. That thing
that pains me most to think of. That’s what I select to do
first.”
“That’s it.”
Most managers are like Carlos. They don’t have a
simple system. They just respond to whatever’s most ur-
gent. All day they wonder, “What has to be addressed right
now?” And a lot of time, the urgent little things that come
up as an answer to that question are really small. They’re
nitpicky things, just hassles.
“But don’t the little things have to be done?” Carlos
asked.
“Yeah, they have to be done, but in the meantime
you’re leaving important things behind. Many times, it is
even more effective to turn off your phones, get away from
Do the Worst First

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your e-mail, select something that’s important, and do that
until it’s complete, and let the urgent go hang.”
“I do know that there’s always something that eats at
the back of my mind,” Carlos said. “It keeps coming up, I
keep thinking about it. It gets in the way of the things I’m
doing.”
“Now you’re on the right track, Carlos! You can’t fo-
cus in a relaxed and cheerful way on the things you are
doing because in the back of your mind, this important
thing is there. When you go home at night, the thing that
makes you the most weary, the most under-the-weather,
and most gives you the sense of not having had a good day,
is that one thing you didn’t do, but wish you had.”
“Right. Boy do I know.”
“So this is what you want to get into the category of
Worst First: You want to pick that one thing that’s hard-
est to do, that you would love to have finished and behind
you. You want to make it 
number one
. First priority. Noth-
ing gets done until that gets done.”
Weeks went by, and Carlos struggled with the system,
but finally warmed up to it after a lot of practice. After
Carlos had finally made the “worst first” system into a
habit, he felt a freedom he never felt before. People around
him were inspired by how liberated he was becoming ev-
ery day from having done the hardest thing first. Carlos
would handle his biggest thing as his first thing, and then
live like the rest of the day was a piece of cake. His energy
soared. Soon he was teaching others the same system.
He called a few months later to give an update on his
newly centered life in leadership.
“I am really freed up by this,” Carlos said. “If some-
one says to me, ‘Will you sit down and talk to me about

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this issue?’ and I have done my worst thing already, I can
say ‘Sure, how much time do you need? Let’s talk.’”
33. Learn to Experiment
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an
experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.