LINKS AND FURTHER READING:

    • Morten’s book is Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More. (Buy it at Amazon, BN.com, IndieBound, or 8CR.)
    • You can find out more about Morten and his research on his site.

 

8 Responses to “Pinkcast 2.13. How to be great at work: Do less and obsess”

  1. George Zahka says:

    I love this tidbit of advice. It reinforces something I’ve been feeling for a while at work. I also got a huge kick out of Dan’s nonverbal response to being called “Don” by Morten. The way he just went with it keeping a smile the whole time was fantastic. Keep up the emails and Pinkcasts. They are appreciated.

  2. I loved Morton Hansen’s earlier book coauthored with the legendary Jim Collins. I love this idea of eliminating things and focus or to be more specific obsess about the few things where you can make a dramatic difference. We are in the age of dramatic standard deviation and distraction. This is timely advice and Cal Newport’s book Deep Work covers similar ground. The ability to focus deeply and have a unique skill set will be the way to win going forward.

  3. William says:

    Less is more!

  4. Walt says:

    I don’t know why, but it reminds of the quote from Vince Lombardi, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” I’ve not read the book, but I’m guessing it cautions one to not spread themselves too thin, rather to focus on the right things.
    Thanks for the video clip, it serves as a great reminder to evaluate better/best uses of one’s time.

    • Walt exactly that’s what the book does say. I just read the book over the weekend and found it immediately applicable to my life. For example Roald Amundsen practiced only with dogs and specifically he preferred Greenlander dogs over Siberian huskies. It goes without saying he focused monomaniacally and even ate raw dolphin meat. Interesting Robert Falcon Scott had more resources bigger team bigger budget but still lost the race to reach the South Pole. He had too many options and didn’t focus. The key takeaways for all of us is to focus on very few things and obsess about the details. Not easy but doable. Yes the other key is we all have 10000 things to do but focus on right things. Even books we have so many releasing every week focus on the ones that can help your work and your life. Thanks

  5. Eric Case says:

    Sounds like “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by Greg McKeown.

  6. Jen says:

    I appreciate the wisdom in this straight-forward advice, but I’ll admit, I have a hard time following it. With value placed on cross-functional teams and inter-disciplinary projects, it’s challenging to maintain a singular focus and obsess about any single thing. Perhaps the book addresses these kinds of barriers in more detail…looks like I’ll be adding this to my Goodreads list!

  7. Suzi Dafnis says:

    I absolutely love this message and have been sharing it with our community of business owners who often find themselves both distracted and overwhelmed by all the bright shiny objects that come their way.

    Do Less. And Obsess. is our new go to phrase when we want to get more focus and clarity.

    Thanks so much.
    Suzi

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