Yeah, I read and applied that advice many times, but in the long run, I've found it to have some really nasty side-effects.
Unless I'm doing something obviously unproductive (e.g. watch TV or play a game), I'm rarely sitting there doing nothing for ages. The only time when this happens, consistently, is precisely when I tell myself "This is what I have to do, above all other things" and it just so happens that that one thing is something that I just don't want to work on or think about right now.
The "Number 1 priority" trick works for a while, and while it's working, it's great - but once you hit one of those snags, a whole day can vanish without a trace or any output. The only time "Number 1 priority" works reliably for me is when there is an imminent deadline and I cannot not do it. Any form of artificial "I'm going to do only this today" has a high probability of reducing my overall output instead of increasing it.
When, instead, I tell myself "I can do any of these 20 things, or even anything else I can think of", suddenly I run through things at a really rapid rate - especially if I know that in that list is one task that I just don't want to do... it's like I'll do all the other stuff just to avoid doing that one task.
So, anyway, not just different people, but different techniques - both work, superficially, imho - i've just found that the "focus on one thing" approach hits some terrible snags every once in a while that devalue it on the whole...
Unless I'm doing something obviously unproductive (e.g. watch TV or play a game), I'm rarely sitting there doing nothing for ages. The only time when this happens, consistently, is precisely when I tell myself "This is what I have to do, above all other things" and it just so happens that that one thing is something that I just don't want to work on or think about right now.
The "Number 1 priority" trick works for a while, and while it's working, it's great - but once you hit one of those snags, a whole day can vanish without a trace or any output. The only time "Number 1 priority" works reliably for me is when there is an imminent deadline and I cannot not do it. Any form of artificial "I'm going to do only this today" has a high probability of reducing my overall output instead of increasing it.
When, instead, I tell myself "I can do any of these 20 things, or even anything else I can think of", suddenly I run through things at a really rapid rate - especially if I know that in that list is one task that I just don't want to do... it's like I'll do all the other stuff just to avoid doing that one task.
So, anyway, not just different people, but different techniques - both work, superficially, imho - i've just found that the "focus on one thing" approach hits some terrible snags every once in a while that devalue it on the whole...