Warren Buffet is one of the wealthiest and most successful investors in the world, and has demonstrated remarkable emotional intelligence on so many occasions. For example, have you ever heard of Buffet's 25/5 rule? Here's the story behind the rule--and how it can benefit us.
The 25/5 rule: Simple yet brilliant.
According to the story, Buffet asked one of his employees (who wanted his guidance) to make a list of his top 25 career goals. Then Buffet told him to circle the top 5 goals. Rather than brainstorming strategies to prioritize those goals in the right way, Buffet recommended using the list in a very unique way. He told him to:
1. Remain focused on accomplishing goals 1 through 5, and
2. Stay completely away from working on goals 6 through 25.
What's the lesson?
"It's all about focus." "You're not going to accomplish 25 things in your life. If you really focus long-term you can do three to five big ones, maybe. And the impediment to your not having focus is numbers 6 through 25, because those are the things you're interested in. Those are your biggest potential distractions."
This simple rule is a brilliant way to apply emotional intelligence in our everyday life. It's easy to come up with five things we really want to do. But it's even easier to get distracted from actually making progress on those five goals, because we get caught up in the excitement, the joy, the temporary pleasure of things that simply aren't as important.
And that's why it's so important to identify items 6 through 25--to help us identify the things that are holding us back.
How to make the 25-5 rule work for us?
In the story, Buffet was advising his employee on how to reach his biggest career or life goals. But we can extend this rule to help us with daily, weekly, and monthly priorities as well.
For example, every morning, we might make a task list of five to 10 things we'd really like to accomplish for the day. Then, circle only the top task (or maximum two). Don't do any of the other tasks--no meetings, no calls, nothing--until we've knocked out that top priority.
Do the same thing for the week. Identify 10 things we'd like to get done, but circle only the top two or three. Make those top tasks our ultimate priority, and don't let the others get in the way. We can repeat the same process for one month, for one year, or even for five-year strategy. Once our list is complete, we need to get in the habit of asking ourselves the following questions when faced with choices on how to spend our time:
The 25/5 rule: Simple yet brilliant.
According to the story, Buffet asked one of his employees (who wanted his guidance) to make a list of his top 25 career goals. Then Buffet told him to circle the top 5 goals. Rather than brainstorming strategies to prioritize those goals in the right way, Buffet recommended using the list in a very unique way. He told him to:
1. Remain focused on accomplishing goals 1 through 5, and
2. Stay completely away from working on goals 6 through 25.
What's the lesson?
"It's all about focus." "You're not going to accomplish 25 things in your life. If you really focus long-term you can do three to five big ones, maybe. And the impediment to your not having focus is numbers 6 through 25, because those are the things you're interested in. Those are your biggest potential distractions."
This simple rule is a brilliant way to apply emotional intelligence in our everyday life. It's easy to come up with five things we really want to do. But it's even easier to get distracted from actually making progress on those five goals, because we get caught up in the excitement, the joy, the temporary pleasure of things that simply aren't as important.
And that's why it's so important to identify items 6 through 25--to help us identify the things that are holding us back.
How to make the 25-5 rule work for us?
In the story, Buffet was advising his employee on how to reach his biggest career or life goals. But we can extend this rule to help us with daily, weekly, and monthly priorities as well.
For example, every morning, we might make a task list of five to 10 things we'd really like to accomplish for the day. Then, circle only the top task (or maximum two). Don't do any of the other tasks--no meetings, no calls, nothing--until we've knocked out that top priority.
Do the same thing for the week. Identify 10 things we'd like to get done, but circle only the top two or three. Make those top tasks our ultimate priority, and don't let the others get in the way. We can repeat the same process for one month, for one year, or even for five-year strategy. Once our list is complete, we need to get in the habit of asking ourselves the following questions when faced with choices on how to spend our time:
- Will this task help me reach my goal for the day?
- Will this project help me reach my top goals for the year?
- Will this strategy help me reach my ultimate career goals?
- Or, does it fall under the second category: interesting, but a distraction?
Makes sense to prioritize and focus . Thanks for sharing the idea . I shall try implementing . May be this is a turning point for goals success .
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