The Power of One

Slowing Down to Be More Productive When Time is Crawling

The number one 1?? gets a bad rap—it’s the loneliest number. First is the worst. Two is better than one.

Poor number one has it hard, but I believe there is real power in this number.

As an anxious person, a business owner, a step/fur-mom, and a person existing in today’s world, I can easily get wrapped up in ALL THE THINGS.

That’s why the power of one is particularly important.

“The Power of One” is a little exercise I created to force myself to take one thing at a time. It’s about focusing on accomplishing micro-goals instead of ALL THE THINGS, everywhere, all at once.

There might be folks reading this and thinking, “The month of January has felt like an eternity…how will doing one thing at a time help me feel less overwhelmed??”

Trust me, I get it. I have been raising my fist in solidarity anytime I see one of those memes about “Today is the 47th day of January.” Because same.

But time crawling and taking things slow aren’t the same thing. Time crawling is how you’re experiencing your days. Taking things slow is how you react to them.

So why is time moving at a snail’s pace??

For starters, the “blank slate” aspect of a new year always makes time slow down because you have so much ahead of you. Also, for us on this side of the hemisphere, the lack of sunlight is sure to make any day crawl. And for many people, January has felt like an eternity because each day America is heading closer to becoming the real-life Handmaid’s Tale.

For me, when time moves extra slowly, there is almost an inverse effect on my brain. The slower time moves, the faster my brain comes up with all the things I haven’t done and all the reasons I’m failing at life. My brain also decides it knows how to predict the future—it comes up with all these crazy scenarios that will inevitably happen because I’m failing at life. This, according to my therapist, is forecasting.

With my brain in forecasting overdrive, it’s nearly impossible to be productive. Thereby making time slow even more until I feel completely stuck. It’s an exhausting see-saw of neural processing, and that’s why I began tapping into the power of one.

Instead of getting wrapped up in things I cannot control and berating myself for not doing all the things I ever wanted, I am focusing on “one thing” at a time.

It sounds simple enough—like almost laughable —but it’s actually a little harder than you might think. Because, as humans, we want to plan our entire lives out and have a color-coordinated plan for the week, the month, and the year.

The key is keeping it so simple and small because there is power in feeling like you've accomplished something. By taking my never-ending to-do list down to a small list of low-risk micro goals, everything feels just a bit more attainable.

On the most basic level, this looks like a weekly list of “ONE THING” I am going to:

??Accomplish professionally

??Accomplish personally

??Let go of

??Do for myself

For example, one thing I can do for my business this week is to send an email to an industry connection. In my personal life, my one thing could be dropping off a bag of donations to clear out my office. One thing I can let go of this week is the need to post every day. And one thing I can do for myself is download an Audible book.

If I accomplish all these small things, I will feel good about myself, which will build momentum to keep going. But, if I don’t finish some or even all of these “one things,”… it doesn’t feel like the end of the world because there are many other things that I did accomplish or will accomplish.

The exercise doesn’t have to look like this—you could do this daily or monthly and use whatever “one thing” prompts you want. The key is keeping it super simple and low-risk. If you achieve it, great. If you don’t, no biggie. I also suggest writing or typing it up. Something about seeing your goals and being able to cross them off makes it even better.

The point of this exercise is to remind your brain that you are productive, but even if you miss a few things, it’s not the end of the world.