Productivity Series: Do Less, Win More Part 2

Do you want to know how you could win more often by simply "losing less"?

The first article in the series focused on subtraction, on learning to say no, on taking away the things that stood in your way of succeeding.

This second article is a little different. The people who are at the top of their game in sports and in business strategically "lose less" every single day, and you can too. This very simple concept, once understood, can change the outcome of everything from winning friendly sports matches to doubling manufacturing output at large factories.

It's something I was lucky enough to start doing subconsciously very early on without realizing why I was so much more successful than my peers with seemingly less effort. Let's look at a couple of examples to make this easier to understand.

School

In school your ability to learn determines your test scores which determines how smart you are, right?

Not necessarily. Here's the secret.

This is what I figured out early on: my ability to understand how to make less mistakes on tests and to focus only on the content the teacher specifically said would be on the test led me to get good grades with almost no time studying outside the classroom. Granted I did enjoy learning, but once I figured out this strategy every day became a game of honing my skill to focus on only what's working.

Manufacturing

Here's another example that applies on a much grander scale.

In the 1970's Japanese manufacturing companies redesigned work spaces so that everything a worker may need to do their job was within reach. No twisting, moving, walking, turning, essentially no wasted time. By 1979, Japanese output of TV's was 3 times faster than the US and received 5 times fewer service calls. (1)

Sports

If you are curious to know how this applies in sports we can use tennis as an example.

In amateur tennis matches, statistically (and sadly) your opponent will win when you lose more points than them (through your own errors, to yourself). The secret to winning against an opponent then would be to make fewer mistakes. If you could just focus on hitting the ball as smoothly as possible to get it over the net you leave room for your opponent to play a losing game against themselves. You will watch them hit the ball out of bounds and into the net enough times for you to be declared victorious. (2)

Business

Here's one last example from one of the greatest business minds of our time.

Warren Buffett’s mentor and teacher, Benjamin Graham, gave a very difficult 20-question true-and-false quiz to a group of very smart men and told them half of the questions were true and half were false. The majority of the men got less than 10 correct answers. They were trying to win instead of avoiding losing, but if they had listened to the instructor and marked all 20 questions as True or all 20 as False, they would have gotten half of the questions right. (3)

Health

This strategy can be applied to goals, habits, desired outcomes, or any other achievements.

If your goal is to focus on your health more, instead of trying to follow a new diet, cook more and make it to the gym 5 times a week, try to simply buy less packaged or snack food on your next grocery trip. Then you can work on skipping fewer cycling classes or walks after dinner. You don't need a whole overhaul right away, you just need to cut back on the frequency you do the small, detrimental habits that got you to where you are today. It's that simple.

What most of us don't ever learn is that avoiding mistakes, even small ones, is more beneficial to us in the long run than trying to prove we are intelligent. Once you understand optimizing your life is a lot less complicated than it sounds, you will see the rewards you reap financially, mentally, spiritually and physically are highly skewed in your favor.

To summarize, big gains come from avoiding small loses.

What part of your life will you be trying out or implementing this strategy in?

If you have any areas that you're not sure how you can apply this in, leave a comment below so I can reply and support you on your journey.