January 14th, 2008 in Productivity

Three Basic Steps to Get Your Desire with the Least Effort

How can we get what we want? The book Simpleology contains five laws to help you get what you want:

The Law of Straight Lines: The shortest path between two points is a straight line. If you want to get a particular result, take the fastest and most direct route. Don’t add any extra steps.
The Law of Clear Vision: In order to hit a target, you need to see it clearly. You must have a clear vision of exactly what you want in order to get it.
The Law of Focused Attention: In order to hit a target, you must focus sufficient attention on it until you hit it.
The Law of Focused Energy: In order to accomplish something you must focus sufficient energy on it until you have done so.
The Inescapability of Action/Reaction: There are two things from which you can never escape: action and reaction.

All these laws are useful. After spending some time to ponder them, I think we can summarize them into three basic steps you should do to get your desire with the least effort:

1. Know exactly what you want

While I’m sure most of us have an idea about what we want, I don’t think many of us know exactly what we want. For instance, if you want to have your own business, do you know what kind of business you want to build? How will it look – in detail - several years from now?

To know exactly what we want, a helpful practice is visualization. We should visualize the situation we want to achieve. Imagine how it looks, how it sounds, and how people’s life is changed by it.

Knowing exactly what you want will help you determine whether or not something you encounter could help you. If you don’t know what you want, it is much easier to get distracted by irrelevant things along the way. But if you know exactly what you want, you will see clearly whether or not something is relevant.

2. Always follow a straight line

Do only the things that bring you closer to your destination. Do not waste your time to do extra things which will make it longer to reach your goal.

This, unfortunately, is easier said than done. Without realizing it, you might have some habits which do not bring you closer to your goal. There might be things you do, perhaps even daily, that take you away from your goal. They make you follow a curved line instead of a straight one.

For instance, maybe your goal is increasing the amount of your saving by, say, 100%. However, you still spend $5 daily to get your favorite coffee and snack. If we assume that there are 30 days a month, $5 daily will become $150 a month and $1800 a year, a substantial amount. As you can see, this habit doesn’t help you reach your goal.

So, in whatever you do, it is wise to ask: "Is it a straight line?" And when the answer is no, you should stop doing it.

3. Sharpen your saw

While doing things which brings you closer to your goal is important, you will waste a lot of time and energy if you do not do them with a "sharp saw". It’s dangerous to be busy; we may work too hard trying to make things happen without realizing that our saw has become blunt. In such situation we could work very hard but accomplish very little. You might then be surprised when someone else – who seem to work less than you do – surpass your achievements.

A good way to know whether or not you have a sharp saw is by watching yourself. Can you accomplish much in a given amount of time? Does your creativity flow well? Are you now in – or close to – your peak performance?

If the answer is no, then you need to sharpen your saw. The action you should take depends on your situation. Perhaps you need to take some time away from your work, or perhaps you need to learn a new tool. Examine your situation, and do what it takes to bring you back to peak performance. The time investment to sharpen your saw is well worth it. With a sharp saw, you will be able to achieve more with less time and energy.

WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY

Donald Latumahina

Donald Latumahina writes about personal growth and effectiveness at Life Optimizer. His mission is helping people live life to the fullest. You can read his featured posts on multiple topics.

ARTICLES BY THIS WRITER »

29 Responses

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

Comments

Chris says on January 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
The law of straight lines and the law of clear vision are so hard to follow in a world that seems to demand that we multi-task! I have several projects right now that demand varying levels of my attention. Anyone of them could monopolize the next month of my life.
I have to remind myself when I’m working on project X to stay focused on that project and that project Y has to wait until it’s time for project Y. Easier said than done. Thanks for the post!
Sean says on January 14th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
If only the laws were so easily followed. In this current day and age, focused attention and energy are so difficult.
Well anyways great post.
Brad Gibson says on January 15th, 2008 at 12:47 am
The summary in this blog post contains all of the useful content that you will find in the book. I bought the book 2 weeks ago and read it in 2 hours. It is primarily a shameless promotion for web “content” and “courses” mixed with unrelated political commentary and disjointed, unrelated cartoons. Very strange. David Allen has nothing to worry about.
Alexander Kjerulf says on January 15th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I could not disagree more with this.
To my mind, the approach touted here smacks of a simplistic, mechanistic world view that looks bad enough on paper and which is virtually certain not to work in real life.
I can certainly say, that all the big meaningful things I have accomplished in my life, privately and professionally, have come from doing almost the exact opposite.
Donald Latumahina says on January 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Chris and Sean,
Yes, the laws/steps are not easy to follow. Sometimes the circumstances make it difficult to do so. But I see them as a guideline; they simply direct us on how we should do things.
Alexander,
So far the approach works well for me. It helps me achieve my goals better than before. But I’m glad you shared your view. I may miss something and I wish I would learn about it in the future.
calvin says on January 16th, 2008 at 2:31 am
you know these sound fine for short projects. But life is more complicated. And if you are doing creative work, things are often not clear at all.
Lots of creative work needs trial and error. Or teasing out requirements from clients, or understanding a users needs that they haven’t even expressed. Nevermind inventing something new. Things that are new are undefined. That’s what makes them new!
Wouldn’t it have been easier just to stay, keep your eyes open, stay focused, keep digging?
Focused says on January 16th, 2008 at 9:52 am
1. I visualize exactly and strongly how the pussy looks like …
Jim says on January 16th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Fluff. Insubstantial, simplistic generalizations promising lots, but delivering very little. I wonder if Stephen Covey is aware of the fact that his trademarked “Sharpening the Saw” phrase has been acquired? Of course, you’re paying him a license to use his material, right? RIGHT?
Sinbad says on January 16th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
The Law of Straight Lines is the best way to get desire. Find someone (or thing) you like and do what it takes to make it happen.
http://lancome.cosmetics-4me.info
As a female get yourself madeover, that always increases my wife’s desire.
Dave says on January 17th, 2008 at 6:25 am
I definitely agree with step 1 being the first in the list.
Once you’ve mastered that, concentrating on exactly what you want, that one thing, you’ll be able to stay on track and complete your goal (desire) with much less effort. You’ll program your subconsience to keep you on course.
Nice article, thanks for sharing it.
Ayn Rand says on January 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Haha, thank you for being a devout cult follower. Jeez.
john says on April 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
The first sentence of the “sharpen your saw” section uses a type of double negative to make its point. It says you will ‘waste time’ if you do ‘not’ use a sharp saw. It was a little hard to parse that and get the correct point. Why not reformulate using no negatives. i.e. you get there faster using a sharp saw.?
nghiavu says on January 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Hi
I’m from a developing country and I learned from my own experience that The Law of Straight Line is not always applicable. Sometimes the other way around is faster.
Traci Toguchi says on January 28th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Great post. It seems the issue most people have is figuring out what they want to do.
Any tips for that?