The Untold Routines of Successful People

“Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.” –Vaibhav Shah.

Being around ultra-successful people can provide valuable information about who they really are, what keeps them going, and most essentially, what makes them so successful and productive.
Kevin Kruse, a Forbes leadership columnist and author of several books including the NY Times bestseller, ‘We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement’, interviewed over 200 ultra-successful people, as well as 7 billionaires, 13 Olympians, and a horde of proficient entrepreneurs.
For his interviews, a simple open-ended question was asked “WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER ONE SECRET TO PRODUCTIVITY?” below are some of his findings:

THEY FOCUS ON MINUTES, NOT HOURS.
Very successful people know that there are 1,440 minutes daily and that there is nothing more valuable than TIME! Rather than default to hour and half-hour blocks on their calendar like most people do, they keep a schedule almost minute by minute.

THEY FOCUS ON ONLY ONE THING.
The only task that matters to ultra-productive people is the “Most Important Task” and they work on it without interruptions. Mornings should be dedicated to tasks that have the biggest impact on reaching our goals.

THEY UNDERSTAND THE 80/20 RULE
Well-known as the Pareto Principle (named after economist Vilfredo Pareto), this rule states that for many phenomena, 80 percent of results come from only 20 percent of activities. Ultra-productive people know the activities they need to do in order to achieve the best results, so they concentrate on those activities.

THEY KEEP NOTES
As thoughts come to ultra-productive people, they write everything down. They recognize that a short pen is always better than a long memory. A lot of people have fantastic ideas in their heads but unless those ideas are penned down, well planned, structured and acted upon, such ideas are bound to die naturally.