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36 hours and 1 important thing

36 hours ago my team received a major assignment.

Major in the sense completing it would result in significant progress in our work.

If you asked me 36 hours ago how long I thought it was going to take for us complete this major assignment, I’d offer an estimation of 1.5 to 2 weeks.

The problem is we didn’t have 1.5 to 2 weeks — the assignment was due tonight.

Instead of panicking, we focused on effective action: we rescheduled meetings, dropped what we could, and committed the last 36 hours to this one assignment.

We just finished.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Trying to do a lot of great things at once is a trap. You will make much more progress by focusing on completing 1 thing at a time.
2. And with said focus, most things can be done within 48 hours.

I’m not advocating for working weekends or evenings all the time, but there are undoubtedly occasions where a temporary surge in effort makes sense.

And it’s in these moments of extreme focus & effort where you realize what you and your team are truly capable of.