One of the most overlooked skills in getting a project over the finish line is not listing everything that needs to be done but deciding what will not get done. It’s easy to make an endless to-do list and allocate more resources in the hope that everything will magically fall into place. It rarely does.
—But, hold on, did you know that this is just an excerpt from the complete and free newsletter that is available here? Sent out once a week, original viewpoints, insights and interesting things to read.—
I’ve been in countless meetings where teams discuss priorities. The bigger the team, the harder it is. Everyone has their pet projects, their own ‘critical’ tasks that somehow didn’t make the official list—or worse, they did, even though they shouldn’t have. The usual response? ‘We need more resources to get it done.’ But that’s not focus. That’s dilution.
The key to true execution is subtraction, not addition.
Steve Jobs put it best: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
Yet, when it’s time to ‘focus,’ most teams agree on what’s important but fail to define what they’ll stop doing. That’s where things get real. When you start listing what you’ll actively kill, projects start moving, and products start shipping.
I won’t sugarcoat it: these meetings are brutal. People don’t like letting go of their projects. There’s blame, frustration, and occasional drama. But in the end, the best-run teams make the hard cuts. They identify what truly matters and clear the path to execution. Corners will be cut, you need to select which ones they will be.
So next time your team talks about ‘focusing,’ don’t just ask what needs to be done—ask what needs to be stopped. That’s when you’ll find real clarity.
This isn’t a popular opinion (try it and you’ll see), but it is effective.
Thanks for reading. Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
About me: I’m a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I’m also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry.
View source
