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The problem is busyness without doing the business; of getting to the end of the day having done lots and achieved nothing. It's easy to do and often happens when you become seduced by easy, absorbing, but unimportant tasks. To become a Powerhouse, you must refine your clarity of purpose to focus your energy on what matters. This means choosing the right things to do and having the self-control to set other things aside.

When I was a student, we would often drive into the Devon countryside, looking for a pub to spend a pleasant afternoon in. It was on one of the very last of these outings, shortly before my friends and I were due to graduate and start our working lives, that we took a turn between two high hedges and found ourselves on an un-made road – little more than a farm track. As we drove along it, the surface got worse, and then we saw a hand-painted sign, doubtless put up by a local farmer. The sign read:‘Choose your rut carefully – you're going to be in it for a long time.’

Focused Busyness

Focused busyness means doing stuff that really makes a difference.

What a perfect warning about adult life: forced either to carry on the way you are going or hit reverse and go backwards. No option to jump out of the rut and choose a new direction. And many of us live lives a little like that, getting to the end of each day, having done lots … and achieved nothing.

I call this ‘busyness without doing the business'.

Busyness Without Doing the Business

The consequence of this constantly busy lifestyle is rarely any great sense of success or fulfilment. It often doesn't even produce much in the way of results. All it has to offer is exhaustion.

So, many of us respond by working harder, by becoming more competent and by taking on more responsibility. The ‘one more push' approach to happiness. The problem is that the one more push is often in the wrong direction; often a push further along your existing rut. Competence, doing your job and trying harder are not enough.

The best you will do is to consolidate your existing position in your rut, moving up one small step at a time when circumstances permit. Who wants to consolidate a position where you are forever busy and never truly successful?

What is the solution? The solution is ‘focused busyness'.

Focused busyness means doing stuff that really makes a difference.

Becoming a Powerhouse means choosing the right things to do and having the self-control to set other things aside.

Powerhouse Effectiveness and Rules

If you learn the rules and work within them, you are always going to be more effective than if you are constantly fighting against them. Changing the rules is hard and so, if you set out to do this, be sure it really matters and is the right thing to do. Wantonly fighting the rules or trying to cheat the system is not noble or wise.

Sometimes, however, it does make sense to set the rules aside: special situations demand different rules, so in highly adverse weather conditions where public transport is cancelled and roads are dangerous, it is not heroic to fight your way to work, risking your life: it is foolish.

The Process of Focused Busyness

We are all influenced by something or someone and, on the matter of focused busyness, like many people, I owe a debt to the leading twentieth century management thinker, Peter Drucker, who distinguished between efficient, which is the ability to do things well, and effective, which is doing the right things well.

Focused busyness therefore starts with finding the right things to do, and then looks for ways to do them well. The first five chapters are about how to create focused busyness.

Compelling Causes

The world is full of opportunities: start by focusing on the right ones.

The world is full of opportunities and a Powerhouse will start by focusing on the right ones – a small number that will give the best results. A Powerhouse will turn them into compelling causes that spur effective action and achieve worthwhile outcomes.

The Three Laws of Opportunity

An opportunity is an uncertain future that could have a valuable, positive outcome. Opportunities are a fundamental part of life and so, like Newton's three laws of motion and the three laws of thermodynamics, there are three laws of opportunity.

The First Law of Opportunity

'You will get the best results when you focus on exploiting opportunities: not on solving problems.'

The Second Law of Opportunity

'Allocate your time, your energy, and your resources to your best opportunities.'

The Third Law of Opportunity

'Find yourself an environment that is rich in opportunities.'

Turn Your Opportunities into Compelling Causes

Frederick the Great, who faced monumental defeats before he was able to expand his kingdom of Prussia, said: ‘To defend everything is to defend nothing.'

A Powerhouse needs motivation, and nothing motivates us more powerfully than a cause to pursue. From among all your possible opportunities, find a small number of compelling causes that you can commit yourself to. These should be the opportunities with the potential to deliver the greatest satisfaction or value for the effort you put in. Let these propel you to do your best work and to exclude distractions.

Identify no more than five opportunities to seize. Make them your very best opportunities, because they must compel you to succeed. As US President Abraham Lincoln said:‘Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.’

Express Your Compelling Causes as Outcomes

Now express each of these compelling causes as an outcome:

‘My cause is to …’

You need to decide on no more than five outcomes that will be your focus over the next three months. These will dominate your agenda, keeping your attention on achieving a small number of worthwhile outcomes.

Why five; and why three months? A small number of causes to pursue will result in greater personal effectiveness than a large number for three reasons.

First, it will produce the greater focus that you need, to produce the Powerhouse performance and the spectacular results that you want. With too many causes to pursue, you will dissipate your effort and achieve little of value towards any of the outcomes.

Second, it is unlikely that all of your opportunities will be of the same scale. It is the way of things that a small number of them will, together, deliver the vast majority of the benefit. This is sometimes known as ‘The Pareto Principle' after Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who found in early twentieth century Italy that most of the wealth was in the pockets of a small number of people. This is still true today, in all countries and globally. Indeed, the statistic that is best associated with Pareto – that 20 per cent of the population owned 80 per cent of the wealth – is still true, to within a few per cent, of the world today. In a world of near infinite opportunities, you must choose something or risk achieving nothing.

The third reason to pursue a small number of causes is because it is risky. When you decide which causes are truly compelling to you, you are making the choice to abandon a host of other, lesser opportunities. This is risky: what if you choose wrong? But deciding is cutting yourself off from the alternatives and that level of risk should really sharpen your senses, stiffen your sinews and summon up all of your energy: you are committed now.

The Pareto Principle

This leads us to the reason why it is best to determine your compelling causes for the next three months – not for the next year. If you choose wrongly, then shorter-term causes mean you can abandon a poor choice more quickly and refocus your efforts. If it is still looking like the right choice after three months of effort and learning, then decide what the next outcome is towards winning this cause.

Express Your Outcomes with Precision

Many writers have written many words about goal setting and most of them focus on the idea of SMART goals. Some have even developed the idea of SMARTER goals – cute! I developed the concept of SMARTEST goals for an earlier book, where SMARTEST stands for:

But this is not enough for a Powerhouse performer. We need to look at the latest research, and there are three pieces that should transform the way you determine your outcomes.

Experts Do it Differently

In studies of high school basketball players at three levels (expert, non-expert and novice), Timothy Cleary and Barry Zimmerman of the City University of New York found that experts set goals differently from non-experts. Experts set specific goals, like to hit ten out of ten shots, to bend their knees when they throw, or to keep their eye on the rim of the basket.

Non-experts and novices also set goals based on the outcome, their technique and their focus, but the goals they set were far more general, like to make their shots, to try harder and to concentrate more.

Lesson 1: Set very specific goals that you can monitor every step of the way, with real precision.

Short-Term and Long-Term Goals