How To Supercharge Your Execution Skill

The world belongs to those who act. If everyone would do what they say they would, we'd have flying cars by now. But we don't. The average individual has very poor execution skills. They're blocked by a lack of discipline, a mountain of procrastination, and no clear execution framework.

Well, in this video, we'll peek around the curtain on how we get things done and how you should too. Welcome to Alux! Let's dive in.

Let's start right here, one thing at a time. First, we need to address the underlying issue that nobody wants to admit: overambition. You see this firsthand on January 1st, where people suddenly act like they have this ability to run three companies, start eight projects, and run a marathon every week. And that's some admirable ambition, sure. But we all know it's not going to happen.

You see, people highly overestimate what they can do right before they start doing it. The more things they plan for, the better they feel about themselves. But once those things ultimately get postponed or canceled, well, it creates a chain reaction. Suddenly now, everything is postponed, and you find yourself in a position where everything needs to happen all at once in order for you to keep to your original plan.

You get overwhelmed, and you end up doing nothing that you said you'd do. This is the most common reason people underperform. It's what we're seeing time and time again, and even we are guilty of it sometimes. Focusing on one thing at a time sounds easy, but it's extremely difficult. Because ultimately, if you focus on just one thing, you're neglecting the other ones.

And to get this right, you need what we're going to discuss next: a priority tier list. When you say yes to something, you ultimately say no to a bunch of other things, and you need to make sure the trade-off makes sense. People find it very hard to say no. They want to be polite, they want to be liked, and they want to build a reputation as a reliable person. But this backfires almost every time.

You see, saying no to something because you have something higher in priority means you are reliable. It means you've got the priorities straight, and nobody can force you off course. If someone doesn't understand that, it's their problem, not yours.

You see, when you shift your focus from one thing to another, your brain runs slower. It may only take tenths of a second to make a mental switch, but they quickly add up. That's why when you read something and check your phone notifications, you completely forget what you just read for the past 20 minutes. You don't even remember where exactly you stopped reading.

It takes a lot of brain power to keep switching from one thing to another, which ultimately makes you incredibly sluggish. This is the reason you need a clear priority tier list where things are organized in order of importance and impact, and you do them one by one.

Now, there is one big problem with priority lists. This is something that we learned recently, and it literally completely changed the way we work. In order to make a solid priority list, you need to understand the difference between two very distinct types of actions, and we're discussing them next: ongoing versus complete.

Now, this right here has the potential to completely change your life, and it's pretty simple, really. You see, there are only two types of action that you can do in life: ongoing ones and the ones that have a clear start and finish. And the problem is people are focusing on the wrong one.

Let us explain. So, at the top of the decision-making pyramid, there are two types of people: executives and managers. Both of these people have equally important jobs, but they operate in completely opposite ways, and you can't have one without the other.

You see, with managers, they operate on the floor surrounded by everything. They build systems and protocols, and they're in charge of the day-to-day operation. In other words, they have ongoing priorities, things that don't have an end. They just need to happen regularly for the foreseeable future. The manager operates on a daily, weekly, or monthly timeline.

Executives, on the other hand, operate in closed quarters alone. They focus on one thing, and they need to see that one thing completed. They operate on a clear timeline; it starts here, and it ends here.

Now, here's the mind-blowing part: you, without knowing it, always play both of these roles. But because you're not aware of it, and you don't approach them in the way you should, you underperform. You see, the big problem here is that you need different parts of the brain and different environments for each of those roles.

When you're on a manager timeline, you need people, tools, meetings, reports, small tweaks, and so on. When you're on an executive timeline, you need quiet and focus. You see, these two timelines cannot coexist. Just think of managing an online bookstore versus writing a book.

You can't switch from a meeting with publishers to finishing chapter three on your new book. Your brain will simply shut down because those two actions require different types of brain power. You see, people tend to focus too much on managing tasks because they seem more approachable and easily done, and they try to squeeze in the executive tasks here and there.

But think about it: how could you ever possibly finish something that has no end? Those ongoing tasks will constantly chip away at your brain power, little by little, with no end in sight, leaving you with barely any energy left to finish the executive things.

So, here's what you need to do: every morning when you wake up, you need to decide if this will be a managing day or an execution day. Because it can't be both. Then, only do the tasks from that particular role.

The beauty of this is, suddenly, you find the right time and the right place for everything. Is today a managing day? Well, bulk all your managing tasks up right now: emails, meetings, reports, small tweaks, A/B testing, everything like that goes here. And if you run out of things to do, well, find some more. Keep yourself busy with managing stuff.

Is today an execution day? Well, put your phone on Do Not Disturb and get to work. Simple as that. This thing alone can have a huge impact on your ability to get things done efficiently.

And now, you've got to face the big old P: procrastination. Look, here's the simple reality: unless you're battling executive dysfunction because you've genuinely got ADHD or something, procrastination is just your brain being a drama queen. It overestimates the difficulty of the task at hand, and it signals to your brain to feel tired, so you stay nice and cozy. It's essentially a defense mechanism to keep you safe.

Now, there are multiple ways to handle procrastination, and they all work to various degrees. What we found works best for us in both managing and execution scenarios is brute force momentum and working early in the morning. We actually made a video on the benefits of doing the hardest thing first thing in the morning; we'll link to it in the description.

But the reality is no one can solve your procrastination for you, and you can also really easily fall into the trap of procrastinating while looking for ways to stop doing it. Now, one of the reasons we talked so much about ongoing versus complete tasks is because it also helps you to set up a clear schedule for yourself, which in turn helps a lot with your procrastination.

You see, it's pretty easy to do nothing when you don't have a time and place where everything needs to get done. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority anymore, and procrastination is more of a consequence of work ambiguity rather than a real thing in itself.

If you need to hang a photo on your wall, but you don't know what photo on which wall, and there's no one to make a clear call, well, you might do it or you might not. If you need to hang a photo of a dog in your office, well, that's a different thing.

And this actually brings up the final point in our video: take massive amounts of responsibility and ownership. Indecision is the biggest enemy of progress. If a call needs to be made and no one knows if it's the right call or not, make it yourself and own it. Even if it turns out to be the wrong call, at least you now have extra information.

You'll quickly find out that more often than not, making the wrong call is better than making no call at all. And the quicker you make it, the more time you have to adjust if needed. Taking ownership means accepting the consequences of your actions. You see, a leader isn't always the one who knows best; sometimes, it's the one who says, "Let's do this and see what happens."

People follow those who take action and dismiss those who just bark orders with no purpose behind them. Time waits for no one. Opportunities come and go, and success favors those who seize them. Taking responsibility and ownership means taking control over your relationship with time. Will you stay ahead, or will you get left behind?

At the end of the day, great execution skills mean having a great relationship with time itself. Understand how everything works, how long it takes, and when it's supposed to happen. We hope you found this video useful.

Alux, what's the most valuable thing that you took away from this? We're really curious to know! And as always, as a thank you for sticking with us until the end, here's the bonus we owe you.

The easiest way to get something done is to have someone else do it. Yes, yes, we know it sounds ironic and way too simple, but trust us when we tell you this is actually a pretty difficult process to get right. You see, you need two very important things in order to make this happen.

One: you need trust in the other person's taste. If you task someone with making a decision, you need to trust that they'll make the right one and also allow them to fail in the process of making the right one. If you don't allow them to fail, well...

Secondly, you need to be able to articulate your thoughts. If you've got something specific in mind but you fail to clearly articulate those thoughts, well, you can't expect the other person to read your mind. If you fail at these two things, well, the job will take at least three times as long as if you were to do it yourself from the beginning.

Thanks for watching today, Alux! We'll see you back here next time. [Music]