#121 | Warren Buffett’s 25/5 Strategy to Focus 🎯
A collection of the best hidden gems, mental models, and frameworks from the world’s top thinkers; to help you become 1% better and live a happier life ❤️
Hello curious minds 🧠
I have been covering the series of books by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler. They cover decision-making, productivity, communication and more.
These books have done a great job pulling together so many different ideas into one place, making them good resources for those who are new to the productivity world or a handy recap for you to revisit key ideas.
One thing that’s always stuck with me.
What gets you here won’t get you to the next level.
For me, 20s was all about trying many things.
As I begin my 30s, I feel the need to focus more.
Focus is rarely talked about but it’s more important than ever.
In a world where everything seems interesting, figuring out what to focus on is important.
A simple but powerful exercise is the 25/5 exercise, popularised by Warren Buffett. I did this exercise over the weekend and thought it was worth sharing with you guys.
It’s not exactly the same as the concept of “anti-goals” mentioned in Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire book by Andrew Wilkinson but they share similar message to focus on what matters.
Give this exercise a try 🤓
🚀 If you are new here…
Hi, I’m Ryan 👋🏼 I am passionate about lifestyle gamification 🎮, which it’s just a fancy way saying I approach life like a video game, designing my character intentionally, and strive to level up every day. I am obsesssssssss with learning things that can help me live a happy and fulfilling life.Every Sunday, through The Limitless Playbook newsletter, I share 1 actionable idea from the world's top thinkers 🎯
Oh, and fun fact: I am a PhD candidate in AI 👻 I am deeply interested in how AI can help us 10x the way we live, learn, and thrive; so expect me to share some cool AI tools, insights, and research 🤖
🧠 The 25/5 Exercise to Focus
This exercise should take about 30 minutes but the insights you get would help you to focus on what matters. Here’s how it goes:
🧩 Step 1: Write down 25 things you want to achieve in life
This can be anything. And it doesn’t have to be “in life” if that’s too scary. You can focus on the next year to begin with. The key is to write freely without holding back.
🧩 Step 2: From the 25 things, highlight the 5 most important items
You now have two lists: List A (your top 5) and List B (everything else).
Here’s the hard part.
Take List B.
And put them away.
Don’t think about them again… don’t work on it… at least not until you are done with all the things on List A.
List B is your biggest distraction. They are goals that matter to you after all. But they also pull you away from what matters the most; at least what matters the most at this moment of time.
This exercise makes one thing clear: chasing too many things means achieving none. If you try to do 25 things at once, you will likely make little progress on any of them.
So, focus on List A.
Devote all your time, energy, and effort to those 5 goals.
Your 5 most important goals in life.
This is one of my favourite quotes:
We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal
— Robert Brault
So, what 5 goals are you focusing on?
I am always curious about what others are passionate about and what they are currently working on. Hit reply and share what’s been keeping you busy these days. I would love to learn!
With love,
Ryan O. 🎮
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