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Productivity

Decide In Advance What You'll Suck At

Pre-commit to your sacrifices so focus doesn't feel like failure

Difficulty
Moderate
Time to result
~weeks to results
Steps
4
Confidence
71%

Drawn from Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks and Greg McKeown, this reframes focus as a decision about sacrifice made ahead of time. Because a committed period of work on a few projects inevitably means neglecting others, you should decide in advance which areas you will suck at. When those areas then slip, growth-minded people feel pain because competent people 'aren't supposed to let things go'. Pre-committing to the sacrifice defuses that pain: the slippage becomes evidence you are focusing, exactly as designed, rather than a personal failing. The underlying rule is to make real progress on a specific thing in the medium term instead of sacrificing meaningful progress toward everything in the long term.

Origin

Chris Williamson combined Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks with Greg McKeown's medium-term focus principle and his own Rogan line, 'you can be anything you want, but you can't be everything you want.'

Core principles

  • 01You can be anything you want, but you cannot be everything you want.
  • 02Committed focus on a few things forces neglect of others.
  • 03Naming the sacrifice in advance removes the sting when it arrives.
  • 04Progress on one thing in the medium term beats diffuse progress on everything long term.

How to run it

  1. 1

    Pick the focus

    Choose the small number of projects or the single goal that will define success for the period, for example growing a business next year.

  2. 2

    Map the casualties

    Honestly list the areas that will suffer as a result, such as physique or relationships.

  3. 3

    Pre-commit the sacrifice

    Decide now which of those areas you will accept sucking at, and expect the slippage.

    Pro tip Reframe the slippage as proof you are actually focusing, not as failure.

    Watch out Sliding back into the neglected area to soothe discomfort quietly dissolves your focus.

  4. 4

    Hold the line when it hurts

    When the sacrifice materialises and the type-A pain arrives, remember it is by design and stay committed to the focus.

In the wild

Grow the business, lose the physique

Someone commits 2023 to growing their business. They decide in advance that their physique and possibly relationships will take a hit. When they end the year 3% higher body fat, it stings, but because it was pre-decided, they read it as a sign of focus rather than a failure, and the business goal is achieved.

→ The primary goal is hit without the neglected areas derailing commitment.

Common mistakes

Trying to keep everything

Refusing to let anything slip spreads effort thin and produces the jack-of-all-trades outcome McKeown warns against.

Treating designed slippage as failure

Panicking and over-correcting when a pre-chosen sacrifice materialises undermines the very focus you committed to.

Is it for you?

Best for

Ambitious people setting a focused goal who struggle to let anything slide.

Not ideal for

Seasons of life that genuinely allow balanced attention across all domains.

From the episode

16 Lessons From 2022 - Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson & Jocko Willink - #565

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