Just Start: A Proper Explanation Of First-Thing Thinking

Hey team,

One of my favourite ways of getting things done is what I call “First Thing Thinking”: breaking everything I need to get done down into lots of little parts until there’s one clear “First Thing” which is the actual thing I should do before anything else. It’s a strategy with a lot of benefits: it’s simple, it builds momentum early in the day, and it’s the best cure for procrastination I’ve ever found. For the last six months or so, I’ve written a “First Thing” list pretty much every day, and I consistently amaze myself with the difference it makes to my productivity (this effect kicks in hardest when I don’t do it for a couple of days and get 80% less done).

What I haven’t done much of anywhere, though, is explain exactly how this works.

What counts as a “first thing”? How big should it be? What if you can’t find the first thing, or it seems too big and vague to do? After a whole bunch of experimenting, here’s what I think works.

• Firstly, an alternative way to think of “First Things” is as the “Because” in “I can’t do [X], because…” The because could be a hundred things: you can’t start the DIY because you can’t find your tape measure; you can’t do your taxes because you don’t have the right documents; you can’t write a newsletter because you don’t have an idea for one. This is one of the best reasons to start jobs as early as you can — by trying to start, you’ll hit that “because” straight away, rather than hitting it when the job absolutely needs to be done quickly (the other reason, as I mention in this video, is that your brain percolates on already-started projects, which can help with creative breakthroughs).

• Sort-of-related to the above, your “First Thing” can sometimes just be a decision, as in “Decide what to do about [Y]”. It was Marie Kondo who helped me understand this, with the groundbreaking (for me) revelation that if you don’t have well-defined places to put everything, you can’t tidy up properly. If your First Thing is a decision, make it as soon as you can: if it’s a decision someone else needs to make, frame it to them as clearly as you can, and explain that you need it to get the next thing done.

• First things should be smaller than you think: no, even smaller than you’re thinking of right now. I almost never have “Write [newsletter/article/script]” in my list, because that’s too big and too daunting, and I can’t cross it off easily — “Start [newsletter/article/script]” is something I can do near-instantly, but breaks the seal of actually doing something, and shunts my brain into “Think of clever things to say about this” mode. For similar reasons, I never group jobs together: if I need to find two experts for one article and one for another, that’s two things.

• Nothing is too small. If one of your things is ‘email a friend’ and that email’s only going to be a couple of sentences, it feels easy to go “Oh, I’ll just remember that one”. Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t, but what’ll probably happen is that your brain keeps throwing it up at weird moments and distracting you from other things. Put it on the list, do it straight away if it’s easy, and tick it off immediately. Let the satisfaction of doing it carry you through the next thing.

• The best way I’ve found to do all this is to write it down in a physical notebook that stays open on my desk all day: I typically manage about two days worth of stuff on each page, and it’s right there at a glance, with no way of it getting lost behind a window or in a forest of tabs. I make my first-thing less as soon as I sit down at my text, and add check boxes next to every item, so I can tick them off and still reference them when they’re done. The next morning, anything that didn’t get done gets crossed out, and I either put it on that day’s list or decide it’s not something I want to do urgently after all.

• There are (as always) more levels to this: once you’re done, you might decide to prioritise one (or three!) jobs for the day, and highlight them to do first. If you’ve made the jobs simple enough, though, you should be able to do all of them.

Phew! That reads like a lot, but it’s actually pretty simple once you start doing it: like most systems I use, I tend to find that simple stuff is easier to remember and less likely to break. Hope it’s useful: let me know if you’ve got any improvements in the comments.

Have a great weekend!
Joel x

Stuff I’ve done

The heart rate secret: from sleep and alcohol to fight or flight - The Guardian

Something I tend to do a lot when I start writing an article is what Tim Urban calls ‘hitting the floor’ - digging down through all my sort-of-knowledge and assumptions about a subject until I hit a bedrock of principles that I understand really well. For this piece on heart rate (regular and variability), I got the chance to talk to a whole bunch of experts, and asked them the simplest questions I could. I think it turned out pretty well!

6 Life-Changing Skills That Anyone Can Learn

“Life-changing” is kind of a malleable concept on YouTube, but I stand by this one: talking, writing, focus, drawing, organisation and learning itself are all things that I’ve been working on throughout my life, and in the modern world I think they’re so universally useful that basically everyone should try to improve at them.

Stuff I like

📝 Article - How to be a late bloomer in 2024 by Henry Oliver

As someone who’s taken a bit of a meandering path through life, I loved this piece on how to find your second-act goals and move towards them. Incredible quote: “You need to ask yourself: What part of my goal can I achieve now? What can I do now to achieve my goal later?” Henry has a book on this out soon, and I can’t wait to read it.

🎶 Hype Music - I Get Wet by Andrew WK

I’ve talked about Andrew WK a lot before, but I listened to this album while I worked out this week and did 5 sets of 10 pullups without even trying that hard. I don’t know what else to tell you.

📖 Book - Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke

I’m fascinated by poker players — I’d never be a good one myself — and this is a classic from a champion, all about how to improve the quality of our decision-making and recognise the role luck plays in what happens to us.

🪶 Quote of the week

“Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you'd be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become.”
From Chris Hadfield (professional astronaut)

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