Currently I’m reading Don John’s excellent book Never Let Go. In one of the essays he talks about being told that if something is important do it everyday, and the political prisoner exercise is a way of deciding what that thing should be. Imagine that you are a political prisoner and you are only allowed 15 minutes a day of exercise. What would you do? You wouldn’t waste your time on curls or skull crushers (well I hope you wouldn’t). You’d concentrate on the core lifts like squats and deadlifts or olympic lifts like snatch and clean and jerk. The aim would be to get the most “bang for your buck” with the limited time you have.

This applies to everything, including business, and relates to my previous post Professional Procrastination. Of all the things you can do, if you only have 15 minutes to do it in, do what’s going to give you the best results. Don’t neglect the big picture items for the sake of the small ones. Don’t neglect your entire body for the sake of flexing your biceps.