In this lesson:

• Why I made this course

• The broader purpose behind One Big Win

• One Big Win’s design philosophy

What I’m trying to do with this course

My ultimate goal with One Big Win is to create a universal template for getting major things done, particularly for people who have struggled with productivity and goal achievement. I’m trying to offer a much-needed ladder to a certain segment of the population: fellow “productivity-challenged” members of society.

Getting important things done can be life-changing, and an unusual inability to get things done is personally devastating — if you know, you know. I’m the opposite of a “natural” when it comes to general productivity, especially when it comes to larger projects — an ADHD diagnosis at middle age explained a lot about why. Without quite realizing it, I’ve spent most of adult life developing strategies and workarounds for overcoming this challenge, and writing about them on raptitude.com.

Mainly, I’ve discovered that building simple, repeatable procedures around the "doing" itself can make a massive difference. On the workday level, the Block Method does exactly that: once you know the method, you can virtually guarantee yourself a big step forward on any task, any time you have a half-hour to invest in it.

Of course, anyone — whether or not they regard themselves as “productivity-challenged” — could change their life if they had an answer to the age-old question, “How do I get myself to do something great?”

The Block Method, with its simple, repeatable steps, does this for small things. One Big Win is my attempt to create a second, outer layer of repeatable steps: a method for conceiving and achieving life-altering short-term goals.

If How to Do Things gives you a magic hammer you can bring to bear on any task, One Big Win gives you a workshop and construction process you can bring to bear on any goal.

One Big Win is “essentials-focused”

Most of your time in this course will be spent making Blocks on your chosen goal: writing the novel, decluttering the house, setting up the website. The lessons and tasks in OBW are meant to guide you along in this effort.

Doing lessons and tasks does take time, however, which means less time for the writing/organizing/making required by your goal. This tension is best resolved by thinking of this course as a part of the goal. The “admin work” of proceeding through the lessons as you make Blocks on your project is designed to save you time and move you towards the finish line of your big win (and not just for this one, but for your future goals as well.)

In any case, making OBW into a very heavy, time-intensive course probably isn’t best for most people’s goals. For this reason, I’ve designed the course to be lean and essentials-focused. It’s intended to provide just enough guidance to get you making Blocks in the right direction, all the way to the completion of your big win.

You can then repeat the process for future goals with minimal guidance from the course. A much-condensed version, a "blueprint" of the OBW method, is available for download in the Resource section to serve as a quick reference in your subsequent big wins.

Just Follow the Road

One Big Win might sound overwhelming, with all of its lessons, tasks, stages, and dates.

It's a deceptively simple course: just follow the road. Simply do the lessons in order. Everything else follows from that.

When in doubt, follow the road!

One Big Win is in beta mode

One Big Win is currently running its third-ever cohort, so it's still being refined. As with the last session, I’ll be noting what works well and what still needs work. I'll also be asking for your feedback at the end.

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What’s next? Follow the road! Go on to Thinking About Your One Big Win.