The 90/90/1 Rule Turned Me Into a Productive Beast

Sep 17, 2023

There’s no shortage of frameworks that can help boost productivity and crush procrastination.

But there are only a few that actually work.

How can you find the one that works for you? Trial and Error.

You try a bunch of techniques like The 2-Minute Rule, The X Effect, or Pomodoro, and when one clicks you go all in on that.

Today, I’m going to tell you about a technique for achieving what Jim Collins calls your BHAG.

I know this works because I’ve seen it and lived it, so let’s dive in.

Firstly, you might be thinking, “WTF is a BHAG”.

A BHAG, pronounced Bee-Hag, is your Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

This is a powerful mechanism for shooting for the moon. It’s a way for you to think bigger, aim higher, and set goals that are so powerful and compelling they have their own gravitational pull.

By their very nature, they are hard to pull off. Very hard, in fact. That’s why they're not just Big and Audacious. They are Hairy. ‘Cos you can be damn sure it’s going to get hairy along the way.

Setting your BHAG is one thing but all goals are achieved when we focus on the system, not the goal.

About 5 years ago, I was working for a small company in London. When I say small, I mean 4 employees type of small.

We were a tiny team doing millions a year selling apartment stays to business travelers at Fortune 500 companies and Investment Banks.

The owner of the biz, who is still the most influential person I have ever worked with and now a friend, came in one day and hung a whiteboard on the back of the office door and wrote:

90/90/1

Ben:

Jake:

Rebecca:

John:

We just looked at him in silence until he turned and smiled at everybody.

“Spend 90 minutes a day for 90 days on your 1 Big Hairy Audacious Goal”

I couldn’t help but think that this guy was paying us to be here from 9 to 5 and he’s asking us to spend just 90 minutes a day on our goal.

But Ben understood that most of what anybody does at work is simply a waste of time. Answering emails, pointless meetings, focussing on the wrong thing, spending too long on projects that don’t move the needle, admin, etc.

We each wrote our BHAG on the whiteboard (a genius concept for accountability that I only realized after I had left) and he asked us to prioritize 90 minutes every day working toward that goal.

Now I’m not going to bore you with the goals we had in sales, operations, blah, blah, blah, but I can tell you that I had never experienced focus like that before.

Each day, I spent 9-10:30 doing intensely focused work toward my BHAG.

And this tiny team was crushing it. We would hit our goals in 47 days and set a new one and then in 63 days and set a new one.

The BHAGs got bigger, hairier, and more audacious. We realized that just 90 minutes of intensely focused work was all that was needed to crush it.

P.S. I know now that this is a rule coined by Robin Sharma.

Why I think the 90/90/1 Rule works

Momentum
Focus

Momentum is a powerful force for productivity. In the beginning, it takes a while as you exert more energy to start something new but after a few days or weeks, it becomes easier.

You’re on a roll, and you know what to do, you pick up from where you left off and 90 minutes absolutely flies by.

The momentum makes you more focused and focus creates more momentum. It’s a powerful flywheel that turns you into a productive beast.

There’s a simplicity to this rule which is why it’s so effective.

Using the 90/90/1

This is not something that is only useful in a work setting.

Set yourself some Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals and work for 90 minutes a day for the next 90 days.

To this day, I am surprised at how effective the 90/90/1 rule is.

But you will only understand that if you experiment with it.

I said in the beginning, you should try a bunch of techniques and find what works for you. I can only speak from personal experience.

If you’re yet to find a framework that works for you, try the 90/90/1 rule.

You must set yourself a BHAG. Something to aim for. Then forget about it. Focus on the 90 minutes.

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