The One Minute Manager’s Perfect New Year’s Resolution

Efficiency is the ultimate goal of nature–why shouldn’t we mimic it? That’s at the heart of The One Minute Manager–the quest for efficiency. It’s not just that the One Minute Manager saves time. That’s just a byproduct of efficiency. (If efficiency took more than a minute, it would still be desirable.) But the thing is a minute is a beautiful unit of time, carved out for getting things done the way the old seven digit phone numbers were crafted for memorization. Any goal “should take no more than 250 words to express,” says The One Minute Manager. And anyone “should be able to read it within a minute.”

So set your 2015 goals in a single minute. Express them efficiently. Follow them efficiently. Make sure your “performance standards are clear.” It will make you feel like a lean, performing machine. You’ll feel good, fresh, strong, productive. You’ll feel on target, or never far away from it. As The One Minute Manager says: “People Who Feel Good About Themselves Produce Good Results.” But you already know that, because when you do, you do.