My Stumble with the Phil McCarthy Way
Alright, so I kept hearing this name floating around, Phil McCarthy. Not like, famous-famous, but in some circles, people mentioned his approach to getting stuff sorted. I was drowning in little tasks, you know? Sticky notes everywhere, digital lists that just got longer, emails piling up. Felt like I was always busy but never actually finishing the important things.
So, I decided to actually try this Phil McCarthy thing I’d vaguely heard about. Wasn’t even sure what it fully was, just that it was supposed to be simple. Found a basic rundown somewhere – forget where, doesn’t matter. The core idea seemed to be about tackling just one big thing before anything else distracts you.
Here’s what I did, step-by-step, nothing fancy:
- Night Before Prep: Before clocking off, I forced myself to sit down. Looked at the mountain of stuff for the next day. The instruction, as I understood it, was pick the most crucial task. Not the easiest, not the quickest, but the one that would actually move the needle. Took me a good 15 minutes just to decide. Wrote it down on a fresh piece of paper. Just that one thing.
- Morning Start: Got in, grabbed my coffee. Ignored the emails popping up. Ignored the chat notifications. Pulled out that piece of paper from the night before. That was my target.
- The Grind: Started working only on that task. It felt weird. Like I should be checking emails, responding to messages, you know, the usual frantic dance. But I stuck with it. It wasn’t easy, my brain kept wanting to jump tracks. Had to consciously pull myself back maybe five or six times in the first hour.
- Mid-Morning Checkpoint: Around 10:30 AM, I actually finished the main chunk of that big task. Not 100% done, but the heavy lifting was over. Only then did I allow myself to glance at emails and messages.
- Rest of the Day: Handled the smaller, reactive stuff after that. Felt less panicked about them, honestly, because I knew the big rock was already moved.
So, what happened?
Well, first off, it wasn’t magic. Some days picking the ‘one thing’ was hard. Some days the ‘one thing’ took way longer than expected and blew up the plan. But, on the days it worked, maybe 3 out of 5 days a week, it felt pretty darn good. I actually felt like I accomplished something significant, not just chased my tail.
It forced me to be honest about priorities. You can’t just list 10 things as ‘urgent’ when you have to pick only one to start with. It made me really think, “What truly matters right now?”
Did it solve all my problems? Nah. Still got overwhelmed sometimes. But doing that little ritual – pick one thing, focus, then deal with the rest – it definitely cut down the feeling of being completely swamped. It’s a simple tool, maybe too simple for some, but the act of actually doing it, forcing that focus, that’s where the value was for me. It’s less about Phil McCarthy himself, whoever he is, and more about the simple discipline I tried to follow based on that idea.
