Do What Matters Most summary

Amy, an executive at American Express, was promoted year after year, and eventually became senior director. But during the first months in her new role, she realized that she was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Sure, she was proud of her professional achievements – but her relationships with her husband and daughter were slipping. 

When Amy attended the authors’ “do what matters most” keynote at a conference, she realized that motivation alone was not enough. By the end of the presentation she understood a simple truth: having the drive to boost performance and productivity is great, but she now needed to step back and reshuffle her priorities.

Let’s say you want to build your dream house. Before you put together a budget or even an architectural drawing, you have to fire up your imagination. You need to picture where the house will stand, how big it’ll be, and even how many bedrooms it’ll have. 

In the same way, when it comes to becoming the best version of yourself, you need to imagine the new you first – only then can you decide how to achieve it all. This sense of direction is known as your personal vision – a vivid image of where you want to end up. 

One night, a father was working late into the night after skipping another dinner with his family. His young son walked up to him and asked: “Dad, how much do you earn in an hour?” The father answered, “$40,” to which the son replied, “Can I have $20?” 

Frustrated by the distraction, the father snapped at his son to go to bed. But when he heard sniffles from the bedroom, the man guiltily went up to his son’s bedside and handed him $20. 

Before each flight, a pilot goes through a process known as pre-flight planning. It takes up to ten hours and involves everything from researching the destination and weather conditions, to planning the route and checking that the plane is actually airworthy. 

Now, imagine if a pilot decided to skip this process even once. No doubt, the result would be chaos and confusion. 

John was a senior executive at PepsiCo. He’d been at the job for decades when he joined the authors’ “do what matters most” workshop. During the vision building exercise, under his role as parent he wrote down one clear goal: Call my son. 

Somebody asked him why – and John said he had not spoken to his son since an argument seven years ago. So the authors invited John to create a deadline for his goal. It became, call my son at 7 pm on Wednesday.