The number-one most important fact to understand if you want to get

We all have things we want done. Or more precisely, we have things
about the world we wish to change, and realize we'll to put in some
effort to do so. All sorts of strategies have been devised on how best
to do this - time management systems, organizational methods,
motivational seminars, life coaching, and so on. These can all be
useful to some extent.

But no strategy for getting something done is likely to be effective
unless it's founded on the principle I outline below. This is the most
important concept to understand if you want to be a productive person.
And best of all, it can be summed up in one simple sentence. Here it
is:

Human wants are unlimited, but the resources to meet those wants are
scarce.

This is known as "the economic problem". It's the foundation of the
entire practice of economics. Every theory in that field is supposed
to work towards getting the best possible outcome from these two
opposing forces.

Okay, here's a detailed explanation of the two sides of this basic
truth and how to use them to be more effective.

Human wants are unlimited
Have you ever noticed that no matter how much someone has, they never
seem to be satisfied? I mean, why do people like Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett even bother going to work in the morning? They already have
more money and power than anyone could ever possibly use.

Think back to how our ancestors lived a couple of centuries ago. Most
of them had a hand to mouth existence - spending long days laboring in
fields, with short unhealthy lives and little in the way of
entertainment. Imagine if such a person were transported to today's
world and saw how we live - with our hundreds of television channels,
cushy safe jobs, and endless variety of consumer goods.

They'd be astonished. How could anyone want more than what the average
person living in a developed country already has? And yet most of us
feel as if we're a long way from being satisfied.

That's because too much is never enough for almost everybody. No
matter how many of our desires are fulfilled, we always want more.
Upgrade us from a 56K modem to a 10Mb broadband connection, and it
won't be long before that too starts to seem slow. Expand our choice
of TV channels from 5 to 500, and we'll still complain there's nothing
on. No matter what the world feeds us, it's never long before we're
hungry again.

Human wants are unlimited. Or at least, if there is a limit, we're yet
to see any sign of it.

Because of this, we must choose carefully which of our unlimited wants
we most desire to have fulfilled. We can't have everything, or even
most of what we want. So the list of what we hope to achieve should be
kept short.

To get things done, prune your desires down to as few as you possibly
can. To try to achieve everything, is to condemn yourself to achieving
almost nothing.

So the question to ask becomes: Out of the millions of things I'd like
to change about my reality, which are most important to me?

But the resources to meet those wants are scarce
One fact that any creature on this planet must come to terms with soon
after being born is that resources here are scarce. There just isn't
enough stuff to meet everyone's wants.

On an historical measure, we're living lives of abundance. Few of us
in the rich world are short of the basics of food, clean water, and
accommodation. Yet even with the massive understanding of the world we
have, most of us still feel stretched.

Here are just some examples of the many resources we don't have enough
of:

* Money
* Knowledge
* Time
* Land
* Equipment
* Motivation
* Willingness of others to help us
* Endurance
* Intelligence
* Justice
* Energy
* Information
* And so on

We are all extremely - severely, in fact - limited in what we can
achieve by the scarcity of resources available to us. Yet many people
willfully ignore this fact. They consume their resources like an
alcoholic consumes a bottle of vodka - quickly and with little thought
of the consequences.

Take, for example, the belief that the way to get things done is to
work harder than everyone else. The world is full of people who live
by this mantra. They rush around like chickens with their heads cut
off, yet seem to achieve very little.

Or look at governments who try to solve problems by throwing money at
them, yet find years later that the problem still exists and the money
is gone.

Such people think the way to satisfy their limitless wants is to
simply to consume resources as quickly as possible - but they're
wrong. In fact, it's often the person who works less hard but more
intelligently on a problem, or an organization who spends less but
does so smartly who achieves the most.

It's not the amount of resources you put towards a problem, but how
cleverly those resources are used that counts.

Even more dangerous are those who assume scarce resources are
unlimited. This is a common delusion.

A typical example is concluding that the effort of others is an
abundant resource. A market-researcher who asks his subjects to answer
100 questions is likely to find people less than willing to
participate. A survey with five carefully thought out questions will
probably yield more data because other will be more willing to spend
time completing it.

So the question to ask yourself on this point is: How can achieve what
I want while consuming the least possible amount of resources?

And that includes all the resources you'll need, not just the obvious
ones like time and money.

It's the intelligent use of resources - getting the most bang for our
buck - that separates those who excel in getting things done from
those who don't. Any system or plan that ignores this basic fact, is
likely to be ineffective.