The Payoff: 5 Rules for Work and Success

re:WORKING with Tim Campbell

Tim Campbell answers his own five-question 'Payoff' framework by sharing the habits, failures, and lessons that shaped his career. He explains why he prioritizes hard

Key takeaways

Tim Campbell recommends 'eat the frog' as his game-changing habit: do the hardest task first thing in the day when energy and focus are highest.
He says he no longer automatically defaults to yes, because saying yes can create overwhelm and distract from a clear objective.

Main topics

Productivity habits
Prioritization frameworks

Notable quotes

eat the frog

Conclusion

The episode offers practical, self-reflective career advice centered on

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) You're listening to Reworking with Tim Campbell, the show that helps you succeed in the workplace without burning out. I'm answering your questions today, which you've shared with me on socials via my LinkedIn and by emailing reworking at bowermedia.co.uk. As always, I'm not a financial advisor, so any decisions that you make have to be yours. But I am someone with over 20 years of experience in business. I've been lucky enough to learn from some of the best there are by working alongside them. and by interviewing them on this show. And if you want to feel more confident about work, please join the community by giving us a follow wherever you get your podcasts, whether that's Apple, Spotify or YouTube. And please do follow us on social at Reworking Podcast. Speaker 1 (0:46) So you might have heard on this week's episode that I ended the ep with a section called The Payoff, which is where I ask our guests five questions about how they operate and what their experience has taught them. And it seems only fair that if I'm going to be asking others these questions, then I put myself through it as well. So that's what we'll be focusing on today. All right, so the first thing I ask guests is still this habit. It's the one habit that they've used that's been a game changer in their lives. And if I was to use it on myself, then the habit that I'd advise everybody to steal is eat the frog. Now, bear with me. It sounds strange. But lots of people, when they're asked what they need to do to be more focused, more dedicated and get on in life, they're told straight away to write a list of stuff. But the problem when you write a list of stuff, people usually pick the easiest thing to do first. And what eat the frog is all about is to change that and turn it on its head. It's about doing the hardest thing on the list at the very beginning. And usually, importantly, doing it first thing in the day. The reason for this is based on a psychological concept is that you're going to have more energy in the morning. You're going to have more focus around what you need to do when you start the day. So if you change the list and pick the hardest thing you need to do, actually it's double barreled in terms of a win. First, you've got more energy to attack the thing that's the most hardest thing for you to do. And also when you've got it out of the way, everything else becomes easier. So if you focus on the hard thing, which usually scares you, get it out of the way, nail it first, give yourself a massive pat on the back. Then you've got more confidence, more dopamine and all the good stuff to focus on the easier things, which should, if it's all worked out right, go quicker and actually give you more rewards in terms of what you want to do in a day. Lots of people do it the other way around. And unfortunately, that's what we've been taught to do. Get the easy thing out, tick the box off, make the bed because it's the easy win in the morning. rubbish. If your bed's messy, you've still got other chores to do anyway. So just focus on the things that are really hard. Focus on those, write a list down, get a plan and get them out of the way first. So steal this habit. Eat the frog. Speaker 1 (2:53) So the second thing I ask guests is what do they put on their not to do list? That's something that they would have dropped off from doing that they used to do in the past. And the big thing I don't do anymore is say yes. Everyone used to tell me whenever you're in a situation, just automatically default to yes, because it gets you into rooms, it gets you opportunities, it gets you more experience than anybody else. And the difficulty with that is that you can get overwhelmed incredibly quickly. What I want you to focus on, because that's what I do now, is step back and assess every single thing to see, should I be doing this? Is this a conversation I need to be in? Is this a task that I'm going to put my most amount of effort in? Is this something that's going to take me forward from where I am now? Because there's lots of things that you'll get asked to do, which will distract you, take you in a different direction. We had a great conversation with Alistair Campbell, talked about his OST framework, which was all about having an objective, a strategy, and then the tactics. And difficulty with most people, they don't start with a clear objective. Now, when somebody asks you to do something, you should really have that objective front of mind to say, is this something that I'm interested in? Is this something that's going to take me towards the thing that