Escaping the "productivity" trap

What happened when we focused on 1 thing instead of 5

I had an idea for a big bet a few weeks ago.

The kind that has you staying up late at night mapping it out, running scenarios, etc. HUGE upside - the kind that drives massive brand awareness with a captive AND relevant audience that would benefit from how we help.

But the odds of landing it?

Slim. Very slim.

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Sponsor: HockeyStack

You just closed a $150k deal. The prospect had their badge scanned at an event, saw 94 ads, got 5 calls/emails from a BDR, and read 3 blog posts. Now the CEO asks: “Who gets credit for this deal?”

But what if I told you that isn’t the question we should be asking?

For years, this was the question I was trying to answer because for years I operated with the “additive” mindset. What happens if we hire 3 more BDRs? What happens if we add $15k more ad spend? And then I would simply map out the anticipated ROI of that effort through our funnel and add it to our current expected outcomes. Hence “additive.”

And then the lightbulb went off. We weren’t successful because of one of those specific channels. We were successful because of how we leveraged the interplay between them.

I’ve had multiple chats with Emir Atli at HockeyStack over the past year about this subject, and this is exactly what they’re helping marketers and GTM leaders solve for.

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The big bet

I was working on a bet where we’d sponsor a very large podcast. Wow, what a great and original bet there, Sam…

Bear with me. This isn’t the typical “this episode is brought to you by...” sponsorship where it feels forced and irrelevant. This would be different. Our name would be attached in a way that actually tied into what the podcast is about and is a personal value of the host. That alone would be worth it, but then once we layered on their distribution, we’re talking another level here.

The thing is, I needed to get their attention first. So part of my pitch involved creating something tangible for them. A unique deliverable that would stand out in the sea of noise they’re regularly bombarded with.

And then it hit me.

This deliverable I was creating for them would also be equally valuable in a slightly different form to our market of prospects and customers as well. Just a few small tweaks + what was designed as a single-use deliverable for a sponsorship pitch would become something we run to our broader audience regardless of whether the big bet pays off.

And this is where the “sprint” was born. Create the deliverable for the podcast pitch + then adapt it for our market. Two outputs, one focused effort.

But here’s where I almost screwed it up.

My first instinct - work on this alongside everything else we had going on. You know the usual array of marketing-related items:

The new ad campaign. The updated email nurture sequence. Various website updates. The content requests from sales. Etc.

We’d make progress on all of them together. Then we’d ship them as each is finished over the coming weeks and months.

And then I caught myself.

The “parallel projects” trap

Look at your current project list right now. How many things are “in progress”?

For most marketers I talk to, it’s usually somewhere between 3-7 “bigger” things happening at once. A new campaign. An email newsletter series. Updating the pitch deck. Website changes. SEO projects. Content requests from sales.

My Asana board was even worse. Tons of ideas that I was excited about and “making progress on,” but when they’d finally ship and show up in our pipeline and revenue numbers were a different story.

We tell ourselves we’re being productive. We’re making progress on multiple fronts. “Look at how much we’re doing!”

But here’s what actually happens:

You spend 20% of your time on each project, thinking that if something takes 1 day at 100% focus, that means it’ll take 5 days at 20% focus.

But with context switching, the mental overhead of juggling multiple priorities, the “quick check-ins” and “just one more thing” requests, that 5 days turns into 10 days. Or 15. Or more.

And then, if we’re lucky, everything lands around the same time. Three months later, we have a tidal wave of launches, results, and activity all at once.

Then...nothing for a while as we ramp up the next batch of projects.

Nothing is compounding. No momentum is ever really being built. No feedback loops that inform the next thing while we still have energy and context.

Just batches of parallel work that feel “productive,” but ship slowly.

The obvious + ignored truth

I know, I know.

“Sam, this is called ‘focus.’ Congrats on discovering productivity 101!”

And you’re right. This isn’t novel advice. Every productivity book, every time management guru, + every exec coach preaches the same thing: focus on one thing at a time.

But here’s the thing: knowing something and actually doing it are very different.

We know multitasking doesn’t make us as productive as we think it does. We know context switching kills productivity.

And yet, we keep doing it.

Why?

Because parallel work feels productive. It feels safe. It feels like we’re hedging our bets, covering more ground, being responsive to every stakeholder who has an opinion about what marketing should be doing.

“Look at all that we’re working on! Marketing is CRUSHING it!”

It feels like we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket.

But what if that’s exactly what we should be doing?

The hypothesis: what if we sprint?

Here’s what I realized staring at this big bet project:

What if we ruthlessly prioritized? I mean truly prioritize this. We pick ONE thing, go all-in for a week or two, ship it, and then move to the next thing?

I’d been thinking about this ever since I listened to that “How Elon Works” podcast episode a few weeks ago + listed at the bottom of that newsletter. One of my biggest takeaways was Elon’s ruthless prioritization and focus. The way he’d identify the one thing that mattered most and throw everything at it until it shipped.

It sounded so obvious when listening, but most of us don’t operate that way.

So I thought, “what if we did?”

What if we focused on one thing? Do it well. Do it fast. Get some points on the board.

And that naturally led my analytical nature to map this out + see if this theory had some legs.

Instead of working on 5 projects simultaneously + taking 12 weeks to ship, what if we shipped 1 project every 1-2 weeks?

The math:

5 projects × 2 weeks each = 10 weeks of continuous wins
5 projects × 12 weeks in parallel = 11 weeks of nothing, then a swell on week 12

Math checks out there, so now onto the next part of the formula: momentum.

Each sprint leaves you with a feeling of accomplishment as we stack up things being shipped.
Each win builds energy and confidence for the team.
Each sprint teaches you something that informs the next sprint.

It’s the difference between a tidal wave (parallel projects) and a rising tide (sprints).

What we actually did

I looked at our project list through the lens of an Eisenhower matrix: urgency relative to importance (I modify this to impact instead).

The big bet and its modified version? High impact, and if we moved with urgency, we could reap the benefits in 2 weeks instead of 12.

That’s a sprint candidate if I’ve seen one.

So I sent a Slack message to the people who’d be helping me with it. Then we jumped on a live call to align, ask questions, and come up with a plan.

I told them: we’re sprinting on this. Everything else can wait.

(Side note: yes, I recognize not everyone has the luxury to do this unless they’re a team leader. That said, over the past month, I’ve had the “prioritization” conversation with a number of members on my team and I’ve visibly watched the tension release after telling them, “send me a list of everything you have on your plate + I’ll put it in order of prioritization for you.” Zero confusion on what they should be spending their time on. Full alignment to our marketing goals and direction. And an opportunity for me to provide them with the “why” behind certain items were moved up/down the list. This has been a huge unlock for our team this quarter.)

I blocked off huge chunks of my calendar for deep work. I had the team defer other projects - the content requests from sales, various “check in” meetings with partners, etc. - things I knew could wait a week or two without the world ending.

And for one week, ~80% of our time went to the big bet. For three days after that, 80% of our time went to the modified version for our broader market.

And you know what I noticed?

The energy was different.

More engagement in meetings. Higher creative output. People brought better ideas to the project because they had the mental space to actually think deeply about it instead of juggling five things in their head.

We had clarity. Everyone knew what to prioritize. And that clarity gave us all permission to deprioritize everything else without guilt.

We finished both this week + got it all shipped. No business results yet - it’s too early to tell if the big bet lands or if the market-facing version drives the pipeline we think it will. But I can feel the momentum in the team and the energy it’s built for us.

“But what about everything else?”

“Sam, that’s great that you all can focus on one thing + sprint like that, but I have a CEO asking for more leads. A product release that needs to show on the website. Sales needs new collateral. And a podcast to manage on top of it all. I can’t just ignore everything else.”

I hear you. And here’s the honest answer:

Those other things wait. And that’s ok.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: they were already waiting. We just labeled them as “in progress.”

When we’re working on 5 things at 20% capacity each, nothing moves fast. Everything is always “in progress” or “almost done,” but never actually done. Stakeholders + team members get frustrated because they asked for something weeks ago and it’s still not shipped, despite us “working on it” for multiple weeks.

The reality is that sprints don’t create delays - they reveal the delay that was already there. It just makes it explicit instead of hidden behind the illusion of parallel progress.

And when you frame it that way to stakeholders, it’s easier to communicate.

“I can work on this at 20% for the next 8 weeks, or I can sprint on our top priority right now and get to this with full focus in 2 weeks. Which would you prefer?”

Most people choose the latter when you put it that way. If they don’t, well, now’s a good time to question their judgment in general.

So here’s how I prioritize what to sprint on:

Resource hours relative to potential output
What will make the biggest impact on brand awareness, pipeline, and/or revenue? That’s your sprint candidate.

Consider dependencies and sequencing
Sometimes project B is easier after project A ships because you learn something or build an asset you can reuse.

Actual effort, perceived effort, + appetite
Some projects feel big but are really just 3 days of focused work. Those are perfect sprint candidates. This is where I love the 37signals concept of “appetite.”

Instead of asking “how long will this take?”, you cap the time allocation upfront. You say we have a 1-week appetite for this project, not an unlimited runway. That constraint forces clarity on what actually matters in execution vs. what’s nice-to-have. Projects don’t run endlessly when you set the appetite first.

And then here’s the surprising part: some things reveal themselves as not that important. When you force yourself to stack rank projects and admit that only one can go first, you realize that thing you thought was urgent...maybe isn’t. Maybe it can wait a month. Or maybe it doesn’t need to happen at all.

Note: sprints don’t mean you never pivot. They just mean we commit fully to one thing at a time instead of half-committing to everything at once. Or to steal a lesson from my friend Paul Stansik, "whole-ass one thing instead of half-assing two (or three).”

When sprints DON’T work

I’d be lying if I said you can sprint on anything.

Some marketing work needs to be a marathon, not a sprint.

SEO/AEO takes months to compound. ABM relationships are built over time, not in a week. Customer education programs require repetition in order to sink in.

And there will always be the always-on work: campaign optimizations, responding to urgent requests, maintaining what’s already working, etc.

So I think about sprints as seasons rather than trying to fit everything neatly into a daily calendar.

There are sprint seasons (usually 80% sprint work, 20% maintenance + urgent requests) where we go deep on high-leverage projects that can ship fast.

And there are slower seasons (like the upcoming post-Thanksgiving through Christmas) where we shift focus to longer-term initiatives that need more breathing room.

The key is being intentional about which season you’re in, communicating that clearly to the team and stakeholders, and truly committing to it. If you’re in a sprint, sprint. If you aren’t, use it as a time to let the team rest + recharge.

Sprints are great, but you can’t operate at a continuous sprint forever.

A little self-reflection

Look at your current project list. All the things that are “in progress” right now.

If you could only ship ONE thing in the next 1-2 weeks, if you had to truly pick just one thing to go all-in on, what would it be?

That’s probably what you should be working on.

Not alongside 4 other things. Not at 20% capacity while juggling meetings and “quick” requests.

Actually working on it. Sprinting on it.

Everything else? They can wait. And that’s probably a good thing as when you do get to them, you’ll have the focus and energy to do them right.

The parallel projects trap feels safe, but I have a newfound love for how valuable a sprint season can be.

I’m still early in this experiment. And honestly, I might be completely wrong. But for the first time in months, I feel like we’re moving forward fast and exponentially instead of just staying busy.

And for those who love the startup life, operating like this a lot of fun.

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A quick note of gratitude

Over the past handful of weeks, I’ve been revisiting a number of strategies, tactics, playbooks, philosophies, and general business practices. They helped get us to where we are today, but will they get us to where we need to go as I start thinking about 2026 planning and beyond?

We marketers are known for overthinking + overcomplicating. During times like these I like to gutcheck myself with people smarter + more experienced than I am. So I wanted to share a quick thank you to the below people who’ve helped me work through the various items mentioned earlier. And if you aren’t already following them, you absolutely should be. Not just for the content they share, but because they’re genuinely good humanbeings as well.

Canberk Beker
Todd Clouser
Chris Daly
Evan Hughes
Morgan Ingram
Kacie Jenkins
Ashley Lewin
Paul Stansik
Sidney Waterfall

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See you next Saturday,
Sam