Needing Two Things to Stay Motivated.

Kill Two Stones With One Bird: A Real Trick for Getting Yourself to Actually Follow Through

Here’s the deal. I have a genuine personal rule that shapes almost everything I actually get done. I usually need to be accomplishing two or more things at once, while still working on just one thing in real one piece flow, before a task feels worth my time and attention. That principle sounds a little clunky stated plainly, and it has genuinely made me remarkably productive.

Why a Single Purpose Rarely Motivates Me Enough

I have wanted to create genuinely good visual images explaining Lean concepts for a long time. The actual process is tedious, and anyone who has spent real time generating images through AI tools knows the frustration firsthand, sometimes running through thirty attempts before landing on something usable. I could not genuinely motivate myself to push through that friction until I identified every real purpose that same set of images could serve.

Once I counted them honestly, there were five. Sharing them directly in our community chat, where a genuinely engaged group of a couple hundred people actively wants that content. Posting them on LinkedIn to help grow our company’s presence there. Publishing them inside a real book. Using them to teach at our Super PM Bootcamp. And feeding them directly into training boards we are building for superintendents, field engineers, and foremen. Five separate reasons attached to one single task, and that stacking is genuinely what got me moving.

A Second Example That Proves the Same Point

I had been sitting on a genuinely large collection of quotes I wanted to write down properly, and the task itself felt like more effort than I was willing to give it. The same trick worked here too. I identified three real purposes. A daily quote posted on LinkedIn. Compiling them into an actual book. Sharing them directly in our community chat. Three stacked purposes, and suddenly the same task that had been sitting untouched for weeks felt genuinely worth doing.

Watch for these signs a task in your own work is stuck specifically because it only serves one narrow purpose.

• A task you know matters but keep quietly postponing week after week without ever fully explaining why.
• Work that would genuinely help the business but currently exists for only one single audience or use case.
• A project that feels like pure effort with no real payoff attached beyond simply finishing it.

Why This Same Principle Shows Up at the Business Level Too

This same pattern runs directly through how we built our newest business, Lean Logistics, and the building we are setting up for it in Phoenix. On its own, a building is just an idea, mildly interesting at best. Stack enough real purposes onto it, though, and the whole thing becomes genuinely energizing. We need it to produce simulations. We need it to sell hats, shirts, and books. We need somewhere to store the training trailer and prepare properly for bootcamps. We need a place to ship books out to different companies. We need somewhere to actually invent new products that will genuinely help our clients. Each additional purpose adds real weight to the decision, and together they turn a mildly interesting idea into something worth building immediately.

Notice that none of those five purposes alone would have justified the investment. A building purely for shipping books would be a hard sell. A building purely for storing one trailer would be an obvious overreach. Stacked together, the same physical space suddenly earns its cost many times over, which is exactly the same math that applies to a single task sitting on someone’s personal to-do list.

Why This Actually Matters for How Much You Get Done

People who work with me, whether they genuinely like me or not, consistently say the same thing. I get two to four times as much done as most other people around me. I work in real one piece flow, delegate effectively, and stay genuinely productive across a marriage, a house, eleven kids, multiple businesses, real friendships, bootcamps, constant travel, product development, writing books, running a podcast, and maintaining a full time YouTube channel. None of that happens through raw willpower alone. It happens because I have learned not to start something unless I can genuinely stack enough real purpose onto it first.

I like to describe this with a joke I have used for years. We used to post Chuck Norris jokes inside customer bathrooms during construction projects, partly to give people using the restroom something entertaining to read, and partly, and this genuinely worked, to reduce the temptation to write graffiti on the walls instead. One of my favorites was that Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird. I will not do something unless I can genuinely kill two stones with one bird myself, meaning the task has to serve real, multiple purposes at once, not just one.

Why This Matters More Than It Might Sound

Human brains vary enormously, and however any individual brain happens to be wired, none of us are naturally built to sustain motivation on willpower alone, especially for tasks that feel tedious or only marginally important in the moment. Genuine productivity rarely comes down to raw discipline. It comes down to structuring a task so your own brain actually wants to engage with it.

Watch for these signs a task has been successfully restructured to genuinely hold your attention rather than fight against it.

• The same task now serves at least two or three genuinely distinct purposes, rather than existing for a single narrow reason.
• Starting the task no longer requires forcing yourself, because the stacked purposes create real, built-in momentum.
• Completing it produces multiple usable outcomes at once, rather than a single result that only helps in one specific way.

Applying This to Your Own Leadership Work

This principle applies directly to construction leadership too. Documenting standard work, building training materials, writing up a genuine culture document, all of these tend to sit untouched precisely because they seem to serve only one narrow purpose in the moment. Before starting the next one, ask honestly how many genuine purposes it could actually serve. A training document might also work as a huddle reference, a new hire orientation piece, and content for a future bootcamp, all from the same single effort.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build exactly this kind of multi-purpose thinking into training materials, standard work, and documentation, so the important, unglamorous work that tends to get postponed indefinitely finally has enough real motivation behind it to actually get done.

So here is the challenge. Pick one task you have been quietly avoiding, something you know matters but keep pushing off. Sit down and honestly list every real purpose it could serve if you actually built it well. If you can find two or three, that stacked motivation may be exactly what finally gets it done.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “I will not do something unless I can kill two stones with one bird.” Stack enough real purpose onto your own next task, and watch how differently it feels to actually start it.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does stacking multiple purposes onto one task actually increase motivation rather than just adding complexity?

Because each additional genuine purpose gives the brain a separate, concrete reason to value the effort involved, rather than relying on a single, sometimes weak motivation to carry the whole task alone. When a task serves several real needs at once, the combined weight of those reasons tends to overcome the natural resistance to starting something tedious or unglamorous.

Is this approach only useful for creative or content-based tasks, like writing quotes or building images?

No, the same principle applies to almost any recurring task that tends to get postponed, including documentation, training material development, and standard work creation in a construction setting. Identifying multiple genuine uses for the same underlying effort, such as a single training document serving a huddle, an orientation process, and future bootcamp content, works the same way regardless of the specific task involved.

Why does the article emphasize “one piece flow” alongside accomplishing multiple purposes at once?

Because the goal is not multitasking in the traditional sense of juggling several unrelated activities simultaneously, but rather completing one focused piece of work that happens to serve several distinct purposes once finished. That distinction matters because genuine one piece flow, giving full attention to a single task, tends to produce better results than splitting attention across multiple activities at the same time.

Does relying on this kind of motivation trick suggest a lack of discipline or willpower?

No, the article argues the opposite, that raw willpower alone is an unreliable way to sustain consistent productivity for most people. Structuring tasks so they genuinely engage the brain’s actual motivation, rather than fighting against its natural tendencies, is presented as a more sustainable and effective approach than simply trying to force discipline through sheer effort.