This time of year, we tend to obsess way too much about picking the perfect first goal.
But here’s what I’ve learned after 10+ years of running my own sprints: it doesn’t really matter which goal you pick. And today I want to show you why the goal itself is almost irrelevant — and why something else matters so much more if you want long-term success.
“What should I focus on in my first sprint?”
When people join my sprints — private or group — the number one question is always the same:
What should I focus on in my first sprint?
What goal should I pick?
And my answer often puzzles people: it doesn’t matter.
Because the first sprint is not about achievement. It’s about getting your first real feedback loop.
When fantasy meets reality
We all live with an imaginary version of our life in our heads. We carry assumptions about how much time we have, how much energy we have, and what “should” work for us. That fantasy dictates our goals.
But the moment you put something on paper — or on a Scrum board — and actually start attempting to achieve it, the rubber hits the road.
That’s when you discover how much time you truly have, how much energy you actually have on a daily basis, and how many hidden commitments are living in your week. You see how long household chores really take and just how optimistic the brain is about time.
For the first time, you’re no longer guessing. You have real data.
Why messy first sprints are incredibly valuable
Not all first sprints are a glowing success. Most of them are messy, imperfect, and humbling.
And that’s exactly why they matter.
Once the sprint ends, you can look at your board and reflect. What worked? What didn’t? What surprised you? When were you at your best? What drained you completely? Why did one task make it all the way to Done while another stayed stuck?
These questions turn experience into insight.
How sprints create a calmer, more honest life
You take those insights into the next sprint. The second sprint becomes a little tighter. The third even tighter.
By the fourth sprint, your capacity estimate starts to match reality. The gap between fantasy life and real life shrinks. Planning becomes easier. Follow-through becomes possible.
The result isn’t hustle or dramatic transformation. It’s something quieter: a peaceful sense of progress.
That’s what people tell me they want most. Not extraordinary results — just the feeling that every month, they’re moving forward instead of spinning their wheels.
That’s what one sprint at a time gives you.
You’re not chasing goals — you’re building a system
The reason this works is because you’re not just chasing outcomes. You’re building a productivity system that fits you — your personality, your circumstances, your rhythms, and your energy.
Not someone else’s routine. Not a trend. Yours.
The real purpose of the first sprint
The first few sprints aren’t about achieving specific goals. Their real purpose is to uncover your success key — your secret productivity code — the conditions under which you work best.
Think of a sprint goal like a dumbbell. When you go to the gym, you don’t care what color the dumbbell is or what it’s made of. The dumbbell isn’t the goal. Getting stronger is.
Your sprint goal works the same way. It gives you something to lift for three weeks so you can observe yourself. You start noticing when you procrastinate, what motivates you, what drains you, and what structure supports you.
Once you know that, you can pick almost any goal and achieve it.
The order doesn’t matter — the learning does
We see this everywhere. People succeed in one area of life and then apply the same principles somewhere else. Career changes lead to better health. Health routines spill into finances. Decluttering opens the door to creativity.
The order doesn’t matter. Pick one thing, uncover your code, and then transfer it. The second goal often takes half the time of the first — because you already know how you work.
A personal example: the lunchtime rule
In high school, I liked finishing homework by 4-5 PM so I could spend time with friends. Weekends were free. It worked — I was an A+ student.
I copied that same structure to university, then to my career, then to grad school, and now to my business. Same rule, different goals.
During grad school, though, I noticed something. Even with a 5 PM deadline, I procrastinated all day. The day felt like one long stretch of mental drag.
So I moved the deadline earlier — to lunch.
I tested how many words I could write in one focused hour and set a realistic daily target. The rule became simple: no lunch until the words were written.
I’m very food-driven, and I never skipped lunch. But I always hit my word count. That single rule transformed my grad school experience. The most important work was done by midday, the mental drag disappeared, and I finished my program early.
Quitting social media to regain focus
Another lesson came from grad school. I struggled at first with reading dense academic papers, and I realized social media was working directly against the kind of focus I needed.
So I quit Instagram for the duration of grad school. Slowly, my attention span returned. Reading became enjoyable again. Complex material stopped feeling overwhelming and boring.
Nowadays, my business requires that same kind of sharp, sustained thinking, so I looked back at my own history. I’d already solved this problem once. So I copied the solution by quitting social media once again.
Proof that skills are transferable
After a full year of running group sprints inside the Focus Room, I’ve watched people move through wildly different goals across seasons of life. And I can say this with confidence: the goal never matters, but the learning always does.
One member started with job search goals, then moved to decluttering her home, then decorating her space, and now publishing her writing. Another began with health and weight loss, refined what worked for her personality, and is now applying those same lessons to a career change.
Different goals. Same system. Compounding insight.
Nothing is wasted
Inside the membership, people work on home renovations, health, businesses, and books. The themes change, but nothing is ever wasted.
Every sprint peels back another layer. Because no one gave us an instruction manual for how we work best. We have to discover our own operating system.
And once you discover even a small piece of it, you can reuse it everywhere.
So what should your first sprint focus on?
Patterns.
Notice when you crash, what drains you, and what gives you momentum. Look for patterns. Over time, you start building a personal formula — a way of working that’s grounded in your actual life, not in theory.
That’s far more reliable than any productivity trend, because it’s reality-tested.
The only rule for your first sprint
Pick something finite. Something you can finish in three weeks.
Pick any dumbbell.
Start lifting.
Because you’re not learning how to achieve this goal. You’re learning how to achieve every goal that comes after it. And that long-term perspective is what makes small failures along the way insignificant and less dramatic. And this makes consistency finally possible.
