The 25/5 Priority Rule
Circle five priorities and treat the other twenty as an avoid-at-all-costs list
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 85%
The exercise is deceptively simple. Write down your 25 priorities in life. Then circle only five — the ones that actually matter. The twist, and the whole mechanism, is what happens to the other twenty: they are not a someday list. They are your avoid-at-all-costs list. Every ounce of energy you put toward them is a distraction pulling you from the things that actually drive the outcomes you want. Bloom's read is that this bites hardest for entrepreneurs, who have a bad tendency to take on too much — and when you take on too much you get less done, not more. He notes there's a moment in every extraordinarily successful person's life when they figured out the one thing that really mattered and committed to chipping away at it over a long period. The corollary: the fantasy of fifteen income streams is a farce.
Origin
The exercise comes from Warren Buffett. Bloom shares it in The 5 Types of Wealth as a companion to the energy calendar for identifying what actually matters.
Core principles
- 01The dangerous distractions are the things you genuinely want to do.
- 02Taking on too much means getting less done, not more.
- 03Ambitious people have a bad tendency to over-commit.
- 04The uncircled items aren't a someday list — they're an avoid list.
- 05Extraordinary success traces back to hammering one thing over a long period.
- 06Fifteen income streams is a farce — attention doesn't divide that way.
How to run it
- 1
Write down 25 priorities
Go write down all of your priorities in life. Don't self-censor at this stage — the exercise needs the full field including the genuinely appealing ones.
Pro tip Run the energy calendar first if you can; it tells you where your energy actually comes from before you choose.
- 2
Circle only five
From the long list you just wrote, figure out which five actually matter. Not the five that sound best — the five that really matter.
Pro tip If circling the fifth doesn't hurt, you haven't put enough genuinely attractive items on the list.
Watch out Circling six or seven defeats the entire mechanism.
- 3
Label the other twenty as avoid-at-all-costs
This is the hard move. The twenty uncircled items become your avoid-at-all-costs list, because every ounce of energy toward them is a distraction.
Pro tip Write the words 'avoid at all costs' at the top of that list. The label is what does the work.
Watch out The trap is that they're not bad things — they're exciting things you'd love to do if you had the time.
- 4
Put the five on the calendar
Your priorities are an outflow from your calendar. If the circled five aren't blocked out, they aren't priorities — they're intentions.
Pro tip Keith Rabois: don't tell me your priorities, show me your calendar.
- 5
Concentrate rather than diversify attention
Put a lot of attention on two or three things that could be the really big one, rather than a little attention on fifteen. The whole idea of fifteen income streams is a farce.
Pro tip Every extraordinarily successful person has a moment where they identify the one thing and just keep chipping at it over a long period.
- 6
Re-run it as your season changes
What matters shifts across seasons of life. Re-derive the five rather than dragging a stale list forward.
Pro tip Fold it into a think day so the review is scheduled rather than crisis-driven.
In the wild
Bloom's version, sourced from Warren Buffett: write down your 25 priorities in life, then circle only five. Now you have five circled and twenty uncircled. The five you circled are your true priorities — the things you must put energy toward. The twenty you didn't circle are your avoid-at-all-costs list, because every ounce of energy put toward those is just a distraction pulling you away from the things that really drive the outcomes.
→ A concrete filter for the exact failure mode Bloom names: getting pulled by the little shiny object floating over here when the thing right in front of you is the thing to hammer in on.
Bloom applies the same logic to the popular fantasy of building fifteen income streams. Each one gets a little bit of your attention, which means none gets enough to become the big one. He contrasts this with what he observes in people who've achieved extraordinary success: there's a moment where they realize what the one thing that really mattered was, put all their energy into it, and kept chipping away at it over a long period of time.
→ A reframe of diversified effort as the thing that prevents the outsized outcome, rather than the thing that produces it.
Common mistakes
Treating the twenty as a someday list
The mechanism only works if the uncircled twenty are actively avoided. Filed as 'later,' they keep drawing energy and the exercise achieves nothing.
Only listing things you don't want
The real danger is things that seem exciting and that you'd love to do if you had the time. If nothing on the cut list stings, the list was rigged.
Circling five but never blocking them
You can't claim your priority is building a business while your calendar is a pile of busy-work meetings. The calendar is the actual list.
Is it for you?
Best for
Entrepreneurs and high performers whose main failure mode is over-commitment, not laziness.
Not ideal for
Someone in a genuine exploration phase who doesn't yet know enough to know what matters.
From the transcript
“the five things you circled are your true priorities... The other 20 things are your avoid at all costs list”
“when you take on too much, you aren't actually getting more done. You are getting less done”
“Don't tell me your priorities. Show me your calendar.”
From the episode
Sahil Bloom: How Entrepreneurs Build Real Wealth Beyond Money
Sahil Bloom