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The 5/25 Two Lists

The focus exercise attributed to Warren Buffett, laid out as the derivation it is. Step 1: write down 25 goals — career, life, the next five years — without filtering. Step 2: circle the five that matter most. Then the twist that makes the exercise work: the other twenty don't become a someday list. They become List B — avoid at all costs — because they're the goals seductive enough to steal time from the five. The sheet shows the whole exercise on one page: the numbered 25-slot brainstorm up top with your picks circled, List A below with the top five in full weight, and List B struck through in a dark panel beside it, where you can see exactly what you're refusing. Star your picks with a leading !, or print it blank and do the circling by hand — the discipline isn't picking the five, it's refusing the twenty.

Best for: Cutting a sprawling list of ambitions down to the five that get your actual time — and making the refusal of the rest explicit.
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Two lists. Only one gets your time.

The exercise attributed to Warren Buffett: write down your top 25 goals, circle the 5 that matter most — and everything you didn't circle becomes the avoid-at-all-costs list. Not a someday list. Those twenty are the goals seductive enough to steal time from the five, which is exactly why they get none.

How it works

List up to 25 goals, one per line. Mark your top five with a leading ! — like ! Run a marathon.

Only the first five ! count; the rest fall to List B automatically. Leave everything blank to print an empty worksheet and do it by hand.

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