Today's tasks
If you don't plan your time, someone else will plan it for you. Don't wait for the new year, the new quarter, the new week. Don't overthink how. Start right now.
At work I learned that a well-defined task is half the battle. What are we doing, why are we doing it, and what results do we expect? A task description doesn't need to focus on implementation, in other words, on how the task should be done.
If the mere thought of a task overwhelms you, you'll almost certainly procrastinate on it. That means it's too big and needs to be split into smaller tasks.
I start my day by defining my three most important tasks, my TOP 3 GOALS, from different areas of my life. Those are what I need to get done to be able to tell myself at the end of the day that I'm satisfied.
If you've never done this before, I suggest starting with the single most important task:
What do you need to do today to get closer to your big goal?
If you haven't defined your goals yet, take some time, think it over carefully and start there.
Once you've defined the most important task of the day, try to start your day with it. Get it done and you've already won the day.
Productivity isn't about how busy or how efficient you are, but about how much you can actually achieve and whether you deliver what you planned. Productivity is made up of:
- Time, whose enemy is procrastination
- Energy, whose enemy is burnout
- Attention, whose enemy is distraction.
A calendar-based system
My task management system is simple:
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If I say I need to do something or promise someone I'll do something, I put it in my calendar or on my to-do list right away.
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If something will need my attention in the future (e.g. an insurance policy expiring) or a task repeats regularly, it goes into the calendar or onto the to-do list with a date.
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All meetings, activities and appointments land in the calendar.
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Blocks of focused Deep Work get scheduled in the calendar.
The most important thing is to have a habit of reviewing your calendar and to-do list, organizing them and throwing out things you don't need to do or no longer want to.
It can be a good idea to sort tasks by place, time or topic, so you don't end up with an overwhelming, never-ending task list.
The GTD method
One of the first planning methods I came across was GTD, Getting Things Done, from David Allen's book of the same name. It's a method for collecting, processing and organizing tasks.
The core idea is that every task that comes your way has to land in an inbox and then get dealt with. Take a look at the GTD flowchart. Here's how you deal with it:
- if the task doesn't require action, it goes into the trash, the archive or a someday/maybe folder
- if the task requires action:
- do it right away if it takes less than 2 minutes
- save it as a project if it's complex and needs breaking down into subtasks
- delegate it if you won't be handling it yourself, and add it to your Waiting For list
- if it needs to be done at a later date, schedule it in your calendar
- otherwise, add it to your to-do list
That way you avoid chaos, and it's easier to organize all the responsibilities that land on your plate.
Planning
For more complex planning, I can recommend the following tools:
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The Kanban method, which visualizes work as, in its simplest form, a list of things to do (To Do), things in progress (Doing) and things done (Done). You can use Trello for it.
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A mind map is a visual representation of information where branches spread out from a central topic, standing for subtopics and related issues, questions or ideas. Each subtopic can branch out further. You can use XMind or Miro. Great for brainstorming.
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A canvas, an infinite board for visualizing and quickly grouping things. It's also perfect for sticking up virtual sticky notes.
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The OKR method (Objectives and Key Results) is ideal for tracking quarterly goals. Lots of companies use it.
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Year at a glance is a one-page calendar where the year is laid out in columns, one column per month, with the days as rows. It makes planning the year easy and visual. Every day you write down the most important event or task of the day. At the end of the year, it lets you quickly see what you've been up to.
I highly recommend watching Ali Abdaal's video where he reviews the key ideas on task management based on 107 productivity books.