So what is your number one productivity app for ensuring you get things done?
Is it your email inbox?
Is it a flat stack of sticky notes that gets scrawled upon when the need arises?
Is it a legal notepad?
Evernote?
Trello task boards?
The reminders app on your iPhone?
A whiteboard?
The Things app? (never used this one)
Omnifocus?
A notepad or txt file you save off everyday?
A calendar invite that is an all day appointment that you carry over day to day with things being added and removed as you go?
ServiceNow-based tasks and visual task boards?
Or a combination of the above?
I have used nearly every one of the options outlined above, along with a slew of project management toolsets and of course Excel.
Many of these options worked reasonably well, however many times over 30 – 60 days things began to sag as the crush of my day to day caught up with my workflow.
Things can get complicated if you have an assistant at work or even a virtual assistant outside of work – let alone a partner / spouse at home that is also handling some tasks and backlogs.
Yet – here I am on this blog espousing the wonders of doing 1 thing per day to get things moving in a direction that will better equip you for your future.
Here’s the secret weapon for ensuring that you have the opportunity to get that one thing done per day.
I am not talking about the habits that are daily or weekly in nature, I’m talking about the one damn thing you are going to get done today to further your future self.
Are you ready for this mind blowing ‘hack’ ????
Some of the strongest truths are also the simplest ones…
Schedule the time you need to get the thing done.
Schedule it on your calendar as an appointment with yourself.
Do not negotiate this window of time with anyone unless it is an absolute emergency.
The power of scheduling this one thing per day will ensure you ‘have the time’ to get it done — when so many times we have all said – ‘ I am too busy to X…’
It is a question of priorities above all else.
By scheduling your ‘#1’ for the day into the calendar – you assure yourself that you will have the space to knock it out.
In a future post, I’ll expand on how to multiply your calendar power by using a multi-layered approach that corresponds to the various dimensions of your life and the roles you occupy via a Google calendar configuration.
I have been rocking this multi-calendar approach now for months, and it has unlocked all sorts of things opening up in parallel without any additional stress. In fact, it has dropped the stress levels down quite a bit for me in terms of schedules.
It is possible to have multiple calendars stacked and readily available on your phone, synchronized across the various systems and source calendars from your corporate and personal calendars.
The point for today is to start with the basics and focusing on that one thing that you said you’d do for yourself.
Getting into the habit of scheduling the time to do something just for you, not negotiating the window of time away, and following through for a few weeks will set the stage for larger opportunities in terms of throughput and in terms of habit development.
So if you find yourself in an ‘office job’ or doing work in as an information worker – I’ll share with you a couple of tips that I employ to ensure that I get the 1-3 things done that I commit to per day. This is above and beyond my employer commitments, this is above and beyond standing personal / familial commitments, and it is in addition to my daily habits – such as hitting the gym.
Guiding Principles
My calendar is historically overloaded at work, and many times people will stomp on existing commitments already placed on the day.
People many times disregard or do not even bother to look at the free/busy indicators of the corporate calendars. If people do not bother to look at the calendar – then there is another way to handle those appointment requests too.
So given the demands being placed on my workday calendar, I’ll reserve an occasional half hour during the work day if my overall schedule demands that my ‘big rocks or #1’ for the day be done during the day.
I’ll reserve this as an out of office coded appointment – this will give those that actually check the free/busy status a pause before sending the invite. Many times, people will respect this class of appointment when a straight up ‘busy’ block is stomped on…
Nearly always however – the time I reserve to get my big rocks done for the day is first thing in the morning prior to the workday starting officially. I still block this early morning time out as out of the office during the week, as the occasional attempt at booking a 6am or 7am call is made given my Central timezone.
There are circumstances that I’ll support calls like this during those timeframes, although many times I will not due to familial and the personal commitments that I have. Many times, those early morning windows are used to setup my workday so that I can blast through the back to back meeting having already done the anticipatory planning for the day along with the big thing for the day.
I also bookend the workday at night with more personal blocks of time set on the calendar as out of office windows.
I have a set of routines that I follow to begin my workday and to end my workday for my employer – perhaps I’ll outline those down the line.
If there are situations where I have to crank at work in the morning, and I do not get to do my big things for myself outside of my standing priorities that were already setup – I’ll use the time at night to hammer things out.
The hours of 830-1230 at night are precious for me to carry out my big rock to dos.
Some nights it is placing a phone call to my relatives.
Other nights, it is blasting out a big deliverable at work that I set as my #1 for the day.
Other nights, it is writing a blog article like this one.
I am literally writing this sentence at 11:30pm on a midweek night.
Some nights I do not have this four hour window for a variety of reasons.
Most days I know my schedule for the upcoming day and night – so the windows for getting my big 1-3 things done for the day are well known, and fully scheduled.
Once these windows are scheduled with the named to do’s firmly ensconced on my calendar – it is exceptionally rare that I budge on those commitments to myself.
Also, there are many times when I am only up for committing to just that one thing per day, and even then I sometimes have a miss due to, well – being human. I can tell you though that the variability of setting a target for getting my big things done for the day and missing out on all 3 has been exceptionally reduced in the past year.
So there you have it – the biggest secret to getting momentum with the ‘getting the one thing done’ is to get it scheduled onto your calendar.