Practical Productivity: Getting Done What Matters Most

“I never finish my to-do list!” “I’m SO overwhelmed – there aren’t enough hours in the day!” It’s easy to feel like this so often, we’ve almost learned to ignore the feeling! Does everyone always feel like they have more to do than they can possibly accomplish?

Yes and no. It is true, we live in an era where our social norms prompt us to take on more – squeeze in that meeting or quick task between the others – we find ourselves adding on more and more each day. Yet we rarely make it a priority to take things off our list. What’s more – we’ve adopted beliefs that it’s our responsibility to optimize our time and that we do that by doing more tasks during our waking hours. But is this helping us or harming us?

I asked 3 clients this question and all 3 quickly responded, “I know it’s not helping me!” We know it, yet we continue to do it! Ah, the knowing-doing gap!

Here’s what we should do in 4 accessible steps!

Step 1 – Uncover and own your beliefs around time and productivity. What expectations have you adopted or placed on yourself (intentionally or accidentally)? How do you want to shift them?

Step 2 – Determine what is most important to you to prioritize for this moment in your life. What you want for right now doesn’t have to be what you want forever. (I like to look at a window of 3 months)

Step 3 – Look at your To Do list from last week and use a highlighter to mark items that you can clearly map to the priorities (Step 2). Anything that’s not highlighted you need to find a way to move off the list by cleaning up your list. To do this Ask yourself:

  • What could you release from your list – for now. (Give yourself permission not to do).
  • What could be a nice-to-have but somehow made it onto the must-do list? Cross it off.
  • What can you automate?
  • What can you delegate to someone else?
  • What could you ask someone to do if you created a better agreement with them?

Once you’ve done the clean-up, what remains is probably what TRULY has to be done by you. Great – now you know and you probably have a shorter list!

Step 4 – Execution… We make two mistakes here that are easily corrected: 1) We try to do the little things, just so we can get them done, thereby avoiding the bigger/harder ones. And 2) We leave tasks for the end of our day when we’re biologically driven to rest instead of be productive. If these approaches aren’t working for you, like many, try this instead:

  • Set aside a time block (ideally ~75 minutes – really hold yourself to the time block) 2-3 days each week and start with a big/hard task. By starting with these you’ll build momentum to easily knock out the smaller ones. AND, you’ll build a great practice for focused, effective, practical productivity!
  • Don’t overthink! How many times have you started doing something you were dreading only to learn that it wasn’t that bad, “once you started”. Force yourself to move to action in 8 seconds. That’s how long it takes our brains to understand the “what” we need to do something and then begin overthinking/analyzing the challenges of the “how.” If you can START moving within those 8 seconds, you will eliminate the stress (which often leads to procrastination) that comes with thinking how difficult something will be and also begin actually doing the task, which will provide its own intrinsic reward and motivate you to do more on your list!

Congratulations – you’ve built a new practice of productivity! Notice what worked well for you and what may have gotten in your way. How do you want to tweak your blocks of focused of list- conquering? Let me know.