“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”
- Paul J. Meyer
Most individuals have 150 to 200 short-term action items and 30 to 100 longer-term projects bubbling at any given time, according to David Allen, a time-management consultant. Hence, the to-do list. If you’re having trouble crossing items off on yours, it’s probably not because you’re lazy or unfocused; it’s because your lists may not be good to begin with.
1. Put it in writing.
As the efficiency expert Peter “The Time Man” Turla says, “Paper remembers, people forget.” Writing down your goals creates the roadmap to your success. Although just the act of writing them down can set the process in motion, it is also extremely important to review your your list frequently. Remember, the more focused you are on your list the more likely you are to accomplish everything.
2. Make it specific and measurable.
If your goal is to ‘do your best,’ you probably won’t. Define and describe your goal. Write down when you want to achieve it. Write down the reasons why you want it. Write down what it would feel like after you have achieved it. Figure out exactly what it will take to get it. Be realistic about the time things will take. Many people don’t allow themselves enough time, and give up too soon.
3. Put a date on it.
A dream becomes a goal when you attach a time frame. Without a date, you procrastinate. Draw a horizontal timeline with a dot at each end. The left end represents now, and the right end represents a point in the future. Specify what you want to happen and when, from now until then.
4. Phrase it positively.
Your goal should be written and have positive intent about what you want to bring into your life. This is very important, since the focus of your goal should not be centered around describing a problem you want to eliminate. If your goal is to stop eating so many hot-fudge sundaes, you’ll obsess about eating them. It’s better to write, ‘I will reward myself with one hot-fudge sundae per month if I average three workouts per week.’
5. Make it realistic.
Grand goals are inspiring, but be sure to approach them incrementally. Kick-start your get-goingness by setting small goals and winning. Take a big dream, like ‘I want to be famous,’ and break it down into smaller, more manageable steps, like ‘I want to star in a science fiction movie,’ ‘I want to go to three auditions a week,’ ‘I want to move to another city’ and ‘I want to save $5000 so I can move.’
Try formulating goals for seven life areas: health, relationships, finances, material goods, career, education, and recreation. Then learn to balance your priorities. Most individuals are much better at setting work goals than personal ones, but it’s probably harder to maintain a successful marriage, retire wealthy, or stay healthy than it is to succeed at work. Make sure you have goals for these things too.
Don’t forget the words of Lao-Tzu: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
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I never thought productivity was an accident, but focus definitely is. That’s why people take Provigil and friends.
I tend to get on/off the GTD bandwagon almost hourly. I’ve found it’s best to declare bankruptcy every couple days or I become overwhelmed and/or develop blindness for tasks that have been on there longer than a day.
Great article.
Most of these tips can be implemented with Gdtagenda.com
You can set goals organized by category, assign priorities to your goals, give them a deadline and a progress bar will be generated, and tey are always displayed on top of the screen so you are always reminded of them. You can also acces them from your mobile phone, or print them.
Hope you like it.
Hi,
Thanks for this list. I use the good ole manual method of writing them down and just cancelling as I go along. I keep an Excel calender for the year by week and day, in which I list the specific things to do based on my goals for the year.
This keeps me on track.
I really enjoy reading about productivity and I’m interested in reading more. I’d also like to share with you this book I finished that might offer you some new insights. It’s called Harmonic Wealth and it’s all about finding harmony in your life in all areas - financial, relational, mental, physical, and spiritual. It has some really good tips about how to engage all five pillars (or areas) of your life, and to learn more about how they complement each other. Rather than dealing with each issue individually, maybe take a look at the bigger picture.
Here’s the link to that book I recommend: harmonicwealth.com/read
-harmonicwealthenthusiast
Great tips on having a effective ToDo list. The most important point from my point of view is “1. Put it in writing”. I had big todo lists in the past and all was in my head. The only thing what happened was the big was getting bigger and bigger and I hardly crossed something of.
It was not until I started to write the items down and then cross them out one by one, that the list gets smaller. I still had one big list, and started to make daily lists so I didn’t get overwhelmed. Start small and if you finish your list and have still time in your day add additional items to it.
Another important thing regarding to do lists is to prioritze the items. Unless your are superman/woman you will rarely accomplish all that you need to in one given day. So place a priority A, B or C by each item on your daily to do list. A items being those that MUST get accomplished, B items those that should get accomplished but can be done tomorrow if necessary and C items those that can be done when there is extra time. You can always check on your progress and then re-prioritize based on what has come up throughout the day. But without prioritizing there are items we will all put off and they are often the ones that need the most urgent attention (but are the most unpleasant or require the most effort).
And keep in mind this can be done electronically or manually written- whichever works best for you.
Happy Organizing,
Multitaskingmama
www.enhanceyouroutlook.com
Lists are vital to personal productivity as is prioritizing. When you make a list and break the tasks into sub tasks, etc, as recommended by clickalifecoach, you also need to prioritize the tasks. A lot of times people will have so many things they want to accomplish but get bogged down in the sheer number of tasks in front of them.
Prioritize which tasks to focus on at a given time and then commit to focusing on that until it is completed. Productivity depends on completing tasks not just working on them.