A Quick Way to Find Out If This Thing on Your to-Do List Is Really Important
Thanks to unlimited access to products, applications, and planners to increase the productivity of knowledge of our priorities should be easy. But what if all you have to do on the same day of the feeding article, work on this presentation outline, work out , and so on- everyone feels like a priority?
I once heard on Tim Ferriss’s podcast that when it comes to every item on his to-do list, Ferris asks himself, “If this was the only thing I did today, would I be happy with my day?” If he answers yes, then that’s what he does first.
At the time, I didn’t really think about it. Drowning in the sea of urgent and important tasks that I often combined, I was re-introduced to this idea by a very productive and experienced friend who told me about the planner from Intelligent Change (which is also behind the Five-Minute Journal, which I use and love ).
Well, I bought this planner and since then it has helped me better control my to-do list. This is not because I have a well-organized to-do list, but because the planner forced me to take a less is more approach. I have enough space to write down only five things that I need to do on this day, and only one may be the most important task of the day, which is guided by a hint:
If that was the only thing you did today, you would be happy.
It made me wonder if what I thought was super important was really that important; Or was it just a distraction from what I had to work on. As Intelligent Change notes in his notebook, you often put off important work and make yourself uncomfortable.
You don’t have to go out and buy a diary specifically for this purpose, but to help identify important work, you should ask yourself how Ferris does it, if this single item will make you happy with your day:
Will moving forward make all the other things unimportant, or will it be easier to drop them later?
Since I approach my important tasks in this way, I feel a lot less anxiety about all the work that I think I need to get started, and I can get rid of the clutter so that I can focus on the really important things that worry me. …