Use the Zen Until Ready Method to Create New Productivity Habits

Productivity is an important skill to achieve this goal in your life and career, but it is also important because it can give you a sense of accomplishment and improve your sense of well-being. When you don’t get all your tasks done, it’s easy to feel depressed and disappointed in yourself, which doesn’t help you get things done, let alone feel like you’re thriving.

You should be happy. You need to be productive. Achieving a state of Zen can help you achieve both—or so goes the theory behind the Zen to Completion method, which aims to help you get more benefits and feel better about yourself.

What is Zen?

Zen to Done is a productivity system developed by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits . It’s built around creating simple habits that will allow you to get your work done and feel good at the same time. Unlike other productivity methods, such as the once-ubiquitous Getting Things Done system , it doesn’t expect you to develop all your new habits at once and immediately adopt a whole new lifestyle. Rather, he is focused on their gradual and, shall we say, more peaceful construction.

Habit changes happen consistently, but one at a time, allowing you to focus on the actual work you need to do. There are 10 habits in the original version of ZTD, but you should only try to implement two or three of them at a time before moving on to others.

1. Collect data by always making notes about what you need to do, your ideas, or changes to a task or project.
2. Process by making quick decisions on tasks that are in front of you right now, such as emails that may soon pile up.
3. Plan by setting weekly goals every Monday and tackling larger goals at the beginning of the week.
4. Do this by choosing a task and focusing on it, without thinking about or doing anything else.
5. Create a simple, reliable system that works for you, such as doing certain tasks at the same time every day or connecting to an email system like 4Ds with consistency.
6. Organize by giving everything its place and putting it there every time. This includes email, the tools on your desk, and anything else that clutters your mind or space.
7. Review your weekly goals at the end of the week, and also keep track of your longer-term quarterly or yearly goals to keep them in mind and see how your daily work affects them.
8. Make things easier by using review time to divide your goals and objectives into only what is most important at any given time.
9. Create a daily routine that works for you, whether it’s a more relaxed morning routine or a more structured evening – and stick to it.
10. Find your passion and make sure it guides your work. This is where ZTD differs from other productivity methods: you should always strive to keep what you care about at the center of what you do, as a reminder of why you’re working so hard, or as a check on whether a project is a success. really worth it.

Get started with Minimalist ZTD

This all sounds like a lot—and it is, even though you’re supposed to start taking on just one habit at a time. So, back up a bit: Babauta considers the first four (collect, process, plan and execute) to be the core of the Minimalist ZTD program and advises choosing one and focusing on it for 30 days. After a month, you will get used to using this approach in your work and can move on to one of the other three. And once the top four items are firmly ingrained in your habits, you can move on to the full list.