Your Most Important Task of the Day Is Not the Only Important Task
Taking care of your most important task at the start of your day is one of the best productivity tips you can find in the world. But it only helps if you actually get your work done for the rest of the day.
Adoption of large businesses – or eating “live frog first thing in the morning” – is opposed to procrastination and helps to concentrate, but, as explained by Cal Newport on your blog, it should not be the only thing you care about every day:
My main problem with the MIT strategy [most importantly] is that it tacitly recognizes that most of your day is out of your control … However, a more effective answer is to abandon the premise that your day must unfold reactively. Someone who plans every minute of their day and every day of their week is going to do an order of magnitude more important work than someone who sets only one daily goal.
Don’t walk into a workday thinking that you really only have a couple of hours at your disposal, and don’t let chaos take over just because you’ve completed your most important task of the day. There is still a lot to be done, and a lot of it is probably important. Take this productive energy and keep going full steam ahead. Of course, as Newport points out, it’s not always possible to predict exactly how long it will take you to complete tasks, or know when unexpected work will appear. So, while you may not be able to schedule things up to the minute, a small scheduled buffer time in your schedule can get you on track.
The Most Important Is Not Enough | Cal Newport