Use the Zen-to-Do Method to Form New Productive Habits
Productivity is a crucial skill for achieving your life and career goals, but it’s also important because it can give you a sense of accomplishment and improve your well-being. When you don’t have time to complete all your tasks, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated, which doesn’t help you get things done, let alone feel successful.
You need to be happy. You need to be productive. Achieving a state of Zen can help you achieve both—at least that’s the theory behind the “Zen Before You Do” method, which aims to help you accomplish more and feel happier doing it. Unlike some other productivity approaches , this approach is less about strict deadlines and meticulous details and more about hard work and the sense of accomplishment from a job well done. This makes it suitable for those who don’t thrive under pressure.
What is Zen Quest?
Zen to Done is a productivity system developed by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits . It’s built around forming simple habits that allow you to get work done and feel good at the same time. Other methods, like the once-ubiquitous “Getting Things Done” system , have a bad reputation for expecting you to develop all your new habits at once, immediately jumping into a completely new lifestyle. Such all-or-nothing changes may work for some people, but they may not work for you. But ZTD focuses on gradual, more relaxed habit formation. There’s room to adapt and grow, which can be calming, especially if you have a lot of habits to change or are stuck in your current ones.
Habit changes occur sequentially, but one at a time, allowing you to focus on the actual work that needs to be done. The original version of ZTD had 10 habits, but you should try to implement only two or three at a time before moving on to others.
-
Gather information by continually writing down what you need to do, ideas you have, or changes to a task or project.
-
The process involves making quick decisions about tasks that are in front of you right now, such as emails that may soon accumulate.
-
Plan by setting weekly goals every Monday and tackling larger tasks early in the week.
-
Do this by choosing a task and focusing on it without thinking or doing anything else.
-
Create a simple, reliable system that works for you, such as completing certain tasks at the same time each day or using an email system like 4D consistently.
-
Organize things by assigning them a place and putting them back there each time. This includes emails, tools on your desk, and anything else that clutters your mind or space.
-
Review your weekly goals at the end of the week, but also keep an eye on your longer-term quarterly or annual goals so they’re fresh in your mind and you can see how your daily work is contributing to their achievement.
-
Simplify by using review time to pare down your goals and tasks to what’s most important at any given time.
-
Create a routine that works for you, whether it’s a more relaxed morning routine or a more structured evening routine, and stick to it.
-
Find your passion and make sure it guides your work. This is what sets ZTD apart from other productivity methods: you should always strive to keep things you care about at the forefront of your mind, as a reminder of why you work so hard or as a way to validate whether a project is truly worthwhile.
Over the past year, I’ve implemented several of these changes: collecting (and therefore planning ), and processing and organizing . I was aiming for financial growth and greater organization, but I knew neither would happen overnight, so I started writing down a “to-do list” whenever I had one. I save them in a note on my phone, reorganize it every Monday, and check it every morning to see what I can do, then move straight to the tasks that can be done right now. One day, I noticed my fan was dirty but didn’t have time to clean it, so I wrote a note “clean fan” in my phone and was able to complete it the next day without stress. Making changes and gradually completing tasks this way has led to major financial wins and a significantly cleaner and more organized home. It’s a far cry from how it was before, when I put too much pressure on myself to change instantly.
Start with “Minimalist ZTD”
This all seems overwhelming—and it is, although you’re supposed to start implementing habits one at a time. So, let’s digress a bit: Babauta considers the first four (collecting, processing, planning, and executing) the foundation of the “minimalist ZTD” program and recommends choosing one and focusing on it for 30 days. After a month, you’ll get used to using this approach and can move on to one of the remaining three. And once the four core habits are firmly ingrained, you can move on to the full list.