Once you write down the tasks you need to perform, you then have to clear space in your day to put some of those tasks onto your calendar.
This calendar maintenance is itself a useful exercise for fighting the tide of interruptions you’re always facing. It pulls your brain out of a reactive mode and forces you to think about the long term.
Recently I posted my new twist on the excellent GTD system, Zen To Done (ZTD): The Ultimate Simple Productivity System. This is the eighth in a series of posts exploring each of the 10 Habits. If you're like me, you have a long list of tasks to do, perhaps broken down by different contexts (work, home, errands, calls, etc.).
Your brain is for thinking, not for storing a long list of random things you need to do. "When you're juggling a lot of tasks, things will fall through the cracks, and lists are amazing for keeping yourself on target and getting things done," says Paula Rizzo, author of Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Highly Successful, and Less Stressed .
Look at everything on your to-do list and ask yourself, ‘Am I the only person who can do this?’
Anything that can be given to someone else should be put on an outsource list.
While outsourcing takes the extra time upfront to train someone else on the task, it saves you time later, which can be used to focus on the things you do have to do.
How can I make motivation part of my life to do things that will help me achieve my goals in the long run? For me, motivation was a state of mind. Some days I was all excited and motivated to get to my toughest goals and important tasks that I had avoided in the past. Then there were other times I felt lost, unsure of how to make even tiny progress on things I got to do.
Motivation does not happen to us. It is a muscle that we need to build. After an inspirational talk, we might feel motivated for a while but will fall back to our old routines.