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How to measure and not measure a life
Don't Tolerate Harassment
Having tough conversations with difficult people makes us know ourselves better.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
11
Key Ideas
Personal Operations Category
- Task management. This one is most commonly taught and includes systems like Getting Things Done.
- Knowledge management. This is embodied in systems like productivity educator Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain.
- Priority management. Without this category, the first two will fail. You need to have your tasks and resources organized, but also know how to prioritize them.
What's on your plate
Prioritizing tasks at work involves getting all your tasks and commitments in one place. Take a piece of paper and make a list of everything you need to get done. Questions to help you:
- Do you have commitments to others like your boss, partner, kids, or clients?
- Do you have anything you need to submit?
- Do you have any financial tasks that need to get done?
- Do you have any planning that needs to get done?
- Do you have any administrative tasks? Legal, insurance, staffing, or training?
- Do you have any professional development tasks that need to get done? Training, areas to research, skills to develop, books to read or study, or classes to take?
Brainstorm your goals
Find your goals. Without them, it is impossible to prioritize your tasks. Try to set 90-day goals, which is long enough to make meaningful progress. Questions to prompt goals:
- What’s the one thing you could do that makes everything else easier or unnecessary?
- If you were giving advice to someone else in your position, what 1-3 things would you tell them to focus on?
- What do you want to have accomplished over the next five years?
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Key Ideas
Plan the Rest of Your Day
When you don't feel like working on your tasks, take a few moments to plan your day.
Even if you do it as a form of procrastination, to postpone doing the actual work, it will help you by keeping you on track for the rest of the day.
Smaller Manageable Parts
Break the project you don't want to start into smaller pieces.
Breaking it down into small tasks and adding those to your to-do list isn't exactly fun, but it is less overwhelming than working. And it's also useful: When you finally do get around to starting, you've got a strategy.
Clean Something
Clean something every time you don't want to get started on a work project. Don't listen to a podcast or turn on the radio. Just clean. Make it as boring as possible, so that your mind wanders.
This does two things: it delays actually working on your project and it gives you time to think, possibly generating ideas that will come in handy whenever you get back to the project you're trying to put off.