Plan important moments monthly

1. Break down your big goals into daily tasks. You can't add "Get in shape" to your daily to-do list, but you can add "spend 30 minutes on my bike."
2. Consider your week as a whole. You likely have multiple goals. Some goals benefit from daily activity, while working towards others a few times a week can create momentum.
3. Add your have-to-do tasks last. We often fill our to-do lists with have-to-do tasks that crowd the whole day. Adding it last forces you to fit your have-to-do tasks around your goal tasks.

Many of us start our mornings with dozens of things we need to get done, but later realize that we haven't crossed any of them off our lists. We did get stuff done, but none of the things we planned.

A balm against hectic days that pass without progress is to choose a single activity to prioritize and protect in your calendar. If you struggle to select your top priority, ask yourself, when you look back on your day, what do you want the highlight to be? That's your priority.

Don't think how you will organise items if you're still considering what to keep. You can only assess available storage space when you're done decluttering.

Sort and throw away first before you put back the stuff you've been collecting in your junk drawer.

Gather all the items of one category in one spot. You can only decide what to keep and what to discard if you know what you have and how much you have.

Categorization is important in the process of decluttering. The five main categories are clothes, books, paper, miscellaneous, mementos. Gather and assess all like items at the same time. If you have two junk drawers, tackle the objects in both spaces at the same time.

Once you know what’s on your calendar, ask yourself: “What is the purpose of each thing on here? Are we accomplishing that or does something need to change?” 

Question each task. Start with recurring meetings, which can very easily build up and take over your calendar.

... and put them in one of four quadrants:

• Quadrant I: Important, Urgent (crises, last-minute meetings for important deadlines)
• Quadrant II: Important, Not Urgent (strategic planning, long-term goal setting)
• Quadrant III: Not Important, Urgent (certain emails, phone calls, meetings, and events)
• Quadrant IV: Not Important, Not Urgent (scrolling mindlessly through social media, binge-watching TV you don’t really care about).

• Notice how often people around you say no to each other every day. Also watch how others handle these situations.
• When you feel pressured for a yes, ask for time. It will allow you to calm down and evaluate whether you really want to do it ( "I need to check my calendar; I'll get back to you"/ "I've got to think about that; I'll let you know.")
• Saying no comfortably requires you to think what your values are. When you live by clear principles, it's easier to make decisions. People are more likely to respect your responses.
• Keep telling them that you can't help them. Then stay on repeat, even if they bring new angles of reasoning.
• When you want to help but can't commit to the specifics, make a counteroffer. You can offer someone a different resource or the name of someone else who might help.

• With the reactive method, you let other people's needs drive your activities. You feel busy and exhausted, but not really getting important tasks done.
• Because you have no plan besides trying to get things done, your brain keeps looking for "breaks," which have a way of decreasing the total amount of work you're able to accomplish.

• With the time blocking method, you control the balance between the urgent and the important.
• Because you know what you're supposed to be doing, you're less likely to take unplanned breaks.
• You know exactly how much time you really have available, and how long tasks will take.

It happens only when:

• You define your goals clearly 
• You have the capacity to complete the tasks necessary to achieve them.

While endless scrolling on your phone is a symptom of the problem, it is not the root cause of why you find it hard to focus.

To learn how to focus, you must adopt new skills as well as understand the most common causes of distraction.

Take a few moments to create a plan of where you would like to see yourself in the next couple of months or years. 

Align those dreams with your priorities to help you focus on making your wishes come true. 

It's important to remember to set time aside for things that truly matter to you. 

Whatever it is, you won't feel fulfilled if you constantly put other things before your own happiness.

A few explanations as to why it’s so hard to reject urgent tasks:

• The completion bias. Our brains crave the reward we get from checking off small to-dos from our list.
• Tunnel vision: When we get overwhelmed by the things we have to do, we choose to act on those most available to us; these are usually emails, calls, meetings, and other low-friction tasks.

The problem is that we’re continually bombarded with urgent work: emails, meetings, calls, and instead of being in control of our time and attention, we respond and act on someone else’s priorities.

"GTD is an organizational system. It doesn't put rules around how you actually do your work. Instead, it focuses on how you capture the work you need to do, organize it, and choose what needs your attention"