Write your to-do list the night before so that you get a good view about the day's layout and plan once you set out in the morning

Avoid writing list in the morning

Always draw boundaries and keep the no. of things fewer and, if possible, in groups of 3.

Don't include too many tasks

The to do list needs to keep moving and give you a sense of accomplishment by end of the day. So keep only smaller and focussed tasks (not broad ideas). Keep a separate list of long-term ideas, for weekend reflections (if you can).

Avoid 'some day' (long term) items

Have some nomenclature of prioritization. Either a number ranking or the famous urgent-important framework. But create an order out of the chaos, so that you can deal with it.

All tasks are not equal

Always be specific about the action that needs to be taken. Vague words like "implement XXX" will create a trap because that alone might involve multiple steps.

Avoid vague words

Don't use the same list for each day; it might end up looking like a mess of mixed things (done, undone, unimportant, critical etc). Create a fresh list each day so that visually also, you get a feeling of starting with a clean slate. It can have tasks undone from previous day but writing them on top will force you to knock them off first.

create a new list each day

Your actual task of doing things cannot happen in pockets or in isolation. Ultimately, you need to carve out time to do stuff. If you can carve out straight 3 hours to finish all 10-15 tasks - fine. But if you have only intermittent slots, then the best way is to map a set of 3-5 tasks for 1 hour and then attend to other stuff/meetings and deal with another set of 3-5 tasks in another hour. This is possible only when you tightly map tasks to your calendar.

Map list to calendar

This is a visual summary of the main tips provided in this article. If you like reading similar things with such visual summaries, you can find them at www.aakarsh.substack.com

Summary of all the key ideas

Why you shouldn’t write your list in the morning, and the items you should leave off completely.


personaldevelopment

Personal Development

These Seven To-Do List Mistakes Could Be Derailing Your Productivity

With every app just a button away (or say, a thumbprint away), it is so easy to download an app, play around with it for a while and integrate it into our daily lives, if there is some utility or entertainment value.

Many of us have too many apps on our phones

Our attention is controlled by the apps we choose to download and the only way we can take charge of our attention (spans) is through digital minimalism.

Digital minimalism is about getting back control

A Chef doesn’t use a single kitchen tool. There is always a set of tools, for different purposes, that are deployed as part of the cooking process. A writer will need multiple tools that will aid the writing process, by removing the friction points. But as long as we are aware of where each tool is coming in, doing its job and adding a value to the creative process, I think it is fine to have as many tools as your process needs.

Minimalism is about minimizing friction

Minimalism is not about having less. Minimalism is about having just the right number of things, that minimize the friction.

How do we interpret minimalism?

<ol><li>Concretize your stack</li><li>Do a periodic review</li><li>Ask yourself before downloading</li><li>Forecast the usage</li></ol>

Avoid Shiny New Toy Syndrome

<ol><li>Developing an understanding of various use cases and digital workflows in our lives will make us limit the number of apps we engage with frequently.</li><li>Practising digital minimalism has many benefits such as having fewer distractions from the real world, less tracking (and risks) of our data, and focused engagement with only a limited (quality) set of tools.</li><li>The less the clutter and friction, the more YOU (not app makers) have control over your life, away from the device.</li></ol>

Bring in a degree of intentionality into our daily experiences

Digital minimalism has many benefits such as having fewer distractions, less tracking, and focused engagement with only quality tools.

Digital Minimalism in an attention-starved world – Amorphous Pages

<ol><li>Worry is the cognitive component of anxiety. It happens only in your mind, not in your body. </li><li>Stress is a physiological response connected to an external event. It is a reaction to environmental changes or forces that exceed our resources.</li><li>Anxiety is the culmination of stress and worry. It has both - a cognitive element (worry) and physiological response (stress).</li></ol>

Difference between Worry, Stress & Anxiety

1. Push for action2. Write down the causes and potential solutions

How to deal with Worry?

1. Understand what you can and cannot control.2. Stop comparing with others (and their stress areas)3. Exercise

How to deal with stress?

1. Have structured distractions like listening to music, talking a walk, sketching. 2. Limit stimulants like alcohol, sugar etc.3. Toe exercise

How to deal with anxiety?

<ol><li>Make a list of all skills adjacent to existing skills</li><li>Tag them based on "what you are curious about?"; "what skills have optimum ease of learning-challenging to learn?" and "what skills are useful for growth?"</li><li>The skills that are at the intersection of these 3 categories are the ones to target, for learning and growth. </li></ol>

How to build adjacent skills?

<ol><li>Measure time with people who matter (instead of focusing on likes/comments to posts)</li><li>Measure commitments honoured (over outcomes expected)</li><li>Measure what all you have (over what all you don't have)</li><li>Measure what you give (over what you take back)</li><li>Measure experiences (over goals)</li></ol>

How to measure the sense of fulfilment in life?

health

Health

Worry, Stress & Anxiety, Adjacency Skills & Measuring your life

You need to reflect on your legacy. Who do you want to be remembered as? What is a defining feature of your identity?There will be instances when you will be hoping that something will work, without being able to convincingly explain to yourself how it will work. That is when a little bell should go off. Ask yourself: What’s the problem I need to solve? Does this solution make sense? If I’m feeling some doubt, why? Am I doing this for sound reasons, or am I motivated by something personal?

On finding your compass

<ol><li>Excellence and fairness don’t have to be mutually exclusive. </li><li>A little respect goes a long way. The absence of it is very costly. </li><li>Connect and exchange words with everyone at the table. It is a small gesture, but it is important to make people feel seen.</li></ol>

On treating people:

You have to convey your priorities clearly, and repeatedly. That is what separates great managers from the rest. If leaders don’t articulate their priorities clearly, then people around them don’t know what their priorities should be.

On Leadership:

Good leadership isn’t about being indispensable. It’s about helping others be prepared to possibly step into your shoes, giving them access to your own decision making, identifying the skills they need to develop and helping them improve, and being honest with them about why they’re not ready for the next step.

<ol><li>If the big picture is a mess, the small details don’t matter anyway, and you shouldn’t spend time focusing on them. You need to have a clear understanding of the big picture.</li><li>Do the job you have well. Be patient. Look for opportunities to pitch in and expand and grow. Make yourself one of the people, through attitude, energy, and focus, that your bosses feel they have to turn to when an opportunity arises.</li></ol>

On Excellence:

If you want innovation, you need to give permission to fail.

On Innovation:


<ol><li>Success is also dependent on luck.</li><li>Don’t let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decision.</li><li>Anything that reminds you that you’re not the center of the universe is a good thing.</li><li>Hold onto your awareness of yourself, even if the world tells you how important and powerful you are.</li></ol>

On Humility:

'The Ride of a Lifetime' is a great read if you are curious about Leadership. The book demystifies 'Leadership skills' and strips away the halo.

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Book Summary - The Ride of a Lifetime – Amorphous Pages

Success through early specialization is more an exception and not a rule.

Success and specialization

Environments today are not “kinder” but are “wicked” and hence overspecialization is not going to help us succeed. Modern work demands applying knowledge in new situations and domains.

Wicked problems need newer approaches

We need to experiment early as much as we can so that it builds in the right muscles of thinking and skills — systems thinking, big-picture, connecting the dots, creativity, pattern recognition, sense-making, navigating ambiguity etc.

Experiment early on

Learning needs to be difficult and messy, for it to be truly effective. We learn who we are when we try new things, in practice, not in theory.

Always opt for messy Learning

Never ‘feel’ (not fall) behind. We need to compare ourselves with how we were yesterday. There is nothing wrong with specialization but augment it, early on if possible, with enough experimentation.

Compare with yourself, not with others

Range argues that experimentation with multiple disciplines, early on, leads to better success and career excellence than specialization.

Book Summary - Range – Amorphous Pages

They are:<ol><li>Captivation</li><li>Hope & Optimism</li><li>Reliability</li><li>Authenticity</li><li>Vulnerability</li><li>Compassion & Perceptiveness</li><li>Empathy</li><li>Dealing with Critics</li></ol>

There are 8 characteristics that are important to consider when you want to build an audience

Whether you like it or not, building an audience for your work is a performance.
<ul>
<li>Amplify your personality - You don’t have to change who you are, you have to become more of who you are.</li>
<li>Be provocative, with a purpose - Make a statement. Share a message that matters to you.</li>
<li>Have a bold & compelling point of view - If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one. Be okay with pissing some people off.</li>
<li>Harness the power of stories - Too often we think that our story is not worth telling because we don’t have a big audience.</li>
<li>Give people a reason to find you interesting - Your accomplishments on paper only matter to people who have no other reason to find you interesting. Your expertise in something doesn't make you interesting. Your story and the way you tell it, does.</li>
<li>Emotional Resonance, heart & soul -Your emotional commitment to what you are doing will be translated directly into your work.</li>
</ul>

Captivation

Building an audience for your work is a performance.<ol><li>Amplify your personality</li><li>be provocative, but with a purpose</li><li>Have a compelling point of view</li><li>Harness the power of stories</li><li>Give people a reason to find you interesting</li><li>Add in emotional resonance</li></ol>

Hope is the additive necessary to turn captivation into the foundation of likability. Nobody wants to hear about your problems other than your therapist. They want you to help them solve theirs.

Hope & Optimism

Respect the expectations of your audience. Experiment, but retain the essence.

Reliability

What you create, say and do in public carries more weight than what you do in private. Your words and actions count. Choose them wisely.

Authenticity

Vulnerability creates emotional resonance, which in turn makes our content contagious. But don't treat audience as a therapist. Use this very wisely. If there is no redemption, no growth, or a lesson worth sharing, then it’s not ready for public consumption.

Vulnerability

Perceptiveness is the ability to read between the lines of what people are saying and doing to understand the intentions behind those words and deeds. Compassion is the willingness to act on perceptiveness through love, kindness and active care.

Compassion & Perceptiveness

Take into account the context in which your audience consume your content. Focus on humanizing the metrics of your audience: <ol><li>hearts, instead of eyeballs; </li><li>listeners instead of downloads; </li><li>Meaningful conversations instead of article views.</li></ol>

Empathy

You don't need to be defensive with critics. Also - not all critics are the same. If you can’t handle getting tough feedback from people who care about you, it becomes difficult to take it from people you don’t know.

Learn to deal with critics

If you want an audience, it takes more than doing the work. You have to understand the psychology of building an audience.

These Seven To-Do List Mistakes Could Be Derailing Your Productivity

Digital Minimalism in an attention-starved world – Amorphous Pages

Worry, Stress & Anxiety, Adjacency Skills & Measuring your life

Book Summary - The Ride of a Lifetime – Amorphous Pages

Book Summary - Range – Amorphous Pages

Aakarsh Vishnubhotla