My favorite ones are from Brian Tracy’s Eat that Frog! with twentyone practical, simple tips that I summarized on my blog. But, if I had to pick just one, I’d say doing the most important, most dreaded task first and with a singularity of purpose until it is done, then relaxing and enjoying the amazing feeling of success. Celebrating and rewarding myself with at least a few minutes of doing nothing and go through a mental montage of the little milestones I took to start the project. Then, I can struggle through the seemingly endless middle of the task, and finally racing across the finish line. Works for me!

I think the biggest productivity tip I could offer is to organize your inbox. I only check in at certain times throughout the day and have many filters, away messages, signatures, etc. Also, I follow the FAT system which means for all emails you either file it, act on it, or toss it. Nothing in between.

My best one (already mentioned it) is to chop things into smaller pieces. You can’t eat the whole cake at once, but after a week you will notice it is gone nonetheless. If “now” is not possible or just too much to handle, deal with the problems you can first – it will lessen the workload and the whole cake becomes much more easy to digest.

It’s probably been mentioned elsewhere, but if you’re going to eat a frog, might as well put some spice on it! Experiment with ways to make the annoying tasks more pleasurable. The expectation of dessert after the frog is good, but why not making the frog itself taste better?

Thanks for e-mailing me James. I would say batch similar tasks to save time. I’m often guilty of checking IM and e-mail as it comes in. However, on days when I’m careful and set times to check it, I can get more uninterrupted focus on the project at hand.

Mine would simply be this:

Simplify first. Systemise later.

Hi James. I would say the best productivity advice is to prioritize. I think Stephen Covey’s story about putting big rocks and small rocks in the jar sums it up well. I read different versions of the story, but I like the version by Leo at Zen Habits.

Thanks for the comments so far, some good tips. This compilation post should prove pretty interesting.