Ideas I’ve Implemented To Get More Done: My Thoughts

Last week I came across a great post by Glen of the PluginID blog discussing five ideas that he has implemented to get more done, and it gave me the idea to share some of my own. As Glen said on his site about his own methods, the ones I’ve detailed below have not only helped me to be more productive, they’ve allowed me to enjoy what I do more. I’ve like to read your thoughts on these. Why not share your own ideas in the comments?

Make sure I complete my to-do list
I’ve found that completing everything on a small to-do list is much better than completing most of the things on a very large to-do list. It comes back to the whole issue of personal trust again. Writing a task down on a list of activities you’re going to work through is the same as telling your friends you’re going to meet them, ring them, etc. The only difference is the commitment is being made to yourself rather than to somebody else.

I use my weekly planner to manage my work. For each day I put tasks down that I need to complete on that particular day, and only those tasks. If it comes to bed time and I still have a few things not done, that’s basically a broken promise. And the more times I break those promises to myself the less conviction there is to do anything. So I try as much as possible to get into that situation.

Do the hardest task first
I’ve found that the beauty of doing the hardest, crappiest task before working on anything else (even if it involves jumping straight out of bed onto the computer) is it sets the tone for the entire day. As Glen touched in his post, we often ease ourselves into work as though we’re some sort of old radio that needs warming up. You might as well put your slippers on and sit in front of the TV supping cocoa! I like to get the hard work out of the way early, take it easy for the rest of the day, and not have to worry about what’s around the corner.

Create a routine and play with it
Thanks to my weekly planner I’m able to roughly plan out how I’m going to use my time over a seven day period. As a result it allows me to be more flexible, not less. I can see how much work I’ve got to do and spread it out appropriately over the week. No more busy weekdays and empty weekends. No more stressful Mondays and laid back Fridays (unless of course that’s what you want).

Because I can see the bigger picture (or the weekly picture at least) I’m also able to create routines that suit my lifestyle (and – oh yeah – tinker with them occasionally). Doing that task on a Wednesday not work out for me? I’ll try doing it on Tuesday right after my visit to the gym. Will publishing blog posts on Monday and Wednesday free up time elsewhere? I’ll move those other projects to the rest of the week so I can try it out.

Take little steps regularly…
I’d struggle to get anything done without this little gem. The sheer daunting thought of taking a year to write a book used to be enough to bring my plans to a crashing halt. Then I started breaking all my work down into tiny little chunks of activity. In the case of my book I often do a page a day. On the surface that might sound pointless but I’ve found doing something small regularly is more productive than doing something big occasionally (assuming you even find the motivation to face that large, time-consuming chunk of work).