I’m pretty sure there is no new information you could come up with as it relates to productivity and procrastination. Just about anything I could tell you has been written about at some point by someone, and in many cases, at many points by many someones.
So with that in mind – knowing that you’ve heard some variation of this advice before – I’m going to share what works for me personally.
One of the most common questions I receive is, “How are you able to be productive while working for yourself?” It’s not easy – and no matter how polished someone looks on the outside, I have yet to meet anyone who has it completely dialed in. I’ve tried a lot of different things: I’ve read Getting Things Done, checked out the Pomodoro Technique, worked with various productivity apps – the list goes on.
Yet when I look at my most productive days from the last couple years, there’s one very simple thing that they have in common. On any given day, there are going to be tasks you don’t want to do. It doesn’t matter how great your work is or how much you love your life, there’s going to be stuff that needs to get done that you just don’t want to deal with.
What usually happens? If you’re like me you put those things off until all your creative energy is gone for the day, and it inevitably gets pushed to the next day. (And the next, and so on.) I’ve been working hard to minimize this phenomena as much as possible, but no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to stop this cycle completely.
So, how do you make sure you get these things (and others) done on a daily basis? It’s actually pretty simple, and I call it “The Top 5 Method.” Every night before I go to bed, I write a list of top five things that absolutely have to get done the next day. It’s not a novel approach; however, it’s not simply writing this list that makes it effective. The order in which you do them matters too.
I order them like this:
Something easy and/or fun. By crossing something off early, I can build momentum that makes me want to cross off more things on the list.
The hardest thing (and/or least fun thing). If you do this first, it can be tough to gain momentum. But if you put it off too long, you’ll have no energy or motivation to do it. So do it second.
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