Yesterday I started to revisit a very successful system from 2008, which I left after about a week to follow other ideas. Although it worked brilliantly and never let me down once, for some reason I’ve never come back to it.
The system in question is Predicting Your Day. You can read the instructions for yourself, plus the two follow-ups (which are clearly linked). But in summary, the idea is that at the beginning of the day you write down a list of what you predict that you will do that day. You then work for the rest of the day without reference to the list. The result the first time I tried it was astonishing, and it continued to work well for the whole time I used it.
Late yesterday afternoon I came across it while searching for something else and decided to have another crack at it. The results were just as astonishing as before. I put twenty-three tasks on the list, and had done all but two or three by mid-evening without once referring to the list. I then had a quick look at the list and finished the remaining tasks in no time at all without looking at the list again.
This morning I started first thing with 64 tasks on the list and at 08.45 I have already done 15 and am working on the 16th (this blog post).
The most notable thing about this is the speed at which this all gets done. I find myself going from one task to another without any resistance or time spent deciding what to do.
Right, that’s done. It’s 08.52. What’s next?