Get Everything Done

It's clear that the biggest thing a productivity system needs to accomplish is processing the difficult and important tasks we want or need to accomplish. Of course, that's really tough to do at times. In light of my own struggles with that recently, I figured I'd ask you guys about it. When you're faced with something tough and important, what are your favorite tricks or systems for getting it started and finished?

Mark's principles:
1. I'll just get the file out
2. little and often

..and the power of clarity. What are my goals, big picture items behind this? Gaining clarity by defining them or by refreshing them in my mind by revisiting notes I did in the past about them.

Hi Hail2U!
First of all, your system doesn't do your work for you. Secondly, You choose what you do ultimately. A system can inform you of what's on your plate:responsibilities and aspirations/goals. It can also offer rules or suggestion to help you to decide what to focus your time and effort towards. But, bottom line, you decide what you're going to focus on and do.

For me, I have to know WHY I have decided to prioritize it/them as apposed to all else that I could do.

Most of all, to approach resistance laden jobs, I have to accept that I'm going to be expending a lot of mental effort to start it and keep starting it until it's done enough to may satisfaction. The only way that I can prevent overwhelming myself is to make a plan that is doable. This is usually a combination of breaking down my work into doable units of time and effort. I also need to have worthy relief tasks at the ready to provide relief. If I don't allow myself to diffuse the stress with more palatable work, I might give up and ruin the entire plan. When I feel that. I stop and choose a relief tasks. If it's really bad, I'll make sure that my actual break is either relaxing or enjoyable to charge my batteries for the next session. Rinse and repeat until you've completed your MITs. Avoid overwhelm. That could derail your plans. It will also make your next work session more difficult to approach. Dread is enough of a challenge to overcome. Don't add fear to the mix. LOL!

p.s. If the work is especially arduous, add a juicy enough carrot. I'm not above bribing myself. LOL!

Follow through...that's one of my all time mamanagement problems. Lots of projects started, hardly any completed.

I've been working with a lot of focus and effectiveness with basically a diary (paper schedule), post it note and notebook. I've been getting more stuff completed this way. It all revolves around the idea of completion versus relative urgency:

1. Use a diary for scheduled activities, appointments etc. Reminders can also go in the diary. I use a paper one but any would be ok.

2. On a large post it note (stuck into my diary, orientated portrait way) I write a few things (I've got 3 on the go at the moment) that I want to get 'completed' - not necessarily in a day or week but something that can be realistically completed fairly soon. ! I draw a line under these items. Anything that I write under the line over the course of the day I consider to have 'relative urgency' i.e. in relation to the items above the line. Sometimes I work on them (for example inbox zero), sometimes I choose to ignore them (flights of fancy) and sometimes I need to do them urgently. When I am focussing on a task I use a 'I' mark (to the right of the item). When I've done focussing on it I use a '+' mark and move on. (This way an item can be worked on several times daily without needing to be crossed out and re-written.

3. At the end of the day (I am trialling this at the moment) I write those things in my notebook that are of relative urgency to those items I wish to complete but I chose not to work on today. This basically acts as a master dump list for things I may want to come back to. I add to the list each evening. At the end of the weeks I draw a list under it and review it. Then I start a new week off.

It's working well so far - a true achievement for me as I've been switching systems almost daily for some time now...!

When I have a thought like "this task is going to be painful”, I force myself to think about how I will feel in a few hours having worked on it vs. not having worked on it. I use the pain of having that item on my to-do list to chose the future self that has it done. Similar to making a decision about eating a piece of cake – how will I feel in five minutes and for the rest of the day? Is it worth it?

Similar to having a carrot - my carrot is not having that task on my list anymore :-)

I read over UTMS, Mark. I was a bit concerned at how useful it would be to me - in the past, I've had Autofocus-style lists that didn't address the big tasks as often as I would've liked. But if some people are getting some use from it, I think I can at least test it and see how it fits me.

Mark, did this mean you've decided the recent improvement is not an improvement over the original?

Thanks,
Austin