Get Everything Done

I wanted to revive a simple planning method that was described before. I have been using it for slightly over a year now. Its quick, simple and pushes me to progress on my goals. Also, it can be attached to any other system you’d like. The goal is to always document your target for each day, week, month and year. The less urgent larger targets dictate what the more urgent smaller targets will be. As you go along you can flesh out your less urgent goals and make them more specific as you progress.

Essentially, the planning method involves 12 tasks. All 12 are your most important tasks (MITs) organized by 4 dynamic deadlines.

Instructions:

1. Decide on your 3 MITs for the year and list them.
2. Decide on your 3 MITs for the month and list them.
3. Decide on your 3 MITs for the week and list them.
4. Decide on your 3 MITs for the day and list them.
5. Do the current days 3 MITs.

Notes:
a. When completing step 2, consider what was written previously in step 1. When completing step 3, consider what was written previously in step 2. When completing step 4, consider what was written previously in step 3. The more urgent MITS should be significant enough to progress on the less urgent MITS.

b. You must make it a MUST to complete your day’s 3 MITS. That said, make them realistic enough to complete.

Example:

Year’s 3 MITs (by January 1st 2015)
1. Get promoted at work.
2. Have a Family Vacation. Ensure its memorable and there is quality bonding.
3. Get into Peak Physique. Feel healthy and look healthy.

Month’s 3 MITs (by January 31st, 2014)
1. Decide a vacation location with family.
2. Create a full plan to get promoted
3. Get signed up with a gym.

Week’s 3 MITs (by Sunday)
1. Discuss ‘vacation’ with family and ask them all to think of places.
2. Get a well informed list of 5 gyms in nearby area, with full membership info and prices.
3. Get a meeting scheduled with boss to ask for a review. See where you stand and what needs improvement to get promoted.

Day’s 3 MITS (by midnight)
1. Open a Vacation Savings account. Deposit some $.
2.
3.


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What if my Dailies aren’t completed? **********************

Make it a MUST under all circumstances to complete your daily 3MITs. Do whatever will force you to complete them. (Schedule, reminders, time estimated for each MIT, delgation etc.) If for some reason it is not completed, ensure that the Weeks 3’MITs are completed by the end of the week. If the weeks MITs arent completed, recalibrate and ensure that the Months MITS are completed.

What if I can’t think of 3 MIT’s ? **********************

You should always try to make sub MITs granular enough to be competed by their respective deadline. As a general rule, its okay if you have less than 3 MIT’s but do not have more than 3 MITs. Concentrating on a max of 3 MITs per timeframe forces you to think on significant targets only and sacrifice the nonessential.

As you can see in the example, I only have 1 MIT for the day. This happens occasionally and its dependent on how your targets for the week, month and year are described. Certain goals simply can’t be broken down further and their granularity simply don’t need to be that small. For example, ‘Get a meeting scheduled with boss to ask for a review. See where you stand and what needs improvement to get promoted’ , can’t be broken further. It requires ‘getting a meeting scheduled’ either by requesting it via email or in person nd it needs to be done by Sunday. Thats all that is necessary.

How is this simple? **********************

The ‘hard’ part is to identify your goals, then identify those you want completed by the year, then identify your top 3. Once your least urgent timeframes MITs are identified, its simply a matter of deciding on subgoals per timeframe. It becomes simplest at the daily level and takes about 10 minutes each day, maybe 10 minutes on the weekend, and 10 minutes at the end of the month.

If a year seems to ‘fluffy’ and vague to identify with goals you want, then you can change it to a more urgent timeframe such as 3 MID YEAR MITS (by June 30th) as seen here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/fv-forum/post/2021718#post2031089 .

What are the deadlines and when do I revise my MITS? **********************
Year-last day of the year.
Month-last day of the month
Week- last day of the week (Sunday for most)
Day- last moment of the day (midnight)

You can edit your goals at anytime. Its best to make them concise but specific. Quantify them if need be and think as if they are result oriented.

When you fail on 3 MITs , simply adapt and recalibrate so as the less urgent time frames are still achievable. (example, If you mess up on your daily targets, simply ensure that you recalibrate the next day so as to complete your weekly targets.

What happens to your other tasks, projects and goals not allowed on this 12 MIT list? **********************
Simply put it into another system of your choice and have that system handle it. The good thing about this, is that you can ensure YOU are on track and going in the direction towards significant achievements with the MIT list . Then lower your miscellaneous task number and anxiety with the other system.

Hi GMBW
I was with you until you said
"Then lower your miscellaneous task number and anxiety with the other system."

I'd never label meeting very real and consequential responsibilities and upholding my word as "miscellaneous tasks". That, to me, is as important to my overall well being as my health,my relationship and attempting a satisfying lifestyle. In fact, I'd venture to state that your employer won't call your job responsibilities "miscellaneous". This is why I rarely follow rules about systems. You principles are mostly sound except viewing important life matters as miscellaneous. LOL!

p.s.
Life isn't as neat as you're hoping. If you're slammed with a crap load of highly consequential jobs and tasks that might leave you buried in lots of OT for awhile, those MITs are certainly going to take precedence over some goals especially on my WILL DO list for the day or sometimes for a week or three. I prefer pursuing my goals without arbitrary rules. Why 3? Why not 2 or 7? I think this rule stuff is going a bit overboard lately. I love having ambitions, passions and goals and seeing them through or admit when they need revising. I also prefer my passions, conscientiousness and good sense to decide how many goals I with which to challenge myself. Arbitrary rules would only frustrate me when either my life or abilities temporarily frustrated my progress. If arbitrary rules and arbitrary numbers work for you, fine. I only hope a newbee on these forums doesn't frustrate or limit his-self/herself by thinking these rules are backed by verifiable evidence and peer review. LOL!

Learning:

By miscellaneous I'm referring to all task that aren't your top 3 most important for the day. In other words all other tasks. They nay in fact also be important, but they aren't the most important.

Ideally, I'd like to simply complete my 3 MITs alone for the day and then relax. But realistically, other tasks also have to be done as well sometimes.

Learning :
<Why 3? Why not 2 or 7? I think this rule stuff is going a bit overboard lately.>

Initially, this planning method was taken from an app mentioned in the link. It was designed to be 3 MITs per time frame. I too thought the same thing, Why not 2 or 7 or 20? But as I’ve used it, I understood that some sort of boundary must be made and it helps significantly when planning.

If it were 100 MITs for the day, it would be too much to complete. It were 20 MITs, probably the same thing...too much!. If it were 7, maybe much better. 3 MITs isnt a special number. It is an arbitrary number. But its a realistic and doable number of tasks to complete in a day.

One thing that I learned is that *if everything is important, then nothing is important*. So by imposing a rule like :’3 tasks only’, it forces you to stick to what is significant and high impact. or ‘what is MOST important to me? instead of what is simply important.’

So for any newbees, the number '3' is something I could personally recommend, but theres no scientific backing to this. It could be whatever number you wish as long as you're comfortable with it and you can complete those many tasks per day.

Hi GMBW
I see what you mean but we must live in different worlds. I set up weekly plans which may touch on monthly, seasonal, yearly plans or maybe not if I've got tons of work crashing down on me for a couple of weeks to a couple of months forcing me to go into OT, I feel quite OK to forget about some optional goals for awhile. I wouldn't call them Most Important Things for THAT day or even THAT week. I see no point in arbitrarily putting any unnecessary heat on myself when I need to place my time and efforts elsewhere. I'm far more loose with those kinds of goals. Plus, I can freely change my mind if I discover that I can go forward with an even more satisfying goal(s). I get enough outside heat and outside, unpredictable events occurring. I don't need to diffuse my efforts or feel undue pressure about ensuring optional goals of staying on a restrictive timeline. Flexibility helps me far more than rigid timelines. If I have 15-20 concurrent deadlines and surprise events, then, no, 20-30 MITs on the day's list isn't too much if that's what it takes to stay abreast of the consequential jobs and tasks. Sometimes there's no getting around a bit of OT. LOL!

I have to agree with Learning. It seems that this approach isn't a task management approach at all, but an approach to achieving goals. That's very different in my mind. Of course, we have to make our goals very important to the point of time blocking or some other method of making them salient. But we have other responsibilities that can't take a back seat to our goals all the time. Emphasizing the importance of working on goals first is worthy. I just think discussing them as MITs can be confusing because people are used to thinking of them as related to other tasks.

Hi Mel
You stated it very well. Gerry had a very similar goal system called DOIT that he ran separate from his work list. Many people had great results with it while still staying current with their other responsibilities. Sometimes life isn't predictable. Your native judgment usually knows how to prioritize well enough without goosestepping to rules that might bog down your current efforts. When I had to work 17 hour shifts to meet deadlines, I just unabashedly allowed some of my personal goals and aspirations to lay fallow for awhile. No harm. No foul. Life isn't always as easy to assemble and erect as a legos set. LOL!

Hi Seraphim
LOL! My brother used to build some amazing stuff. When he was around, I was relegated to the Lincoln logs. They were almost no fun to play with. LOL!