I find if I write down 5 tasks and cross them off one by one, I will gravitate to the short easy ones first for instant gratification.
Completing larger tasks gives a much deeper satisfaction yet despite a long time trying to teach my body/brain this, it still craves the easy path instant gratification.
So one thing I do is split up the big task into lots of small tasks so I can cross more off and get the gratification hits. This helps my brain prioritise those over other small tasks.
Some people advise 'eat that frog' aka force yourself every morning to start with the most unpleasant (and you know which one that is...) task first, and the rest of the day is a breeze.
One thing that I've realized is that sometimes starting on those little easy tasks and crossing them off builds momentum for the day and then you can tackle the long/unpleasant ones. It's like doing a warmup set, it will get you in your workplace and started on doing things.
I have been doing something similar this past year and it has really boosted my productivity. I start the day by writing down things I want/need to do that day. Generally things like 'fix test on failing pr', 'reply email from Dave', 'process feedback on design document'. As the day goes on the list grows, and I rarely finish everything. The next day I start by copying undone items from the previous day. The key for me is to use pen and paper. I had tried various todo, time and project management apps, but it somehow always felt like a lot of overhead and I could never get it into my workflow. Pen and paper is so quick and easy to use, and there is something strangely satisfying about crossing an item off your list compared to dragging an item in trello/jira.
I prefer pen and paper because it is meditative. But markdown files in my text editor of choice is fast, easy, and simple. Both blow the doors off of Trello/Jira.
I’ve been planning my week and day like this for a long time. It helps me prioritise and makes sure I progress.
There is a great metaphor [1] about big rocks that captures this idea well: Put the big rocks first to fill a jar quickly, then fill it up with marbles, sand and water. Not the other way around!
Think about the big rocks as your 1-2 hour long tasks. The important pieces of work you want to get done each day. If you don’t plan them, it’s easy to get distracted by small things that fill the day but stop you from progressing with your projects.
So, make sure to put the big rocks first to get stuff done.
Setting the intention to do "one thing, no matter what," I also have done for the last few years, and it has a huge compounding effect. I tend to usually do more than that one thing, but accepting that commitment to do the one thing before getting out of bed provides the calm that is necessary to achieve the other things.
Understanding and internalizing compounding effects is liberating. The big and distant goals become much closer when your progress toward them accelerates exponentially. The compounding effect means iterating consistently, no matter how small the proportional increment.
Most resonant for me is writing down what you do before you start, continuing to focus on that one item and agree with op it's ok to write down even mundane things. As silly as it sounds it really makes a difference
Author here :) Fortunately, I mostly don't idly browse the internet on my computer - that habit is attached to my phone, which I just leave in the other room :) But in general, yes, if I need a break, I check off what I'm currently doing, write down "break", and then take a break, and check that off when I'm done. But my experience is that it's probably best to keep your breaks physically separated from your workspace if possible so that when you sit down to work it feels like "work time".
I ended up with the same approach. I used to do my idle browsing on both, the PC and the phone. In an earlier bout of productivity (many moons ago) I blocked all the usual suspects on my PC. That was several years (and PCs) ago - but there's now never an inclination to hop over to those sites on the PC and the "missing out" feeling isn't there since I can check 'em on the phone (later). For whatever reason, it feels more like goofing off when I'm on the phone, so there's a slight aversion to doing that during the regular day.
Interesting. This is similar to my current system. I've been using github "projects"# (a kind of kanban) with a column for "doing now" (shouldn't have more than one activity), a column for "next", column for "done" and so on. Like the author I add tasks for crappy things like "delete email".
I like the method but for me personally as a young unexperienced person, the problem usually lies in evaluating whether a task is possible in a day.
I tend to be overly excited and thus think that I can finish something that takes a week in a day. Then when I give myself more time for something I finish it more quickly...
Everyone started out like that, so don’t get discouraged.
The key is to excercise the estimation muscle.
Keep logs about your estimations and how long it actually took.
Then think through periodically what caused the big differences.
This way in the long run you’ll be able to precisely estimate tasks you’ve sort of already done in the past, and can estimate a reasonable low/high time range to finish tasks which you’ve never done before.
Author here :) I'd echo this. It's really crucial that you limit your goal for the day to something that you have nearly 100 percent confidence about. So even if you think "I can do this whole thing today!", you should just pick off the first piece of it that's definitely attainable to use as your goal.
In addition, on the few occasions where I didn't manage to hit my goal by the end of the day (maybe three times in the last month), I'd take the time to figure out why that was and think of how I could have reframed the goal in a way that would have made it achievable. Usually when I missed a goal it was because it was either not specific enough or it was dependent on something else. For example, I might have had "Push XYZ patch", when it should have been "Make bugfixes to XYZ patch and push if able", since there's always the possibility that the latest fixes introduce an unexpected problem or that the reviewer won't get to the code review that day.
I do something similar with a sticky note. I divide it into four quadrants of Eisenhower Matrix and fill in the work appropriately. My goal for the day is to get both important/urgent and less important/urgent (better if I can delegate it) work done for the day and the rest is bonus. https://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box
While I'm working if something comes to my mind, I used the hotkey for my todo list app and add it to my bullshit box list. This will take some discipline but it's very effective. Sometimes later on I realize the task that I added is not really necessary and was a complete distraction so I delete it.
There is a one million apps and services to help you do this.
But in the end, most of the people will benefit the brain-hand connection of pen and paper.
And I must add, If you are enterprenour, make that list one day before, not in the morning. It will eat up your energy!
Sometimes I do use trello because it's clean. Smart watch is great to get the ideas out of your mind when you get them in the wrong place & time.
With these methods I use simple and clean time tracking tool to actually get something done that can send invoice to customers:
http://worktime.tuunix.fi/
and to concentrate on 1 thing at the time.
I have at times had really large problems with focus, have implemented something very similar (markdown based "todournal". See https://rillabs.com/posts/todournal and https://github.com/samuell/mdnote), as well as removed practically all notifications from my phone, and it has worked wonders consistently over the last couple of years.
I don't know that I would put it that way, though maybe you could choose to. I have no trouble focusing for long blocks of time on tasks I'm engaged in, or even on any of my work in a week where I'm feeling motivated, but the problem is there will be days where I feel like I spent the whole day working (doing code reviews, answering questions, doing things for other people, etc.) but didn't get any of my project work done. I think those days tend to happen around boundaries where I finish one of my tasks and have to pick up a new significant task that I don't feel pushed to get started with for one reason or another (maybe combined with external life factors). A lot of other software engineers I've talked to can relate to this, so I don't think it's just me. This system is more for me to smooth out my productivity so I can make sure that I'm always getting some of my own stuff done and not just doing "filler work". The "intentionally doing one thing at a time" thing also just makes me feel a lot better and makes it easier to blow through an entire day with almost no distractions. There have been two or three days that were Fridays I think where I decided to take a break from the system just for a day and it's really remarkable how much worse it feels :)
> 2. Only do one thing at a time, and log what I’m doing as I go.
Time tracking accomplishes something very similar. Its main benefit isn't necessarily the log that you're creating to review later but the fact that when you have a running timer labelled "doing x", it's much easier to focus just on x and nothing else.
Yeah, I've used time tracking software before and it was pretty effective, but I think something about having the log on paper, separate from the rest of my work, makes it feel somehow more intentional psychologically. It's also a little bit lower pressure since the idea is for me to accomplish the amount of work I want to accomplish rather than to fill up a certain amount of time, so with the new system the success metric is a bit more pared down. But I agree that "one goal a day + time tracking" doing essentially the same thing I have written in the post.
thanks a lot for sharing! There is a new tool which includes the principles of your method: www.remonade.io, it's a daily task management tool for remote teams. It's free until 5 users, you could use it for yourself only.
Completing larger tasks gives a much deeper satisfaction yet despite a long time trying to teach my body/brain this, it still craves the easy path instant gratification.
So one thing I do is split up the big task into lots of small tasks so I can cross more off and get the gratification hits. This helps my brain prioritise those over other small tasks.